OK So now I'm blushing...

A visitor to my blog put the following comment /question on the post for my Santa's Blizzard Blues quilt that I made last winter:

Vicky E said...
"I love this quilt. I know how to make the block but can't make anything without pattern and have never put anything on point. Would you share or sell the layout and color directions.Vicky"

Well Vicky, I'm sincerely flattered by your request; however, I have to say that it happened completely by accident. I'm happy to share the general path I followed to end up where I did, though.

The main part (using the split 9-patch blocks) contains --I think-- about 3 or 4 sets of charm squares from Moda's "Snow Village" line from last fall. If you wanted to reproduce the color scheme from my quilt, you'd need 40-5" squares of various blues, 40-5" squares of whites/creams and 10-5" squares of blacks/dark grays. To use your own color set, you'd substitute accordingly, using a range of mediums for the blues, very lights for the creams and darks where I have blacks. Then you make 10 big 9 patch blocks with the blues in the corners, creams on the sides, and blacks in the center, and cut them each into 4 smaller blocks according to Helen's disappearing 9-patch tutorial.

Here's where I started "riffing" on Helen's instructions... I tried putting them in a straight set, but it just didn't seem to look right to me, so I thought I'd try turning them on point and I decided it looked more how I wanted it to look (easy when you have no idea where you're headed before you start out!). I tried to sort of arrange the blues to where the darker values were toward the middle and they got lighter as they went out.

I used the guide from About.com to figure out how to size/cut the setting and corner triangles. They have all the formulas to calculate the sizes needed and all you have to do is follow their step-by-step math to make it all very simple. For my quilt, since the split 9-patch blocks end up being 6 1/2" blocks (finished-- I know, odd size), you will need to cut the following:

Side setting triangles: cut 3 parent squares 10 1/2" and cut each into 4 pieces --across both diagonals-- to make a total of 12 setting triangles
Corner triangles: cut 2 parent squares 10 1/8" and cut each once diagonally to make a total of 4 corner triangles

Then I simply added a narrow inner border (2 1/2" cut, 2" finished) of one of the cream fabrics and a wider border (5" cut, 4 1/2" finished) that matched the setting and corner triangles. This made a 58" x 58" lap quilt.

Hope this helps-- it's my first attempt at writing anything like this so I hope it's not "clear as mud." I'd love to see your quilt! I may do another one like this--thinking it would be really pretty with deep red for the dark, various pinks for the mediums and cream or white for the light... kind of a Valentine's quilt... hmmm...