Teeter Totter, a scrap quilt

When I look at this quilt, I think and feel and pronounce, “Yes!” Yes, to spontaneous creativity. Yes, to success with pesky triangle scraps. Yes, to patchwork medicine!

I am feeling well again, by the way. Thank you all for your well-wishes.

Creativity often requires a question or limitation that sparks the problem-solving journey. With this quilt that was a roll of precut fabric strips in the Zen Chic collection called Just Red. I wanted to use up that roll, but ended up doing something even better - enjoying triangle scraps. This patchwork style is by far my most efficient and joyful use of triangle scraps ever. In fact, through this quilt those triangles have earned the perceived value of all my other scrap categories. And that is a big step up indeed!

So, this is Teeter Totter! So named for the oscillating rotation of the triangles. That movement, combined with the occasional pieced triangles, feels so playful to me. Perhaps also because of the intensely pink and red sashing? That’s clearly a lot of fun! Thus the photoshoot in our neighborhood playground.

When it came time to create the quilt backing, I wanted to go scrappy in keeping with the quilt top. Two very long leftover strips of snowman flannel set the direction. I raided my stash for small pieces of red or pink fabrics and cross-checked my scrap drawers for large scraps. Here is the pile of found possibilities, ready to be arranged as a quilt back.

Tada! That was fun to sew and turned out well! Large scale patchwork like this really puts the attention on the fabrics. I’ll have to return to this backing rubric someday.

As far as quitting, I used my longarm to give her curves. This is the Ribbon Candy quilting motif, which I for some reason rarely use. The ombre shading of the sashing color makes the rows in Teeter Totter stand out, which I think is a good fit with Ribbon Candy quilting. That and the curves - it can be nice to contrast the feeling of the quilting with the feeling of the patchwork.

I think that this patchwork concept is a winner because I began imagining sewing other versions while still finishing the first. I’d like to sew another Teeter Totter quilt with a consistent sashing color - probably white, which I NEVER do, but it’s calling me. Maybe I’ll sew it again years from now when my triangle scraps re-accumulate, or maybe I’ll sew it again sooner from yardage. I can imagine a pattern and sew-along someday. Can you?