On Monday, August 15, 2016 at 11:57:07 AM UTC+10, Brian wrote:
The thread about the jacob's ladder quilt got me to wondering something,
but first I will talk about something that I got to wondering while
thinking about that.

Suppose you are making a quilt for a bigtime Nascar fan. The most
obvious and perhaps easiest is to make a checkerboard of black and white
squares to make a quilt that looks like a great big starter's flag.

However, there are lots of flags used in Nascar and auto racing in
general
(http://www.nascar.com/en_us/sprint-c...ng-flags.html), so one could perhaps be a bit more creative and make a quilt that altenates the standard checkered flag with the other flags use.

There are also actual sets of flags available online (and perhaps at
local stores if you prefer that, so one could make a quilt with actual
flags, but it would be quite expensive quilt based on what I have
found.

For instance, I estimate that it would take at least 4 sets (perhaps it
could be done with 3 or even 2 depending on the size of the quilt)
of this flag
(http://www.sportsflagsandpennants.co...357_prd1.html), which at $60 per set is quitexprnsive ($240 + shipping + cost of batting + cost of batting.

However, there are 7 flags, and 5 of them are just solid blocks of
fabric
(http://www.sportsflagsandpennants.co...3526_prd1.html) so buying regular fabric from the fabric store and making them would be fairly easy.

Now to ask the question that I originally thought of. The typical size
of a "patch" in a 4-patch quilt is probably 1"(2.5 cm) for a small
4-patch and as high as 4" to 6" (10-15 cm) for a "large" 4-patch block.

I suppose you could make it as big as you wanted. For instance, you
could make each "patch" 22" (55cm) by 22", the size of a fat quarter, or
perhaps even bigger if you wanted.

However, what is the smallest (finished) size possible. I would say
that the smallest "practical" size is 1/2" (~1cm), and the smallest that
you could go at all is 1/4" (~.5cm).

You could even go smaller, but you would have to use a smaller seam
allowance than 1/4".

That is the smallest you could go on a machine, it might be possible to
go even smaller if hand-piecing, I don't really like hand-sewing so I
really avoid it when possible, and could not really say.

Someone that does miniatures might have some insight on this question
that I don't.

Brian Christiansen

Hi Brian,

What about making the small flags into a centre piece with coloured borders then putting the winning flag pattern as the larger border with say a red or blue binding. Just a thought.

Love the idea.

Cheers,
Di
On the beautiful Mornington Peninsula, Vic. Aust.