I first saw the Polaroid quilt squares on a Facebook sewing swap. I thought they were so cute, and knew I had to make some. I've also been interested in paper piecing. so I combined the two in several of my squares. I was making a birthday present for a friend who was turning 50! I wanted to combine all kinds of things she 'loves'. She is a baker, so I had to have the cakes and mixer, she loves tea, and leaves, and her family. So I included paper pieced initials, and even a camping trailer.
Here's some behind the scenes photos. I had seen lots of tutorials on how to make the quilt blocks, but hardly any on what to do after. Even in the FB swap group no one had actually put them together ahahaha, so I was on my own.
I spent a lot of time on Pinterest and Instagram trying to decide which look I liked best. I decided I only wanted 1 strip of fabric between the blocks, not 1 on each block. I felt it looked cleaner and put the focus on the blocks.
Selecting your fabric is the hardest part, you need to have things the right scale, to fit your 2.5" viewing screen. After reading a lot of tutorials and blogs, I found this awesome tutorial!!! Karla's over at Capitola Quilter had great tips, and I love the assembly line style she did, so much faster then pre-cutting and doing them all individually. She also shows you how to do some fussy cutting.
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Isn't this adorable!!!! I fell in love with this cute Puggy, over on Johanna's blog
"Stuff I made"
and the shading, wow that really makes the block pop.
The shading is really what caught my eye, even though we're a pugged house, and love all things Pug.
I thought it would be too much work at first, but I kept coming back to it. I figured if I'd put this much work into the quilt so far, I might as well do it right . . . no regrets.
She makes it pretty simple, just do it all assembly line style like you did the blocks. I used a grey charm pack, and was able to get 6 strip from each.
Then you just sew your borders on and you are ready to assemble your rows. I didn't really put too many pins in it, because with all the seams on the back it was hard to line it up. So I would just use my hand and hold it back to make sure my seams lined up.
Viola!!! Quilt top is done. Now wasn't that fun!!!!
I then quilted it, and put another leaf fabric on the back, and tabs to hang it. In order to quilt it, I built this table out of poster board from the dollar store and books, and boxes to hold it up. Worked great and cost $2.
I hope you give a Polaroid quilt a try. I'll make another blog post for the actual blocks I chose and I made my own paper pieced 2.5" patterns.
GIVEAWAY!!!!
Comment below if you have ever made Polaroid block!!! If you need any motivation let me know. And now onto the give away. To enter follow me on FB
That's Sew Venice and
Instagram That' Sew Venice, and then comment below and tell me a few things you're interested in. I'll do a random draw and send the winner 4 blocks to do as you choose :D
Winner will be drawn in the morning Wed Oct 5th , Good Luck!!