Wilderness Trail

     My latest Jaftex Challenge definitely qualifies as a challenge.  As a Brand Ambassador, I was convinced that the next bundle of fabric goodness from Jaftex would contain Christmas fabric.  The style might be traditional, or it might be novelty, but it would most assuredly be red and green.  The calendar might say spring, but this is the height of the holiday season in the fabric world.  I was so confident in my prediction that I believe I was even humming Jingle Bells when I opened the package.  Wrong.

    My new fabric challenge is Wilderness Trail by Ed Wargo for Blank Quilting.  I have to admit that it threw me for a loop.  I was prepared for out-of-season Christmas sewing.  I was not expecting a different out of season and north woods prints!  Moose, bear, log cabins, campers, fish and wolves howling at the moon are not my normal go-to style of fabric. This is also the fabric bundle that I am to use for the Brand Ambassador Summer Challenge.  We have been asked to choose a pattern from the Home Decor section of the Jaftex sponsored, Sew it Yourself website for our next project.  

    The Sew It Yourself website https://siysewityourself.com/ is packed with fun projects that are FREE for you to download.  You should check it out!  

   I had originally chosen the Emblem Pillows as my project.  After the fabric arrived it was obvious that the large-scale prints were not suited for pillows.  I opted for the Symone Quilt instead.  Choosing the quilt made perfect sense.  It uses the triangle in a square shape and the half rectangle.  I happen to design those rulers for Creative Grids.  The pattern provides templates or suggests using the Wonder Triangles or Tri Rec tools.  Obviously, I would be using the Creative Grids tools that are the same shape, only larger.

    The pattern is written for fat quarters, so I cut my bundle into fat quarters and decided to make the pattern exactly as written, except for the change in ruler brands.  Super easy.  Just follow the instructions.  Except....

    The triangles in the pattern are 6" finished.  Some of the fabric prints are LARGE in the Wilderness Trail fabric line.  It isn't easy fitting a moose in a 6" triangle.  No problem.  Luckily, I have larger size rulers, so I decided to make my triangles 8".  I will make the quilt exactly the same as the pattern, except the triangles will be larger.

    After cutting all of the fabrics into triangles and fussy cutting the larger shapes from both the panel and the pillow panel squares, I separated the triangles into lights and darks.  I chose to start the layout with all of the light triangles pointing down and the darker ones pointing up.  

   It quickly became obvious that the Wilderness Trail prints could use some "breathing room".  I went to my scrap basket and cut some neutral triangles that read more solid to give your eye someplace to rest.  Then I filled in with the triangles that featured an image.  All of those were inserted so the image was right side up.  That helped me in the assembly process.  If I became confused as to where I was in a row, it was easy to figure out because none of the animals should be standing on their heads!  I was making the quilt exactly like the pattern, except for the size of the triangles and the addition of many more fabrics.

    One of the Wilderness Trail fabrics is orange.  Having only a few large orange triangles really made them stand out.  Back to the scrap basket I went, where I chose another orange print to help move the color around the quilt top.  That really helped, but it still needed something.  It needed more orange, but not large areas.  I wanted it sprinkled around the quilt.  The only way to achieve that was to make large triangles out of smaller triangles.  Super easy!  Four smaller triangles make one large triangle.  My triangles finished at 8" so I would need smaller ones that finished at 4".  I cut the 4.5" triangles from scraps.  A slight modification to the pattern that I was following exactly, except for the size difference, the number of fabrics used and the additional piecing.

    I was ready to sew everything together when I realized that the printed pattern had seven rows.  That means that unlike the top row, the triangles in the bottom row have seams that begin/end at the very corner of the quilt top.  This quilt does not have a border, and I would rather not add bulk to the corner for binding.  I did have some extra triangles..... I added another row to the bottom of my quilt.  Very easy to do and just a small change to the instructions that I was following exactly. 

    Here it is!  My Wilderness Trail version of the Symone Quilt, only slightly larger (48" by 64" instead of 36" by 42") with slightly more fabrics (13 prints + scraps instead of the suggested 10) with a bit of extra piecing tossed in.  Hmmm.... do you think I should add a border?