Crossed Connections

The name of this mystery was inspired by Quilters Dreams’ Hopes and Dreams contest to benefit ALS patients. (You can read more about the contest here.) ALS is a neurodegenerative disease that eventually destroys the communication between nerves and voluntary muscles - in other words, “Crossed Connections”. This quilt has several basic blocks but many possible layouts. You will have a choice of isolating your blocks, crossing them or connecting them. This quilt is almost-but-not-quite celtic in design. As you might have guessed, it is paper pieced and is somewhat challenging. This quilt finishes at about 70" x 70".

If you would like to get a jump start on this quilt, you can read our paper-piecing tutorial called “The Seven Deadly Sins of Paper Piecing” and a foundation-piecing tutorial on making a Christmas Star tablerunner.

Here are the fabrics I chose for my sample. I chose the border fabric first and picked colors from it for my quilt. If you are new to paper piecing, buy a little extra fabric. You WILL make mistakes. It's all part of the process:-))

This mystery has completed, but I am leaving it here in mystery format so you can follow along if you like.

Now, before you get started, let me give credit where credit is due. I am not by nature a perfect paper-piecing person. I had a lot of help from the ladies in my test class and several others I will mention during the mystery.

CLUE ONE

Print out this paper pieced pattern. When your printer dialogue box comes up, double check that the box that says "scaling" is set to "none". This pattern should print out at 4" (finished.) Don't forget to add the seam allowance! This block will be 4 1/2" x 4 1/2" unfinished. The picture thumbnails below do NOT show the seam allowance. If you would prefer to draw this pattern on graph paper, the corner angle is 1" from the edge.

Tip: When I made my sample, I precut the pieces I would need. For the center points (A1), I cut rectangles 6 1/2" x 4 1/2", then cut those on the diagonal. For the side pieces (A2 & A3), I cut 5 1/2" x 5 1/2" squares on the diagonal to make half square triangles. One of the other testers cut a 4 1/2" x 6 1/2" background rectangle on the diagonal to use for the side pieces.

I used scraps for the small triangle (A4) but you might prefer to cut 3" x 3" squares on the diagonal to give you triangular pieces to use. All these pieces are much too big but I prefer to cut pieces larger than I need and trim off the excess after they have been sewn to the paper.

Another Tip: In the test class, several students used 2 1/2" x 6 1/2" rectangles as the center point, rather than cut a rectangle block on the diagonal as I did above. If you are new to paper piecing, try it both ways and see what you prefer. If you like this method, save yourself (16) 2 1/2" by WOF (width of fabric) strips of the Medium as you will be using it elsewhere in the quilt.

CLUE TWO

For those of you that are still putting together points, here is an easy clue to give you time to keep sewing.

Cut a 24" x WOF strip of fabric from the background. From that strip, cut (1) 24" x 24" square and (2) 12" x 12" squares. You will use these in Clue Six. Save the remainder of the strip for use in Clue Five.
Cut (2) strips 5" wide by the WOF from the background. From this strip, cut (4) 4 ½" x 4 ½" squares (for use in Clue Six) and (4) 5" x 5" squares. (for use in Clue Four)
Cut the remainder of that strip into 2 ½" wide strips. From those strips, cut (8) 2 ½" x 2 ½" squares.(for use in Clue Six)
Cut (1) strip 3" wide by the WOF from the background. From that strip, cut (4) 3" x 3" squares. (for use in Clue Four) Save the remainder for use in the Clue Three and Clue Five.
Cut (16) strips 1" wide by the WOF from the background. Most of these will be used in the next clue, but you will use some in Clue Five and Six.

CLUE THREE

If you read Another Tip (above), you have already cut the medium fabric for this block. If not, cut:

(16) 2 1/2" by WOF strips of the Medium. Set aside half of these to use in Clue Nine.

In Clue Two, you cut the (16) 1" wide by WOF background strips to use in the block. So all you need to do now is cut

(24) 1 1/4" by WOF strips of the black. Set aside half of these to use in Clue Nine.

Tip: Be sure to press your block every time you complete a seam. It *will* make a difference to the final product.

Another Tip: One of our testers preferred to just cut strips for this step. If you think you would prefer to do that, too, please print out the paper pieced pattern for so you can get the exact sizes from that. You can't fudge this - this block needs to exactly match another one. The skinny background pieces are 13/16, the black strips are 1 3/16 and the center strip is 2 1/2". Those are UNFINISHED measurements, they include the seam allowance. This block is 4 1/2" wide unfinished.

Clue Four

Clue Four has a video so it is on a page of it's own. Click here to get there.

Border: 1 yard	Dark 1 yard	Medium: 2 yards This will also be used in the first border.
Black 1 1/2 yards (includes enough for binding)	Background: 3 yards

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