Forward Progress and the Beginning of the Challenge Quilt

This quilt is slow going but has already been claimed by my oldest daughter who saw it on Facebook.  There is only four more blocks to go and it will be done.  It certainly has used the full spectrum of my hand-dyed fabrics!!  I haven't arranged them particularly yet and will put the darker ones on the outside (I think).  My biggest quandary has been how to fill in those weird triangles on the side.  You can see one thought on the upper right hand side (discarded I might add).

This had been my very first thought.  Yellow triangles with the striped pieces kind of giving the effect of a border.  Didn't like it at all as it was jarring.  When thinking about it, I had been sure this would be the answer -- NOT.

I finally went back to my original thought which was just plain yellow triangles with the darker blocks along the outside edge.  I am not quite sure whether it will be yellow or not yet.  I am trying to only use fabric that I have down here although I could dye some so I will have enough as these rhombuses take a lot of yardage --- this is complicated by the fact that I kind of have to add inches to the ruler so that the triangles are the right size.

It also requires two different size triangles as you can see here.

In the meantime, I have started work on my "challenge quilt" due next Monday night!!  So I better get hopping.  My dear husband is going to NYC for a week of fun and frolic so I have a vacation from cooking so I shouldn't have any trouble completing this project.  The theme is "circle of friends" and it just has to be a circular shape between 12 and 18 inches in diameter. I am heading for the top end of the range. 

What absolutely amazed me is that I had no idea what I was going to do for a background except that it would be blue.  I picked up a stack of fat quarter blues from my stash down here and instantaneously it came to me.  This is the experience I had with Iron Quilter as well.  I always think I am not able to be creative and then surprise myself with my quick visceral response to things.    I can't post the quilt until after the meeting on Monday!!  It required printed images and this complicated my entry as our printer pooped out (of course) and I had to get a new one!  So stay tuned!

No birds today!