ONE QUILT, TWO QUILT, RED QUILT, BLUE QUILT❣️

Would you, could you quilt in the rain?  Would you, could you quilt on a train?  Because, Theodor Giesel and I would love to know!

Theodor, or Ted as his friends called him, was the famous Dr. Seuss who wrote over sixty children's books. He wrote most of his books in a poetic meter known as anapestic tetrameter. This pleasing meter is said to be the reason his books were so well loved.  I imagine his whimsical characters played a big part in that too!

The other day I came across some Dr. Seuss fabric and I knew right away that I had to make a traditional Dr. Seuss quilt ... "traditional" meaning wild and wonky, of course!  And I knew exactly who I was going to give this quilt to.  My niece, Emily, is teaching for the first time this year.  Our family has a history of teachers in it, so I'm very proud of her for carrying on that tradition.   She teaches second grade and her classroom came with its very own reading couch!  I thought a quilt for that couch would be the perfect gift for her and her students.

Having purchased the fabric I had no idea what pattern to use to make this quilt with.  I had seen a Seuss quilt a long time ago made into offset squares within a square.  That seemed like something I could do on my own without a pattern to follow and it worked out just fine. Here's what I did if you want to make this 60 X 60 inch quilt.

MATERIALS THAT YOU WILL NEED 

* Robert Kaufman's DR. SEUSS FAVORITES RETURNS Precut       6.5" - 30 Quilting Squares Charm Pack Assortment.  I used 25 of the 30 charms for this pattern.

* Six different half yard cuts of Robert Kaufman's DR. SEUSS    FAVORTIES fabric.  I cut each of these into 8 - 13.5" X 4" strips and 8 - 6.5" X 4" strips.

* You'll also need fabric for backing, binding and also sashing if you choose to sash it.

DIRECTIONS FOR PIECING

Sew a 6.5" strip onto the top and bottom of each of the 25 charms. Then sew the 13.5" strips onto the sides.  Trim these at an angle into 10.5" squares. Sew five rows of five squares together using sashing in between if you like. That's it ...  easy peesy ... even THING ONE & THING TWO could do it!

Here's a tip for getting those inset squares both centered and perfectly angled.  Cut out two 10.5" square sheets of freezer paper and one 6" square piece.  Place the 6" square on top of  one of the 10.5" squares and tilt it at a slight angle.  Center it at a tilt so that each corner is the same distance from the edge of the larger piece beneath it.  Mine was 1 3/4" away from each edge. Trace around the 6" square and then cut along that line to make a hole.  Do this with the second 10.5" square, only this time, tilt the 6" square in the other direction.  Once you've assembled your sewn blocks you can center these freezer paper templates over the inset squares, press them on,  and then trim away the excess fabric using the edge of the paper as your guide.  I did half of my squares going in one direction and the other half in the other direction.

Cut carefully along the freezer 
paper to make your angled square.

These fabrics are visually wild when assembled all together, so, I tried to tone done the overall effect by using a black sashing in between the blocks.  And to keep it "Seuss-like" I used black fabric with random polka dots.  I didn't add an outside border because I didn't want to add to all that craziness.  Instead I used a black and white striped fabric and made it into an extra wide binding.  I thought the binding fabric popped next to the black sashing and also made a nice frame for all those splashes of color in the quilt top. The large quilt squares are meant to be randomly placed but I prefer "controlled randomness", so,  I made sure that the copies of the bolder fabric squares ended up in different quadrants of the quilt top.



AND THEN COMES THE  FUN PART ... QUILTING IT ON THE LONGARM

With all those happy colors jumping out at you I didn't want to "overquilt" this.  Instead I kept the quilting simple to keep the focus on the blocks.

I stitched in the ditch around the inset squares and the larger squares. I quilted in 3/4" lines in the background and I used my BERNINA circle rulers and quilted a double circle in the middle of each square.  To make these squares pop further I quilted down the sashing in short piano keys.  I used Quilter's Dream polyester batting and Aurifil Monofilament thread for the top and an Auriful 50 weight gray thread for the bobbin.

HOW TO MAKE A QUILT BY AUNTIE MEL

Since this quilt is going to a second grade classroom I wanted to make it a teaching opportunity as well as a gift, so, I made them a book.

The book follows the quilting process from picking out the fabric and cutting it up to sewing it together and loading it onto the longarm.  I thought they would enjoy seeing how a quilt is made. Here are a few pages from the book ...

And here are some pictures of the quilt and the book in the classroom! My niece did such an awesome job of decorating her room for her kids!    

WOULD YOU, COULD YOU QUILT IN THE RAIN? WOULD YOU, COULD YOU QUILT ON A TRAIN?

I hope so.  Pick up some fun fabric today and quilt some happiness into someone's life that you love!