Bowties

Peruse the web, and you'll find a bazillion patterns for bowtie quilts. Here's one more.

I was captivated by Bonnie Hunter's Cheddar Cheese quilt, but there were 2 things about it I felt needed to be changed:
     1) Orange,
     2) The pattern called for 2" and 1.25" squares.

After spending hours upon hours organizing my scraps (using Bonnie's Scrap User System) into 1.5", 2", 2.5", and 3.5" squares, bricks, and strips, I had no desire to trim yet again! So rather than use her measurements, I chose to rummage in my 2.5" and 1.5" boxes for matching and complementary squares.

That's when I started to ponder the possibility of using the 1.5"x2.5" bricks to achieve the two little corner pieces (the "knot" in the bowtie), and discovered that it works beautifully and has very little waste. So here's the pictorial tute:

Bowtie block, using 2.5" squares and 1.5"x2.5" bricks

Normally, instructions will have you align a small square in the corner of the large background square, then sew the diagonal. In this case, working with 2.5" and 1.5" squares, there's a 1" margin of the background fabric left uncovered, the difference between the two sizes:

Using that margin size, align a 1.5"x2.5" brick in the corner of the background fabric, and sew the diagonal as usual:

Before trimming anything, check that you're happy with the seam and that the triangle, when folded over, completes the square nicely. (These are different fabrics because by the time I remembered to include this step, I had finished sewing the red sets. And, dang it, I pay for both sides of the fabric so I USE both sides, intentionally or not):

Resew the seam if necessary until you've achieved a well-aligned corner. 

Do not cut off the overhanging fabric to make it square to the block! The secret to this technique is the angled (and eyeballed) 1/4" seam:

Remove that little triangle hiding under the cut-off portion. That sounds like a "duh!" kind of hint, but I've picked those little bits out of more seams than I care to admit.

On the second background square, align the cut-off portion using the 1" margin, sew the diagonal, and trim:

Look at that little bit of red left over! Isn't that brilliant? I've found that bricks don't have to be the full 2.5" long in order to work with this technique. I could use pieces that were as short as 2.25". This came into play when I was cutting up more scraps for this project, not when rummaging through my precut scraps. So, too, could I use not-quite-complete 1.5" squares, because the incomplete corner was going to be trimmed off anyway:

I'm a big fan of nestling seams, and soon learned that I couldn't sew my pieces together any ol' way and expect everything to line up nicely in the end. Here is the order in which I sewed every section and every block, and in the end every seam nestled wonderfully:
     1) Background fabric square on top of bowtie fabric square, sew right-hand seam. (I press the "knot" seam away from the corner from habit, but there's no difference in bulk distribution if it's pressed toward the corner):

Press seam toward bow-tie fabric.

      2) Since I was making snowballs of white and off-white squares, it was easy to always align the white square at the top left and the off-white square at the bottom right when setting up the next seam. If you follow this seaming plan but use matching or random background fabrics, you may have to come up with your own mnemonic (such as "down seam on top, up seam on bottom"):

     3) I pick out the 2-3 stitches in the middle (both sides) so that I can open up and twirl the seams of the finished block:

See how nicely the blocks are ready to play together? All the seams are going in opposite directions from one another, spreading that bulk around.

 This plan will work for any block setting:

By the bye, this technique would work with 3.5" squares and 2"x3.5" bricks, using a 1.5" margin.

Here's the WIP on my design wall. Yes, that's a QI on the ironing board.... He loves my robe quilt, as I knew all the cats would: