Wednesday, August 24, 2011

BOM - Bug Jar!

Back here at the tail end of the middle of the group, there have been some really great and fabulous blocks already done. Some were even blocks that I had hoped to post as my month! I guess getting in line to be first can be a good thing sometimes! LOL.


But I think I found something really exciting. I am a total insomniac. I stay awake for a long long long time every night after everyone else has gone to bed. I have three dogs snoring softly (some NOT so softly) and I can hear Frank snoring from all the way out in the living room with the TV going! I watch a lot of late night TV and cruise the quilt sites on my iPad until about 2 or 3 AM every night.

One of my favorite blocks has always been the Bug Jar. I have collected fabrics to make a Jar Quilt for a long time but have never really made one. Maybe this will turn the corner on that idea today!

I thought we could make a Fabric Jar Block. I envision a quilt with jars of different colors – one red scraps, one blue scraps, a yellow and a green jar. An orange sitting on one corner and a tall purple one in the middle maybe.

Wouldn’t it be cool to have a whole shelf unit full of different sized jars of fabric? Way cool. You can have mixed up colors of the rainbow in each jar and maybe different sizes of jars of multicolored scraps. You can dream in rainbows! If you can sleep!

Here is how to make a bug jar. I will show you some variations as well and you can get creative from there.

You need a background fabric. And a lid fabric. The coolest lids I have seen are from stripes so find a nice stripe scrap for your lid. And of course your made fabric.

For a 12 inch finished block this will measure 12.5 inches unfinished. Oh, just for reference .125 is 1/8 inch and .825 is 7/8 inch.

Cut:

8.5 x 8.5 of jar contents – this is your made fabric
1.75 x 5.5 – this is your striped fabric lid
Background – 2.5 x 12.5 block top
                      1.25 x 12.5 block bottom
               Two 2.5 x 8.5 block sides
               Two 1.75 x 4 lid sides
               Four 1.5 x 1.5 squares for jar corners

You can make a 6.5 inch jar block by cutting the following:

4.5 x 4.5 jar contents
1.125 x 3 – striped cap fabric
Background – 1.5 x 6.5 block top
                      .825 x 6.5 block bottom
              Two 1.5 x 4.5 block sides
              Two 1.125 x 2.25 lid sides
              Four 1 x 1 squares for jar corners

                                                            To assemble:
1. Get your bug jar square made fabric. Mark a diagonal line on your four jar background corners. Place the background fabric corner squares on the four corners of the bug jar square and sew on the diagonal (actually just to the outside of the line). Press toward the outside and trim the excess from the back of the jar. This makes the jar corners.



2. Sew the background jar sides to the sides of the jar piece.



3. Sew the lid between the two lid sides background pieces to form a long skinny strip.

4.  Lay out the block in the following order:

block top (background)
lid strip
jar strip
block bottom (background)

5. Sew the block together and trim to 12.5 x 12.5 inches. If you are making the smaller block you will trim your block to be 6.5 x 6.5 inches.

If you want to be creative and make a different size jar you can sketch your block in a program like EQ or on draft paper. Here are some measurements for a tall block and a baby food jar block. You assemble the block the same way as before.

Tall block that finishes 8 x 12. To make it finish 12 x 12 just add 2 inches to your sides to make the block background wider.






For an 8 x 12 finished block:                       For a 12 x 12 finished block:

          2 x 8.5         Block top (background)       2 x 12.5
          2 x 3.5        Lid (stripes)                          2 x 3.5
  Two 2 x 3          Lid sides (background)           2 x 5
          5.5 x 8        Jar fabric (made fabric)         5.5 x 8
 Four 1.5 x 1.5      Jar corners (background)      1.5 x 1.5
 Two 2 x 8            Block sides (background)      4 x 8
         2 x 8.5         Block bottom (background)   2 x 12.5


If you want a flat bottomed jar, leave off the two bottom corners of the jar. You can tweak the measurements in any number of different ways and make a variety of different shapes and sizes. Oh, you can make the top corners of the jar larger than the bottom two corners and have a different sort of jar.



Enjoy!



glen



4 comments:

mary e said...

you've just made me jar block fan, it now looks fun. :>)

Barbara Arcement said...

I have been watching all these BOM blocks postings. This one really caught my interest. I am going to try making one...too cute!
I'm not creative enough to be part of this very talented group. thanks for sharing

Miki Willa said...

These jars are perfect. I know I am not in this bee, but would it be okay if I made one or two for you? They look like so much fun to make.

Susan said...

I thought I'd let you know that the link where you list these is broken for this one. It has an extra bit in it, which I saw when I copied the link location and put it in myself, since the link didn't work.

Thanks for the jar pattern!