Call me CRAZY! I decide to start a french braid quilt, I think it was after doing my book blog hop or something like that, I had flipped thru old quilt books and then thought I’d do my OWN french braid quilt. I’ve done them before so I know the method, but I figured I’d “wing” it and use Accuquilt strip dies and maybe square and triangle dies too.
I first picked 7 fabrics and then the tan for the squares, then I cut 2″ strips from each of the main fabrics and calculated how much I’d get from each strip if I had 8 center squares, each square would need 4 strips around it, and from each fabric I had less than 1/2yd I believe maybe 1/4yd or so? I don’t remember, but I ended up figuring that if I had 5″ long strips x 4 that’s 20″ so I’d get enough for 2 from each WOF strip, so 4 strips, so that’s 8″ total, which I guess is less than 1/4yd! and that meant that the middle square had to be less than 5″, so I cut them 4 1/2″, I also think I involved some math and the yardage of the tan fabric to make sure I had enough.
It was one of those projects that goes really slowly, because you attach one fabric, then press, then add the square to the same type of fabric, then add those to the block and iron, then add to the opposite sides, then add new colors, it’s really very tedious! Plus at the end I didn’t have enough tan to make the corner triangles so I put it in a bin until I had a plan or felt like touching them again, the plan came when I was done with the fall FQ bundle season, I had this black dotted fabric and it seemed to work with it, so I added that fabric as corners!
I did have a bit of the tan leftover, just enough for a skinny border and then I added more of the black for an outer border and binding and used solid black for the backing, the quilt ended up being 45″ x 62″ and with the braids going side to side, which is fine, I TOTALLY planned it that way, wink wink!!
I quilted it all in black with a large feather design.
Overall I’m happy with the quilt, but it’ll be a while before I make another french braid quilt!
I looked back at my project list and realized I started this quilt in November of 2022, that’s why I couldn’t find any pictures, I have moved any 2022 pictures off of my computer, so……
Will you be writing a pattern? I love this quilt. But I’m not as adventurous as you.
I don’t think I am now, it’s complicated to write, not really HARD to make, just a bit odd.