Working On the Foundation of a Quilt

I had finally dug out my backup sewing machine late last week and was making a bit of progress on re-familiarizing myself with the way it operates. Then I got one of those phone calls that turns everything upside down and inside out. Yeah, hello and goodbye to the weekend plans of completely immersing myself in quilting room!

Trying to see what I have to work with!

Oh well. That's just the way things go occasionally. I did manage to pick the loose thread and lint off of the four quilts I entered into a quilt show about an hour from here. That's the same show my fire quilt ended up at two years ago--a kinda intimidating show for me honestly, but they seem friendly and the quilts are definitely displayed very well. I decided it was time to quit being a coward, maybe stretch my wings a little bit once again. Always interesting illuminating to see our quilts hanging alongside other peoples efforts right?

So many options!

So yesterday saw me back in the quilting room and for some reason I was ready to play with the words on a quilt idea suggested over at Anne's. I'm running a little late with this challenge but have been thinking about it a lot. It needs to be something that has meaning to me and also be a bit challenging or I'm gonna run out of steam fast. That's just how I roll.

Since I do a lot of applique work around here, it feels like a good time to dive into my 'Word Play Quilts' book by Tonya Ricucci. It's been gathering dust for a long time now. First I had to rough out the basic foundation and idea of the quilt, which I quickly did by grabbing the leftover rising sun blocks. Love, love, love using up the orphan blocks! And no, it wasn't a totally impulsive decision. Like I said, I've been pondering different avenues for this particular idea for weeks now!

Then I played around with how to set them together and finally decided on a simple every-other sort of block in complementary colors. Since the intent is to ultimately add words onto the quilt, I knew there needed to be calmer areas in addition to the attention grabbing rising sun blocks.

The biggest trick was how to design these new blocks in order to have them end up at 17 1/2" square. Oh yeah. Because I had trimmed those big star blocks down to an oddball size thinking it wouldn't matter....  That math almost broke me, but last night finally saw me with some real progress up on the wall. The colors are making me very, very happy and for this moment, I'm thinking, words? Forget about the words! hehe  But no, it'll will be a fun quilt {if and} when it all comes together. Basically I need to decide if the quilt will be medallion style with words surrounding the 9 centerpiece blocks or if they will be rows of words breaking up each 3-block row, or even if it will just be a big puzzle. There are lots of ideas being considered, but nothing will be set in stone until the words start getting finished. At that point they will be auditioned with the rest of the pieces and well, you get the idea. That's when the real fun starts!

Because quilts are meant to be used....

Had to laugh as I wandered through my sons bedroom to get to the quilt room over in the corner. Apparently he threw off the blanket when he came in late last night {from a long weekend in Oregon with his older brother} and just curled up in his favorite quilt, never even attempting to get between the sheets. Gotta love these kids who grow up living with quilts. They sure do know how to use them!