Playtime: the bunting

I kept busy over the weekend working on my Playtime quilt (a fabulous BOM design from American Jane Patterns). This month's block was a row of gumdrop bunting that goes along the top of the quilt. I did it a little differently from the instructions, and I thought I'd share my process.

This is the template for the bunting shape:


The way the instructions would have one do it, you'd create a number of finished circles (much in the same way as I prepared the ball previously) and then you'd cut them into quarters and then pair them together to create the gumdrops. The problem with that is that, unless one wanted only 4 different colors in the bunting (which is not how it is pictured on the pattern), there would be a lot of wasted quarters. So I did it differently.


I cut sixteen 4" squares and eight 1" x 4" strips from a variety of fabrics and then stitched them together as shown in the photo above: square - strip - square. Then I cut eight 4.5" x 8.5" rectangles from a thin, white muslin.


I put the muslin on top of the template and traced a half circle. The muslin was super cheap thin, so I didn't even need a lightbox for tracing.


I put the muslin and the stitched squares right sides together, being careful to center the muslin on the squares, and then stitched on the traced line.


Next, I trimmed, leaving about 1/4" seam allowance.


Then I turned it right side out, pressed,


and trimmed the top edge down to size.


Ta-da! A finished gumdrop.


Then it was all a matter of appliqueing them to the background and adding the cherry on top (or below?).

The finished block:


It's 6.5" wide and 66" long.

With that completed, I was able to put together the whole top 1/3 of the quilt!


Yay, progress!