A Brief Update!

Well, this is the beginning of this new quilt which I was determined to make a little scrappier.  I must say that it was easier said than done!!  For this block to be successful, you really have to have a firm delineation of light, medium and dark.  Normally when doing a scrap quilt I play around with relativity and will use a medium as a dark or a light.  It just doesn't work with this block.  I used my phone to determine whether the cut strips were dark, medium or light by converting the colors to black and grays and whites.  Even doing that, I had to take apart two blocks as the contrast was not enough and fabrics picked as lights really worked better as mediums  Sewing them together in the right order requires me staring at the blocks on the wall to make sure I do them in the right order.  

You only sew three of the hexagons together as you eventually put them together in rows so there are no Y seams.  I am imagining other interpretations and mixing these hexagons with some stack and whacks.  We shall see.  I think I just like hexagons in any form!

I have updated two of the rosettes so still making progress on the Passacaglia!  Currently my approach is the same as I do with many scrap quilts.  I make a whole lot of individual pieces, finishing about 3/4 of the top, put them together on the design wall and then more carefully select what the remainder shhould be so that things look balanced.  It drives me crazy if there isn't some rhyme or reason to a top!  I can't imagine hand quilting this monster so will carefully machine quilt it if I ever get it done!!

I am still forcing myself to de-stash and am daily finding some surprises like large pieces of leather and suede I found today.  What was i thinking?  Also found a piece of 50 year old Marimekko fabric which is quite stunning. 

 
 

Inspiration!

This is the box of fabrics that I am currently pulling from for the Passacaglia quilt.  I think I have the whole rainbow there!  Making progress but nothing new to put on the wall for awhile as I am doing the cutting, ironing, glueing steps right now!

This top is almost done.  I just need to add a yellow border and then a green/purple flower fabric border.  It will be about 40 x 90 when done, enough for a cot.  I didn't bother to try to find a specific arrangement or attempt to put colors next to each other but did twist the blocks around so they weren't all going in the same direction.  Just too lazy!!

I saw a quilt on Scrap Quilter Enthusiasts on Facebook and loved the look of it. It is a variation of the Tumbling Blocks quilt -- Ill call it a box in a box  It looked like she cut the individual pieces but looking at it, I decided you could do it in 2 color strips.  I grabbed a piece of paper and decided how each 60 degree triangle was made and saw that you could do three strips sets and then cut the triangles using a 60 degree ruler.

The hexagon triangles were:

1. medium/light,

 2. dark/light,

 3.dark/medium,

 4.light/medium,

 5. light/dark and

 6.medium dark

You could make these combinations with three sets of strips: 1 + 4, 2 + 5 and 3 + 6.  

These are the three strips:  dark/medium, light/medium and dark light.

These are the resultant triangles cut with a 60 degree ruler.

I used 2 1/2 inch strips which should result in blocks about nine inches across.  I have literally tons of 2 1/2 inch strips already cut at my other home and will for sure make some of these quilts as they are super easy to put together and have a stunning look I think!  

I spend at least an hour every day working or cleaning out my stash before I allow myself any playing with blocks or cutting the pieces for the Passacaglia quilt.

I want this quilt to look more scrappy so will use shorter strip sets -- 22  inches wide instead of the full width of the fabric as I do like variety and much prefer a scrappy look!

Like many, I look at Pinterest and Scrap Quilters on Facebook for inspiration and then I try to find an easy way to construct the quilts.  I have been collecting a lot of 4-patch designs and recently half square triangle designs.  So many make complicated looking blocks when they are easy.  I play around with Electric Quilt to figure out the block and piece sizes and occasionally a color arrangement.  The temptation is always to just figure I am finished when I get a decent design using the software!

Taking a Break from De-stashing

I was going through plastic bags of "stuff" during my clean up and found a bag with bunches of these pieces and two completed blocks.  I hadn't remembered making a quilt from these but looking through my quilts on Pinterest, I found the quilt and remember it now.  It was too  much temptation and so I made a few more blocks.  

An hour later, I had nine blocks!  But I decided I needed more variety so went through some of the boxes I had and found some more different purples, greens and orange/yellows.

So now I have 16 blocks which if I had a two inch border will make a baby sized quilt but I am contemplating doubling that for a cot sized quilt.  I, of course, have lots and lots of pieces left. 

Each block is made up of 1 2 1/2 inch x 9 1/2 in strip, 3 3 1/2 inch squares and 2 5 inch squares.  I will be moving these pieces around as it looks best when you have some of the fabrics butting up next to each other in side by side blocks.  Then the blocks disappear.  It makes up very fast!

I actually have at least one more of the  larger rosettes done since taking this picture.  You can see I am progressing on the Passacaglia quilt.

I am trying to spend 2 hours a day groing through my fabric and selecting those that I will keep and those that will be sold or given away.  I also spend about 2 hours a day doing the hand sewing on the Passacaglia while watching mindless television!