Ann Champion's Blog

My little Cheddar and Crackers quilt is finished!

I wasn’t crazy about the shirting I chose. It was too blue/cold looking. I decided to give my blocks a dip in a tea bath. I like the way the tea toned down the shirting, but it muddied the cheddar. It does look like an antique quilt that has been played with though, and I’m happy with it.

For the batting I used two pieces of cotton batting I had trimmed away from a larger project. I just butted them up against each other side by side. Thrifty right? I knew I would be machine quilting this and I wanted the shrinkage I’d get with cotton to hide the stitches a bit.

I cheated and pieced my top before the third installment of instructions was posted on Lori’s blog. I couldn’t wait..I got too anxious to see how the 16 patch blocks would look once in place.

I really liked the results, and I guess working ahead let me follow my thoughts on how the quilt would look with a variety of lights along with the variety of darks?

I decided to use warmer colors and less contrast.

I replaced the shirtings with a variety of warm pinks.

I guess I’ll call this version Cheddar and Crackers..with Watermelon?

By using a variety of lights the elongated hexagon units are more obvious? I think this may be the way the original antique quilt was pieced and that’s why blocks of color appear grouped in this same way in the original?

I like the cheddar mixed with these fabrics better than my first attempt at the doll quilt. In fact, I’m thinking about making a a larger scaled version for myself.

THEN..I started wondering how the cheddar I used measured up to the cheddar I love in antique quilts. I decided to pull out the tops I have with cheddar and compare.

The bolt of fabric in the center of the pic is Kona Papaya. That’s the cheddar I used in my doll quilts. It’s a pretty close match to the vintage fabrics.

You may be wondering what that darker fabric is at the bottom right of the pic? That’s a fabric that I found online listed as cheddar. It’s made by P and B Textiles. I don’t know if the online shop named the fabric cheddar or if the manufacturer did? I wasn’t able to find it anywhere else listed as cheddar. It’s actually more of a burnt orange in real life.

Here I show that “cheddar” fabric on the left against the Papaya in back, and several burnt oranges to the right that I’ve been collecting for a future project.

I like the fabric that Sew Unique Creations carries as cheddar, in fact I ordered more as soon as this arrived, but it isn’t really what I’d call cheddar…especially when you see it along side the vintage cheddar.

As to my thoughts on the batting…I like the thick lumpy look of the cotton batting I used on the first doll quilt. I machine quilted it and the thickness and shrinkage makes the quilting less obvious.

I intend to hand quilt the second doll quilt. I just picked up this thin poly batting on clearance a couple of days ago. I think it will be perfect for this use? It will make the quilting stand out more and will be easier to hand quilt than the thicker cotton. It will also allow the quilt to drape better.

When you’re piecing quilts with a lot of little pieces and seams, like in a doll quilt you get what I refer to as the “pot holder effect”, meaning the finished product wants to lay flat. The machine quilting can add to that effect too. It doesn’t look bad in most cases, but if you want to display your quilt spilling out of a basket or doll bed the thinner batting is better. Some people use flannel as batting or no batting at all.

I just recently made a quilt for my Niece’s Barbie. I made it with a cheater print on top, no batting, and a flannel backing. I needed it to drape over the sides of the doll’s bed my Sister had made. I tested it by laying it over a cereal box. It draped nicely. Then I thought it would be nice to add some hand quilting. I quilted a bit and tested it. The quilting gave just enough body that I started getting the “pot holder effect”. I removed the hand quilting and delivered the quilt to my Niece, who didn’t care that I hadn’t hand quilted Barbie’s bed quilt.