Theme and Variation

Today was spent getting ready for a class I have in about 10 days.  Cutting strips while watching tv is very relaxing and I have a bag full of beige, yellow, blue, purple and green strips for a class on hexagon log cabins which looked like just fun.  Playing with one of the mandalas folding and refolding gave me an idea of what to do with some I didn't care for as much as others.

I took this square and cut into quarters and then each section into quarters again resulting in the following:

The ones on the top row would have been vastly improved with insertions of other colors before sewing them back together but the two on the bottom row aren't bad.

I decided that these would be an excellent exercise to practice some quilting before I approached the bigger quilts.  I decided this was a good sacrifice for the cause!!  If  you  haven't figured it out, I basically had taken those sixteen squares I made cutting up the 22 inch block and matched each with the other three squares that were in the same position in the bigger block.  I then trimmed down the blocks so they were 10 x 10 inches.  I quickly backed this with batting and some random dyed fabric and played with some quilting.

I should comment here that I had decided not to try to follow the lines of the mandala for quilting but to quilt a pattern over the block.  

My first step in quilting was to do straight lines following the fold lines, so corner to corner and then bisecting each side.  At this point, I took out the  pins as it was stabilized.  I had looked at Pinterest for inspiration but did my own design.  Pinterest gave me the ideas to just ignore the lines in the mandala though.

I chose a bright blue thread and you can see it pretty much just blends in unless you look very close.  I haven't decided whether I will go with  darker or lighter thread ultimately.  I also have some nice blue/aqua variegated that I might use.

Here you can see the quilting more closely.  I think I have the right idea.  The quilting isn't going to show unless  you get close, and then it will be a surprise which is what I like in quilts -- a different look when close or far away.

There was enough batting and backing hanging on the sides, that I could do a little border.  Now to decide whether to just finish it off or combine it with other blocks.

Start to finish from cutting up the squares to having a finished quilted piece took about an hour altogether!!
   
Now to just get these finished tops basted and quilted!!