small saga, part 1.

I will admit that I can be, at times, a little... obsessive? Especially if there is something that I am trying to avoid dealing with or a significant source of stress in my life. One way to look at this is that by procrastinating, I get a lot done (just not the things I "should" be doing). First, an update on the hexagons. I went shopping and got some green fabrics for the paths between flowers and cut a bunch of hexagons

Rotary cutters rock. Here is a close up of the prints

I adore the one in the front with little yellow and white flowers. Should have bought yards and yards of it. My plan is to mix up the path hexes and create a kind of mosaic around the rosettes. I won't get there for a while; I need about 80 flowers and so far I think I have completed 18. It is definitely a slow, savoring project.

But I've been stressed. And I've been checking quilt books out of the library. Rotary cutting quilt books. One of those books had a tip that went something like: before you cut into a new piece of fabric, cut a 2.5 inch strip off one end and set it aside. Pretty soon you'll have a stash of strips to make... and went on to describe some of the many things you can do with strips. Hey, I thought. I have a room full of cuts of fabric. What if I brought out some of the yardage I've been collecting over the past few years and took just a little bit off the end of each one? I always buy extra, so it wouldn't affect any planned project. Fun way to start a collection of fabric strips, while the rotary cutting mat is out.

I won't tell you how long the rotary cutter and mat stayed out. (two weeks? three?) Unfortunately, I did not take a picture of the pile of strips I cut. Impressive. At one point I think there were over 90. Yes, that's a lot of cutting and a lot of fabric. I did cut two strips from most pieces, but it's still a lot of fabric. Using basic strip piecing instructions, over the next few weeks I transformed strips of fabric into stacks of nine-patch squares like this

and this

and this

Each block has a pair which has the same fabrics, but with positions reversed. Every fabric is in more than one pair of blocks, but there are no pairs with exactly the same combination of prints. Kind of a nice mathematical puzzle, if you have time to figure it out. I ended up with 111 blocks--should have been 112, but one set I cut to the wrong size at some stage so it turned out wrong. That's ok, because 112 is an awkward number to set together. The blocks are 6 inches square, and 10x11 seemed it might make a good size. Then came the fun of laying it out on the floor...

The little floating squares between each block were leftovers from the cutting, I decided to use them to expand the quilt a little bit and add sashing.

Staying true to the scrap nature of this quilt, I used a length of muslin from my bolt for the sashing. (Must replace the bolt soon. Might be only 5 yards or so left. Bolts of muslin are very handy to have around). The sashing used up a lot of yardage--almost 3 yards! Good thing to know.

Comments

[June]

Hi Carrie,

I saw a post on another blog that made me think of you -
http://techknitting.blogspot.com/2007/05/quicktip-knots-can-be-your-friends.html

Hope you are doing well. Drop me a line if you have a chance. :)

[grumperina]

What a great idea! Somehow I think, at the end, the colors will be all over the place and not suitable to be neighbors... yet you seem to have made it work!