Prepping for the Next Project

Yesterday was a day of slicing and dicing, washing, pressing, and prep work. I auditioned a few more fabrics for the corner pieces in that navy/purple/teal block with no success. The quilt wants that sparkle fabric. I do not argue with quilts—sparkle fabric it is. All of the fabric for those blocks has been cut and put next to the machine for the next piecing session.

I love these Ikea bins. They come in two sizes and I use both. The larger ones are perfect for stacking fabrics for a project, and the smaller ones hold piecing-in-progress.

I went with a cream Grunge for the background, but lighter than the one I used for the test block. I rather liked the way the background looked in the mistake quilt, with the variations between white and cream, and this lets me re-create that look with one fabric.

And I played around with an idea for that gray and orange group of fabrics that I pulled last week. I cut one 2-1/2” strip off each piece of fabric and made some of these blocks, which finish at 6”:

This is miles out of my color comfort zone, but I had great fun making these. They are the quilt block equivalent of potato chips. The background is another color of Grunge. I haven’t decided on a setting yet. This is how they look on point:

I will put some kind of sashing (not white) between the blocks. And I might go with a slightly lighter background Grunge (if I can find one) for more contrast, although I am okay with this one. I have noticed that many quilt designers aren’t as obsessed with contrast as I am, so I am trying to relax a bit.

These blocks are pieced with partial seams, which—along with Y-seams—fall into that category of “These are hard!” that grinds my gears. I hate to hear that used regarding quilt blocks (and knitting, and lots of other things). Neither of those techniques is what I would call difficult. A bit fiddly, maybe, but by the third one of these blocks, I was sailing along.

Will I make a whole quilt? I am not sure. I could scratch this itch with a wallhanging or table runner. And I am working on finding balance with my fabric cutting. I deliberately limited myself to one 2-1/2” wide strip from each fabric until I decide how far I want to go with this idea. With this many fabrics, I had quite a bit to work from. I could make another half dozen blocks just with what I’ve cut so far.

I quilted the rest of the hot pads, trimmed them, and set them aside for binding. I also prepped the fabric for my friend’s pillow shams. I’m going to try to get those done this weekend, but I need to do some math, first, before I do any cutting.

Ali’s little guy was here for a few hours on Monday. He and Ali recently went to visit family in Minnesota. They also went to a museum dedicated to the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald. He recited the whole story of that ill-fated voyage—and sang me the Gordon Lightfoot song—and then we watched a Discovery Channel documentary about it on YouTube. YouTube now thinks that I want to know all about Great Lakes shipwrecks. I watched a few more documentaries yesterday while I was sewing. I did grow up on Lake Erie, so I have more than a passing interest in this type of stuff.

In weather news, we had snow flurries yesterday. I am sure the higher elevations got some significant snowfall. I know that not everyone shares my desires for a cold, snowy winter—won’t those California transplants be surprised?—but I am not unhappy about this. I am also glad I got my snow tires on last week.