A 9 Patch Mash Up!

Yesterday after work, I got cracking on a cushion cover that is being gifted to a good friend of mine.  She's a shabby chic kind of gal, and has ordered quite a few dresses for her nieces from me, so I knew that she loved the Flora range of fabrics.  I whipped out the range and chose nine prints.  I had planned to make a disappearing nine patch, (You can see my first attempts at these HERE) but not long in to sewing, felt the need to change it up.  So this is how I put together a "9 Patch Mash Up"!

 

I went about the usual directions for a 9 patch - in this case, I used 6.5" squares, joined them together to make the 9 patch, and cut them through the middle to make the disappearing 9 patch....

 

After playing around with the layout for too long, I started wondering if I could change it up.

 

Having no idea what I was doing, I lined up my ruler on the diagonal and sliced straight through.

 

And then had a slight panic attack, wondering if I'd stuffed it up?!  Either way, I continued to slice and dice.

 

Until I was left with all of these lovely big triangles of patchwork.

 

And so began working out the layout I liked.  I really love that there are so many different shapes in the blocks now.  The layout above is like a big old arrow.

 

Another layout.

 

And the layout I eventually went with.  From here, I literally just joined the triangles together diagonally, which gave me four square blocks.  I did bring my seam allowance in a couple of notches, so just under 1/4".  Join the four blocks together and Voila!  I had me a cushion cover!

 

I was tempted to continue slicing and dicing, but I was on a deadline. You can see in the photo above, that if you just kept splitting the blocks, you would end up with an even more patchy look.

 

The end result.  A gorgeous 18" quilted cushion cover.  I had fun free motion quilting the front of it, using a range of little designs.  I followed the pattern on the pale green print with the circles, did some rainbow arches on the yellow and lots of squiggles everywhere else.

 

I love that it's a little "organic" in its layout and quilting!

And a nice simple enclosed zipper back, with a rusty lattice binding.  I am hoping the recipient loves it!

I'm linking up with Sew Cute Tuesday - You can too!