It's Addictive!

Since my last post I've disappeared into another universe: addiction to piecing. During the past week I made 80 6 1/2" squares for this new scrap quilt. The project just kind of grew from a simple beginning: take a red 2 1/2" square and sew strips around it. I tried to stick with colours and shades that looked good together. By Friday evening I had 80 squares made, enough for a generous single bed quilt, if I added sashing.

But did my stash of strips diminish? Does it look like it? Seems just as many to me as when I started.

Saturday I took them all downstairs and laid them out in ten rows of 8 squares each. It became apparent that these three squares stuck out because of the light fabric in them. So I took them apart and put other fabric in its place.

That's better. These squares will blend into the quilt, where they stood out with the lighter fabric.

There were four other squares that also needed to be changed. They had a yellow-beige fabric that was just too noticeable.

So far everything had come out of my stash of scraps. That's where I looked for material for sashing. I liked the black with white polka dots, thought it was make a good contrast. But I soon realized there wasn't enough there. So off to the Local Quilting Shop to see if they have any black with white polka dots. The best choice available was the material on the left. That might do.

Well, I didn't like it as well as the polka dotted material, but Jim thinks it's better. It is a directional fabric, so I had to figure carefully in cutting the vertical sashing and the horizontal sashing, to get it to run the same direction. I'm using red 2 1/2" squares at the intersections, to echo the red in each block.

Since the red square that starts the block is off center a secondary pattern of reds is coming about, three on an angle to the right, and the next row three on an angle to the left. I really like how the reds seem to float on top of the quilt.

This morning I was gungho to get the quilt top together. I'll do it in two sections again, for ease in machine quilting.

But by the time the third row was together my machine was making a strange rattling sound. Tomorrow I'm going with M. to Red Deer to pick up my Janome 6500, which was in for service, so I'll take my Janome SchoolMate, the lighter weight portable in and have that looked after.

I'm eager to get back at this, and see the whole quilt top assembled!