Courthouse Steps

Here's a good scrapbustin' pattern! This particular model of Courthouse Steps came from a Moda University pattern and features a 12 inch finished block. Uses 1.5 inch strips for the 9 patches (3 inch finished) and 2 inch strips for the steps. The scrap border is made up of leftover 2 inch x 4.5 inch pieces. I did buy yellow sashing and the blue to avoid a Christmas look due to a lot of red and green, but all the rest came from stash. This quilt has been left in 3 pieces in order to make the quilting on my home machine much easier. Very surprisingly, the border exactly matched each piece. I was wondering how I was going to handle that and it became a non-problem!


Now, to see a more traditional courthouse steps, using all 1.5 inch strips, here's Bonnie's example. As you can see, a real scrapbuster if there ever was one!
http://quiltville.com/courthousestepsdone.jpg

Here's a link to a site that features log cabin as well as Courthouse Steps. Unless you are doing something really small, I cannot see how foundation piecing makes this better, although I see that it is a method that is popular.
http://www.equilters.com/library/logcabin/easy_log_cabin_part5.html

A Really Nice Quilt Idea

Occasionally, I come across a stashbusting quilt idea that is novel, but easy to do. This is a baby Rail Fence quilt with a twist. The quiltmaker is Stephanie Driel in Australia who is a member of our Stashbuster's group. She uses half-square triangles in the center of each rail. What a great way to use up fat quarters! This would look great even on a queen-sized quilt. Easily, this would go together very quickly with quick cutting techniques for the HSTs. The solid-from-a-distance fabrics really make this work for me as it gives the eye someplace to rest.

Rail Fence Busts Stash FAST!

I want to first point out the the example quilt was all new purchased fabric, not stash. That said, if you have novelty fabric or a large pattern you want to show off, this is a very fast pattern to make and would use stash quickly.

This was the original inspirational drawing done by a member of QATW in EQ5. I like the orientation of the rails as well.


To make my rail fence alternating blocks quilt, here's what you do. Fussy cut your novelty fabric(s) using a 6.5 inch square. If you have an overall pattern, you can just cut fabric into 6.5 inch strips, then subcut to squares. Select 3 (or more) solid-from-a-distance fabrics that look good with your novelty. Cut into 2.5 inch strips. Sew 3 strips together. Press to one side making certain that you don't don't get any little folds in the front. Using a 6.5 inch square, trim off selveges, then cut 6.5 inch squares. Repeat until you have enough rail fence blocks. Decide on an orientation and sew row-by-row. I start on the bottom and work up-I find it easier to catch mistakes along the way.