mosaic jig qal - material and fabric requirements

Hi! Thanks for stopping by! Are you ready to roll up your sleeves and get your feet wet? Sorry, that is just a little off-the-cuff, wacky humor from me. I am in a really great mood today! Why? Because we are starting our first ever easypatchwork quilt along!! Yay! <<pompoms swinging>>

 

Here's the quilt along schedule as a reminder:

The quilt along will start on Friday, March 1, 2019. Every two weeks, new instructions will be given here on the blog on what to work on for the next two weeks. Share you progress here with hyperlinks if you wish and/or on social media using the hashtag:  #mosaicjigqal

Intro

March 1, 2019	Material and Fabric Requirements
March 15, 2019	Preparation and Cutting Instructions
March 29.2019	Center Medallion
April 12, 2019	Border Blocks
April 26, 2019	Mosaic Blocks
May 10,2019	Record Blocks
May 24, 2019	Finishing

Today is March 1st! Yay! That means we are going to talk about material and fabric requirements. We decided this is going to be a first class mystery quilt so everyone is going to have fun!

What tools will you need?

This is what you currently need to pull together. There might be a tool or two still needed, but we'll talk about that later.

• 45 mm rotary cutter
• 28 mm rotary cutter (if you are using a circle cutting ruler)
• Circle rotary cutter (optional - her shown in blue/gray)
• Cardboard (or your kid's favorite cereal box) for templates
• Fabric scissors
• Paper scissors
• Glass head needles
• Trickmarker and/or pencil
• Thread 
• 1/4" sewing machine foot
• Circle cutting ruler (i.e., Circle Savvy Ruler by Creative Grids® or other brand)
• 6 1/2" ruler
• 6" x 12" or 24" ruler
• Spray starch
• Glue stick
• Thin dryer sheets or Stick N-Tear Paper (for appliqué)
• Large self-healing cutting mat
• Sewing machine (of course)
• Bi-weekly instructions

I think that about covers the non-fabric materials needed. Now onto the fun stuff.

How much fabric do you need?

I cut out all of the patches for the quilt and still had fabric left over. So this is a generous (and not tight) calculation. What you see pictured below, is what was left over.

Accent                        1 1/4 yards (120 cm)

Main                           2 yards (200 cm)

Medium 1                   1/2 yard (50 cm)

Medium 2                   1/2 yard (50 cm)

Background                2 1/4 yards (220 cm)

****  Update

You will also need a piece of backing and one piece of batting approximately 75" x 75". Sorry, I forgot to mention this.

****  Update
 

How in the heck do I know what fabrics to use in a mystery quilt??

I know, many of you would like to see the quilt to plan your fabric choices a little bit better. I know a few of you are a little scared too, maybe even petrified, but don't worry. (I get nervous too about the unexpected. : ) I like to plan everything out as well.) Thank you for your trust!

If this is way out of your comfort zone, no problem - just wait until the center medallion and the border blocks are made. Jump in from there and catch up in a frenzy.

This might help you with your choices. Think about five fabrics that can go together well. Follow the formula below. Try to stay away from large-sized prints, because the smallest patches are about 2" x 2" and the large prints may get lost. The medium print 2 featured above is somewhat borderlined as far as size. I am not saying it is not possible, though. There is a Tula Pink fabric mock up for the Tula fans below. : )

• one accent (dark) 
• one main (contrast)
• two mediums (favorite prints)
• one background (light) 

My advice is to use tone-on-tone (falsche Unis) for all except the medium prints. Use two of your most favorite prints for Medium 1 & Medium 2.

After you see the first blocks made or presented, you may have a better feel on how to select your fabrics. Or, you can use one of the fabric palettes below. I mocked-up quilts with all of these fabrics and they look killer. Please note that some of the fabric values have been switched - light background for a dark background and dark accent for light accent. The block sizes below are six inches. Please keep this in mind.

The color palettes below show three blocks from the mock-up quilts to get a better idea.

_____________

Berry Delight for those who love color and have an aversion to white.

Berry Lite - for those who like a little bit of berry color and but still no white.

Chocolate Covered Cherries for those who love the chocolatey flavor to a rich color palette.

Blueberry Muffin for the berry connoisseur who likes to play it safe with a monochromatic color scheme. You may see a similarity in the color scheme with my quilt and the badge. This was the starting point of the quilt. I totally played it safe. I did pick medium sized prints for the Medium 1 & 2 fabrics and tone-on-tones for the rest. 

Black Licorice for those of you who like it spicy but don't want everyone else knowing about your secrets. ; ) You could also use this color value as a guideline for a scrappy quilt design. Use the color values accordingly.

Grape and Tangerine for the funky fantastic quilters who like to stand out from the crowd and make a statement!

Tula Lila for the Tula Pink fabric lovers out there. You might want to ground your large prints with some solids in the accent and background areas.

Custard Pie for a touch of elegant color to a modern gray color palette.

Citrus Fruit - for those of you who like it tangy, sweet and also sour! I just want to drink a frozen margarita and start sewing on this color palette.

Sweetie Pie - for those of you have visions of the state fair who cotton candy and big lollipop flair.

Watermelon Surprise with daring bright colors and saturated pink that you just want to sink your teeth into.

Floral Explosion uses large, floral prints. You can use them, but some of the overall design may get lost. Look at the center of the first mosaic block. Medium 1 blends in with the other Dark fabric. Here, you will want to play with color and/or value to make the different patches pop.

Now you have a few ideas for fabric color palettes to work with. You have the next two weeks to do some homework and get your fabrics/other materials together. Have fun. 

On our next post, we will be making the templates and cutting out fabric. 

Feel free to link up your fabrics below. Please keep in mind, your email address, your blog address as well as IP address and the date of the link up will be saved by the Link Tool inlinkz.com, if you choose to link up. You can delete at any time. By linking up, you agree to the collection and protection of your data. Read more on inlinkz: http://www.inlinkz.com/new/privacy.php.

Thank you for sewing along with us! Can't wait to see your fabrics!

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