Jewel Box Quilt
(Half-Price Day at the Salvation Army)
Half Price Day at the Salvation, Queen Size
1. Sewing machine in working order, with extension cord and electrical strip (if you have one).
2. Seam guide for 1/4 seams or 1/4 inch foot for your machine
3. Thread in neutral color like beige or gray—something that goes with most of your fabric. Cotton thread is preferred, but bring what you have.
4. General sewing supplies: sewing needles, fabric scissors, seam ripper, and fine, sharp straight pins
5. Rotary cutter, ruler and mat. Bring a variety of square-up rulers too—we will be working with 5 inch, 4½ inch and 8½” squares, and 2 ½” strips.
6. Markers that will clearly mark lines on light, medium and dark fabrics. Some suggestions for light fabrics are fine, mechanical pencil or Bic fine point ink pens (not marker type) and silver colored pencil or chalk pencil for dark fabrics. The marks you make will end up in the seam allowances, so your markers don't have to be wash-out type. Bring a variety of markers so you can see what works best AND you will be able to mark on lights or darks if your plans change. A sandpaper-marking surface is handy (if you have one.)
7. A flat ruler if you have trouble running your marking pen along your fat fabric ruler.
8. Fabric--100% cotton only please. See attached for guides regarding fabric selection and yardage requirements.
9. Six large paper grocery sacks—if you want to use my crazy scrap technique.
10. This supply list—you’ll need it for the layouts.
11. Optional step for overachievers: If you would like to do some cutting work in advance, you may cut some light, medium, and dark strips 2 ½” wide. You may also cut 5” squares from your light, medium, and dark fabrics. Just cut a few of each—DON’T CUT ALL YOUR FABRIC YET!!!
Helpful suggestions regarding fabric selection:
Use the picture above to envision how your lights, mediums and darks work
in this quilt.
If you are timid about making scrap quilts, you may choose to use all one background fabric. This helps unify the quilt and isn’t as scary for your first time! Consider using a monochromatic color scheme: for instance, use a white background and light, medium and dark blue fabrics for your patches. Or pick a two color scheme on a white background, for example: white background, light/medium green and medium blue for the patches, dark blue for the border.
Bring lots of tone-on-tone and texture fabrics to class, along with your crazy prints. These fabrics help balance out the crazy prints and help your eye follow the design.
The only fabric that may take some time to pick out is your border fabric. I would suggest, since this is a pieced border, to use a low contrast tone-on-tone for your border. The plainer it is, the more your piecing will show up in it. Make sure your mediums and darks don’t get lost against your border selection—tone-on-tones and textures are great for showcasing your piecing and fabrics.
Do not choose a directional print for your border fabric, as it will get all chopped up in the piecing and turned in all different directions. Again, tone-on-tones, textures and solid-ish batiks are ideal border fabrics.
Yardage Chart: (Measurements are generous!)--Available at later date
REMINDER!!!! Go home, look at your scraps. Buy a few new “spicy” pieces
in tone-on-tones to liven up your stash. Batiks are a fabulous “spicy” addition
in this quilt!