One Little Step At a Time

Back to work on the pineapple blocks. It's been almost a year since they were set aside, but you have to know they were never forgotten. I've played with all kinds of layout ideas and background colors since, dragging them out for a brief consultation and then putting them away in frustration once again.

The Pineapple Quilt

Finally, this fall, I settled into the idea of vertical rows {how boring!} in a background of a light, almost coral pink fabric. All the various yellow and gold fabrics used were bound and determined to squabble, and nothing seemed to bring peace but that particular pink. I didn't have quite enough yardage, but found a couple small pieces of other prints that blended well enough that most people will never notice the difference.

Then came the decisions for the connecting strips that I had determined were necessary. Blue was my first choice, but no....., it had to be yellow. Oh, but what color yellow? And round and round we went. Eventually I took a very muted gold striped fabric and paired it with a bright, spunky yellow in an effort to create balance throughout the quilt. Too much yellow? There is a green-blue fabric lurking in my stash that might, possibly, fingers crossed!, pull everything together as the next border.

Prep work

In my minds eye, the quilt needed connecting strips filled with busy applique work. Try as I might though, in all my rough drawings, nothing would satisfy. So here we be, at the last phase of stitching down some very simple stacked {but slightly wonky} diamond shaped pieces of color. When those 6 diamonds are stitched down, then I will sew the connecting strips on and move on to the question of how to finish off the quilt. At this point it is still just a few inches longer than than it is wide. That helps as I often struggle more with square quilts.

Just needs a little more stitching

As the applique work has stacked up around here, I've tried to be diligent about finishing one set of applique pieces before moving on to the next in line. These are all of the 12 Dried Flower blocks now, 72 leaves later! Funny how it looks so easy, but the time it takes... Wowsers. Sometimes I think I must be the dreamiest dreamer of all. Oh, it's only a few leaves and how cute will that be?

All the flowers on the wall

But it's always worthwhile as anyone who loves applique detail will attest to. Now I'm starting to get a bit of anxiety about how to put these odd shaped {8"x20"} blocks together without totally ruining the look that I 'see' in my head. I know that it often looks ridiculously easy around here, but yeah, about that... Behind the scenes there are definitely moments. Aghhh!!! What was I thinking!!

You know exactly what I'm talking about, because it has to happen to others. Occasionally I have even caught some of you slipping up and admitting to being human as well--creativity button malfunctioning for the day/week and all that. And thank you for your honesty. Sincerely, we all need reassurance that we are not alone in the land of sporadic, but acute, brain dead fog.

Anyway, for right now I'm seriously considering setting the blocks in three rows of four and connecting them with a coin type strip of lighter greens and cream fabric. So often it just boils down to making a decision {any decision!} and moving determinedly forward. Allowing ourselves to be paralyzed by hesitation and doubt never truly wins the day.

Auditioning some fabrics for connecting strips

And of course there will probably be more applique in this quilt. I can't seem to help myself at times. Plus, it just seems to be demanding it, in a foot stomping sort of way. Goodness, who knew some spindly flowers stalks could potentially be so bossy?