Beginnings of a New Quilt -- How to Use Some of the Mandalas I Have Been Making and QBTS Show and Tell

Well, first I will show some of the quilts from Show and Tell in our Monday meeting.  As usual, people didn't hold them up long enough in many cases to get a picture.  This was Miranda's

This was some of the others.  Really liked the colors in this one and the two block pattern.

 Liked the fish!

Great scrap quilt begun in one of our classes. 

Placemats from a dresden plate pattern.

A Double Wedding Ring done by Anne  She showed a bunch of pieces she had finished that night.  I have found you only do one double wedding ring!!

Another class project from  class taught by our own Michelle.

Another from Anne.

This was done by Michelle and is part of a two continent challenge.

I was bound and determined to start doing something with the huge number of dyed mandalas I have made the past couple of years.  I decided to start with my least favorites -- the ones I did the day that I forgot most of my dyes and had to make due with what I had.  This was the large center panel (about 21 x 21).

So I first decided that the outside blocks would be on point and there would be 12 of them.  Triangles the same color as the middle would be added between the side blocks.

Then I decided to surround each of the side blocks with a rose color as I didn't want them to blend into the background.  Note, I had finally chosen a blue/gray to surround the center block after trying out the black which was too dark.

I didn't have enough of the brown for the corners so decided to try the rose color.  No, no, no....

Then I found some brown that ws just a shade lighter for the corners and went to bed not caring for all that brown which I new I would have to fill with some pretty impressive quilting!!  Also a couple of the blocks just didn't fit from a color standpoint.  I was getting pretty discouraged even though these were not my favorites of the blocks I have done -- in fact the quilt will be called "The Day I Forgot Most of My Dyes and Had to Make Do".

Sleeping on it helped a lot!!  The idea to not have the blocks on point came to me in the middle of the night.  This got rid of the "too much brown" problem and I like it finally.  The smaller blocks fit exactly on the sides of the big block -- trust me there were a lot of "square of the hypotenuse" calculations going on for this quilt.  I also found a couple of larger blocks that were from a different bunch that I cut down and got rid of the "blocks that don't seem to fit" problem.  I put the ones with the more orange centers in the middle of each row.  Now to figure out what to do with the corners -- I am thinking pieced blocks with browns, touch of orange and grey and maybe a smidge more of the rose.  It now sits at 50 x 50.  I am thinking I will add solid strips on the top and bottom of a dark brown to make it 50 x 70.  It will be good for sleeping on the sofa and browns fit the color scheme of the living room.  So back to Electric Quilt do decide on an appropriate block.  I cut up an awful lot of fabric making setting triangles for the other layout that I discarded.