Tie quilt, the plan

I have this bag full of ties that I am using to make a quilt.  I originally thought I would do a string, or strip piece quilt on foundation fabric, but as I was sorting through the ties, I wanted to use a larger piece of the tie in each block.  My son and I played around with the ties, and came up with the idea to use the large end of the tie as the focal point of the block.

If I used four tie ends, then I could use strips to fill in the rest of the block.

This is my plan, drawn on the back of a large envelope in the mail pile.  Oh how I admire those of you who sketch designs on graph paper, with colored pencils, oh so nice and pretty.  Me, well, as you can see, I don't ever usually work this way.  I have to take advantage of inspiration when it hits me. Anyway, here is my sketch, or should I say "rough" draft?  I think I like it, and it uses almost the entire tie.

My first steps were to disassemble the tie, gently lay it open and press, and I mean gently.  These things are so bias stretchy it is crazy.  Often I used the design on the tie to help me know if I had it smoothed out even and not stretched.  Then I ironed featherweight interfacing to the back of the tie.  I work on a teflon sheet, (I think I actually bought a baking sheet, like a silpat wanna be at the kitchen store) so I don't have to worry about getting sticky stuff on my iron.   If the interfacing is larger than the fabric, that is okay, because it won't stick to the teflon sheet.

Here is an opened tie with featherweight interfacing ironed to the wrong side.  With the fusible interfacing, the fabric had more support, and kept it's shape while I worked with it, cutting and stitching.  I still have to treat each piece carefully, but the interfacing makes a huge and wonderful difference.

I made templates using a cracker box.  I do have template plastic, but this cracker box was oh so handy in my moment of inspiration, so that is what I used.  I disassembled about twenty ties to start with, and cut the large center pointed piece from each tie.  Some ties were large enough I could cut two large pieces.  The rest of the tie will be used for the strips, and I'll explain that in another post.

I am enjoying this project, but I can see it will take a loooooog time to complete.  So far I have made pieces and strips from about twenty of the over eighty ties I have to work with.   This is how I have started, and I will keep you posted on progress.

Thanks for reading, I appreciate it.

Esther