The Legendary Triple Irish Chain

Well, I blew through this project. I still have the blocks to sew together. Can you believe that? When you have your pieces cut and ready to go, sewing goes so fast. I got all thirteen 81 patches sewn with an additional 12 alternating blocks cut and sewn. All of the blocks are pressed waiting for the weekend.

I also completely finished two partial spools of thread. My thread bin was a bit crowded and I though I will just finish off some smaller white spools to make more room. That was very satisfying to throw away the cardboard centers of the thread.

At about 5 of the 81 patches left to sew I decided to cut a bit more variety as I cut just enough to finish, but that might mean a bunch of repeats within a block, which was undesirable for me. So here are the remnants. I have placed those with my tubs of 2 1/2 inch squares and they will be handy for some other project.

My design wall was not big enough to showcase all of the blocks. I am not even sure if my wall height was big enough. So some of the blocks are not shown on the design wall.

After constructing this behemoth I realized why this pattern is called a triple irish chain. A single irish chain is just 9 patches alternating with background, like the quilt below.

A triple irish chain takes three rows of three 9 patches. That is the 81 patch. The alternate patch in the corners has a partial 9 patch which kind of gets lost in the back ground, but the back ground also subs in for where a normal 9 patch would be. Triple irish chain is the triple row of 3 nine patches.

I am absolutely thrilled with how this turned out, and the others that I have come across are all beautiful. Could you mess this up using scraps? I suppose you could. But that robins egg blue was a perfect choice to bring all the colors together. A beautiful marriage of fabrics.

I have the perfect backing for this, but it is not big enough. I have a 108 by 108 backing. I will need greater than 120 by 120. Not sure how I will solve that dilemma.

I had to take this off the design wall and I am a little bummed by that. The kitten we have, daughter named him SPUD, will not leave the one corner of the design wall alone! This morning I got up and saw that the blocks in that corner were all wrinkled up, like he had climbed and conquered! So, I moved my trolley cart in front of it before I left for work this morning. When I got home, I just decided to not risk them by leaving them up. Either I would be sad, or be very mad at the cat. I chose sad because it is temporary. But, my cat radar is on waiting for Spud to mess with my hobby.

Perhaps this weekend, I can sew the blocks together and put it in the done for now pile.

Health wise, I am now feeling better, the cough is still there, but much better. And I am happy to report all of our weather returned to normal as well. Ice and snow are long gone.

An almost finish has me energized and excited for some UFO work. I wonder how far I can get on that? Stay tuned for more quilty adventures!

Thanks for stopping in and reading my blog!

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