Kaleidoscopes for Klowns

 I am making progress on the Klown Kaleidoscope. I have had Kathy Doughty and Sarah Fielke's book Material Obsession II, but it wasn't until I saw their Stashbuster quilt on Cathy's Sane, Crazy, Crumby Quilts that I decided I had to make it. I loved that it used Kaffe fabric in such a playful way with clown dots in the centers...so my choice of fabric was essentially "what would a clown like to wear." And while they may not eat their vegetables, they are happy to wear Martha Negley vegetables.

I also have to thank Cathy for keeping track of quilts for me...she identified the quilt I was looking for on Sentimental Stitches...Fragments of Cloth. Now you might think it miraculous that she could know what I was referring to except she knows it is likely going to be a subset of her quilts. And so you can go here to see Cathy's version. 

You can also see that the quilt pattern is still available, but it is a real life pattern, not a digital download.

We all have our piecing preferences and I can assure you that none of them include cutting four triangles and sewing them together. I was willing to make a handful of HSTs but drew the line at cutting and attaching triangles. So this is how I made my units...again, only a matter of preference. 

I sewed the HSTs to strips of black fabric. The strips are the width of the HST plus an inch (bigger than needed). Then I cut these apart so I had an HST with the purple triangle on top of a black rectangle. I then take two of these and sew them with triangles at either end (head to toes). I iron it open and cut them apart allowing for a full quarter inch seam from the tip of the purple triangle. (I line up a ruler with the base of the purple triangle to keep my cut straight.) And yes, in theory you can make the rectangle size so that you only make one cut with no waste...but I have only been quilting for 50 years and don't have that kind of sewing accuracy yet.