The Constant Scrapper

It’s already time for the June Sketches With a Twist challenge—the last design of my term with them. I am very proud to have created this sketch, although I’ll admit that it’s a little harder than usual, which is why I’ve included a tutorial below for making the Cathedral Window quilt pieces! Here’s a little peek at my new sketch:

The twist this month is to incorporate fabric into your design. I’m not a seamstress (yet), so I used felt! Felt is fabric, isn’t it? 😉

All things bright and beautiful,
All creatures great and small,
All things wise and wonderful:
The Lord God made them all.
~Cecil F. Alexander, Hymns for Little Children, 1848

Matt and I are rescuers. Animals in need find us, and we can’t turn away. It’s added a lot of joy to our lives to open ourselves to this avocation. And of course, with the joy comes a bit of pain because not all our rescues can be saved. As in most things that matter, though, the joy makes the pain worth enduring.

This layout features photos of just three of the animals we’ve helped:

• The possum we named Head (after a character with a large head in So I Married an Ax Murderer). Sadly, Head was too injured by the car that hit him, and he did not make it.
• The chicken Matt rescued from Mopac Highway and was promptly named…Mopac…before we found her a home on a little farm in Buda, Texas.
• And the German short-haired pointer who we named Budro (for the dog in Grosse Pointe Blank) before placing him with the local German short-haired pointer rescue group.

My layout is intended to celebrate all the animals we’ve rescued and to symbolize the way they each add themselves to the quilt of our lives.

The tutorial

So you think this sketch looks intimidating? I’m here to help! After creating my layout with this sketch, I realized that I could probably help others use it if I revealed a few of the measurements and techniques I used.

The three photos on this sketch are 3 inches from corner to corner, not 3 inches square. A square that measures 2⅛ will have a diagonal measurement of 3 inches, so that’s the size to which you should crop your photos.

For the nine Cathedral Window quilt pieces you see on the sketch, you’ll need to punch either nine 3-inch circles of double-sided patterned paper OR nine 3-inch circles of single-sided patterned paper and nine 2-1/16-inch squares of different patterned papers. I wanted all my folded pieces to be the same pattern, so I used the second method for my quilt pieces.

Place your 2-1/16-inch squares centered on your circle and score around the outside edges. Once you fold up the four edges you’ll have a 2⅛-inch square quilt piece.

Here is a template I created to help you place your quilt pieces (if you want to follow the sketch exactly). I used these measurements, and everything lined up just right! Click on this smaller image to download the full-sized version.

I really hope this tutorial is helpful to those of you who want to use my sketch. I am very happy with how my layout looks, so I hope you’ll try it with a few of your photos, too. And don’t forget to link up your page to the Sketches With a Twist challenge.