Red and whilte

I had a great day yesterday although I think I'll refrain from sewing with the Monday girls for a while. I can home too darned inspired.  I saw one project by Maria and well, I went home and dug out some stuff and then I found some more stuff which resulted in a tin box landing on my head! A teeny bit tender this morning, but I'm OK!  So technically if I really scooted and since I have most of the components made for this project, I could even beat Maria to getting it finished! But I don't have time. I was looking for a second project that Claudette unearthed which I also have as a UFO, but I couldn't find that one - yet!  

However, I did get more work done and those photos are edited and you'll see them later this week. 

Today - it's all about my red and white quilt that I made for Quilts t the Creek. 

I don't know why, but I struggled with this.  I think I struggled for two reasons  - I wanted to use the fabric. Not just cut it up but find a way to really use the print on it. And second, I wanted to use only Northcott fabrics.  After seeing what some of the others did (and what I found in my UFO pile while searching last night), well, I could have done something else. But no matter - this is what the result is and it's done.  Move on!

My first thought was to do an eight pointed star. Actually what happened is that I had a preconceived notion in my head. I had seen this collection used as an eight pointed star in both the red and the black colorway.  I only had the red so I tried, but for some reason, I did like this????   This is NOT like the eight pointed star that I had seen. 

Eight pointed star

I thought I would try it on a red background but still didn't like it. Well, actually I liked it less. 

An eight pointed star on a red background

Hmmm - let's try something else. 

So I ended up with these blocks that I fussy cut and sewed back together. I really really like this, although it was very difficult to fussy cut this design as there was NO real element that was the start or end point. You just had to eyeball it and hope it matched up in the sewing. 

Quartered kaleidoscope

OK - what to put with this block?  I had this vision in my head of making some nine-patches.  I can fussy cut this one fabric for parts of it. 

Fabric to fussy cut for the nine patches

The scale of the piecing was totally different from my original plans and when I put the two blocks together. Well..................

Hmm - this doesn't look right at all

I was disappointed as the nine patches looked too clunky beside the more delicate feel of the kaleidoscope block.    ACK - there is NO time to regroup here.  

What if I try a red on white print for the alternative blocks?

Use red on white fabric???

I didn't like that either.  Instead, I took the same print that I fussy cut the nine-patch center from and I used that as the alternate blocks. I had to sash those pieces with a small strip of white to make them the same size as the nine-patches. 

This looks better

It was only after I got this up on the wall that I noticed that there was a definite line running through the corners of those nine patches. Not realizing this when I was sewing them together, I had to take some of them apart so I could get that diagonal line in the correct orientation. ACK!!!!!

The borders had to be fussy cut as well and not having any specific reference lines was a big issue. 

Fussy cutting the border with NO reference lines

However, it did get DONE and on time!

Here it is hanging at Quilts at the Creek on Day One. 

Hanging at Quilts at the Creek on Day One

It had quilt buddies on this day. On Day Two (don't forget that everything comes down at night and back up the next day!), it was hung off the railing of a building. 

On Day Two

Here's a better picture (taken in my studio), so you can see that diagonal line (in the fabric) in the corners of the nine patch. It only went one way, but that's OK - I at least, got them all going in the same direction. 

It's an Illusion

I did an OK job matching up the mitered corners - they're not perfect, but not bad considering that I basically had to eye ball cutting that fabric.

If you look close, there is one small odd ball thing that happened with the quilt. The only reason that I found it was when I was quilting it.  It's not a big deal and you may or may not find it, but it's there!  What surprises me is that it only happened once as I was totally unaware of the issue when I was piecing!

And what about those leftover blocks that I started with???  I think they would make an awesome quilt in this design.

One more quilt to make!

And just like that - there is another quilt to make!!!!

I'm happy with this - I may or may not put more quilting on it, but I have ONE more red/white quilt to add to my collection!

Well, that's partially how I design quilts. I just wing it for the most part and let the fabrics tell me what doesn't work.

Have a great day!!!

Ciao!