Scrappy Trips!!

Scrappy Trips!

*Note* The first uploading of this quilt tutorial was in 1999. I was the charity quilt person for my local guild, and the directions were uploaded to my website for the guild to use in donation quilts. It was moved here to the blog in June of 2005 for easier access.

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When made using planned chains of color that form radiating diamonds around each center square,
this pattern is called "many trips around the world". But let's take the organized rounds of colors away,and free ourselves while letting "anything go". We are just scrappy tripping!



You can still see the diagonals that make diamonds, it just adds a lot more interest and fun to have it riotously scrappy.

Here is one made by Janice K set in "Barn Raising"! Made for a neighbor friend in 2005, it measures 100"X100"!

I love her narrow sashing!

 
To make one 12" scrappy trip block you will need:


(6) 2.5" X 16" rectangles of varying contrasting colors including lights and darks. Don't worry about matching or color coordinating, EVERYTHING GOES in this quilt!

*Note* If you are cutting from FQ's...just cut from the 18" side of the FQ and leave them 18" long. It doesn't make sense to take the time to trim 2" off the end! You can use the leftovers in a scrappy pieced border if so desired!

 



I like to lay my 6 strips out side by side to figure where I want the colors to fall. while you are doing this, realize that you don't want to start the panel and end the panel with the same color. In this instance, I am going to end up with the red on the far left touching the yellow on the far right so I want those to contrast.

 
Place the strips right sides together and stitch all 6 strips into a panel WITHOUT PRESSING. It is easier to press after all the strips are sewn together.

 


This picture shows how to press the seams towards EVERY OTHER strip. You need to press this way so that when you go to stitch your chains together, the seams automatically oppose and butt up against each other..this eliminates alot of bulk and pinning.

When your seams are pressed as above, you will be folding the panel in half as shown with right sides

 together:

 

Sew this seam the length of the strips turning your panel into a "tube".

Now take your panel tube to your cutting mat!

Square off one end of the panel tube, and then cut the tube into (6) 2.5" sub sections.

When you pick these up, you will see that you have 6 loops of squares. Now the fun begins! Grab your seam ripper, you are going to need it!

 

Hint: seam rippers go dull just like rotary blades do. If you are having to fight with yours to cut thread, chances are it is time for a new one!

When picking open these seams, you don't have to pick EVERY stitch. I pick about every 4th stitch and very carefully open the seam. You might have to pick closer if you use a very small stitch size. I like to do my patchwork with my machine set to about 2.5 stitch length.

Begin by removing one seam as above...and opening the loop into a strip of squares:

 

Then you are simply going to open up the next loop so that the square that WAS at the top of the first strip, is now at the bottom of the second strip. Each square is going to stair step UP. The third strip I opened, was between the blue and the purple print so the purple became the new top, and the blue was now at the bottom, and so forth:

 

Open all 6 loops and lay them out in their proper position to the side of your sewing machine. If you dont have alot of table top space where you sew, I find a TV tray to be very handy!

 


Stitch the strips of squares together in order with a 1/4" seam. Your block should resemble this!

*Notes on Pressing*

I press the seams that joined the rows in the block all one direction. It is impossible to know which way all the seams will need to go to nest with the next block before making this quilt because the blocks change position depending on layout. Blocks can be rotated 4 different directions.

This means after I finally decide on lay out I have to do some repressing.

Some choose to press everything open and pin to match every seam.

Some "spin" all of the seams so they will nest when joining blocks.

Just do the best you can. There is no way to nest everything all the time, especially with so many options in laying these blocks out.

Here are 6 blocks laid on the floor...I like to twist and turn them and lay them out as I go:

 

You can see the patterns start to show as the diagonals are twisted around. Play with it and have some fun!

Here is another scrappy trip quilt made with 10" blocks (5 strips per block instead of 6)

 


I personally like the 12" blocks better because the diagonal chains are longer through the center of the block. It gives more optical illusion!

 
Have fun taking a scrappy trip through your scraps!