Wednesday, May 18, 2016

Making it up as I go

Ever have one of those days when you have so many projects going on that you can't decide which one to work on, so you end up working on nothing?  Yeah, I've had those, too!  I almost had one this week, in fact.  I have a lot of unfinished stuff laying around here and I organized it all and then couldn't decide which one to take on first.

Thankfully, I have had this same problem before, so I knew the best thing to do was just grab whatever was closest and start stitching.  That's how I ended up working on the 1-1/2 inch square project.  In the process of stitching up more blocks I also figured out how I plan to set them:



Yep, this will be it!  As you can see, the first thing I did was put a 1-1/2 inch white strip around the 100-patch blocks.  This stabilized all the little seams on the edges of that block and also meant that there would be no nightmare scenarios that would involve matching all those seams from block to block.  (Can you imagine?)

I had played around with having strips of alternating white and colored squares surrounding each block, but it turns out that all those strips of squares are really stretchy!  Plus I had this thing about making sure all the seams matched up with the seams in the block, even though they were separated by that solid white.  Talk about crazy-making!  So I gave up on that and went with just the squares in the corners.  That way I'll still get to use up some more of the eleventy-billion squares I have and I'll get this cool pattern:



Is that cool or what?  If I use 4-patches as cornerstones with some white sashing, I'll use up even more squares and have a super-cool secondary pattern too.  And I am all about the super cool secondary pattern!  For some reason I hate making 4-patches, but I'll do it for this.

These blocks are actually going pretty quickly, considering.  The hard part is sorting out all the colors:


I know I should have sorted them all at once, but I did start out with about 12,000 of these babies, and that's a lot to sort through!

I don't know how many of these blocks I'll eventually make or how big the quilt will be, but I'm pretty sure it will look good, and I'm having a good time making it, even if it is a mess:


Hope you all are having a good time making fun messes too!  It's still raining almost every day and it's pretty cold for May, and I have no garden, so I expect to get a bunch of sewing time in this week.  At least I hope that's how it goes--you know what happens with sewing plans!

Linking to Let's Bee Social and Oh Scrap!

20 comments:

Lynne Stucke said...

I love this! Love what you're doing with the corners; love the 4-patches. This is going to be a beautiful quilt!!!!! lynnstck(at)yahoo.com

Lara B. said...

Mari, I could dive right into the center of that yummy orange 100 square block! These are amazing! I love how you are tackling the joining with sashing and corner stone blocks! It's going to look so awesome!

Bernie Kringel said...

Wow - I love this. It is seemingly simple but the effect is really cool. Since the sashing contains scrappy blocks you could work on those This is going to be great when it all comes together Mari.

Grandma said...

It looks so pretty. Hope there will be a tutorial or pattern!

Jayne said...

This is going to be so gorgeous! Keep going and going and going...you know, not too big!! It looks great!

Quilts By Laurel said...

This is so beautiful! Great work! :)

TheItinerantChemist said...

Oh gosh, I love the look of this! :D What method are you using for piecing your postage stamp blocks? I've made a couple before using very lightweight interfacing on the back, which works fairly well. So far I haven't been brave enough to do a whole quilt, but yours look so great that I want to try. The sashing and corner blocks are a genius idea. It looks like a brilliant scrap buster, and I could do with that! :)

JanineMarie said...

Oh, this is going to be so neat with those multicolored parts between the postage stamp blocks. I love that secondary pattern. It looks like you've just jumped right in there to enjoy your summer break, even if it still feels like early spring. One thing about rain--it gives you a good excuse to sew!

Jen said...

I can't wait to see what the final product looks like. I did something similar with my scrap bins a while back. I just started sewing squares and pretty soon the quilt was there! It is a fun discovery process when you aren't picky about the ending. :)

gayle said...

I'd wondered how you were going to set those blocks - what a fabulous plan you've come up with! It's going to be a gorgeous quilt, whatever size you end up making!

Chantal said...

Love your designed sashing. It will look great and so different from everyone's else. I did a postage stamps quilt with 1.5 inches and I didn't want to aligned all those little squares either lol. ;^)

The Joyful Quilter said...

Super solution to the problem of not wanting to match everything up between blocks. Now, you've got me thinking about my own abandoned 100-Patch Quilt...

Cynthia Brunz Designs said...

Your layout is brilliant and inspiring. I love it! So glad you shared it with Oh Scrap!

Vicki in MN said...

You will have a very unique quilt when you are done, I am loving what I am seeing. So fun to see what others are creating with their scraps.

Quiltdivajulie said...

12,000 squares??? That's a lot!! Beautiful blocks you are making . . .

Linda @ kokaquilts said...

This is looking great! I'm keen to see what the 2dary pattern is once a few are joined up together!

Alycia~Quiltygirl said...

it is going to be amazing!

Susan said...

This is looking really great! Making things up as you go is freeing and fun!

Rachel said...

Lovely! I like the way you decided to set them and can't wait to see them come together!

Sew Much For Free Time said...

oooooh! Can't wait to see this finished! Beautiful!