Just Trying For Some Forward Momentum

Just trying to finish up the quilt top for the improv. quilt meetings. My colors are a little more blendy than most of the others in the class, but you know me, always trying to play with color. Sometimes it turns out wonderfully and others, not so much. This feels like a bit of both. Still on the fence about adding an applique centerpiece though. Some days I fiercely want to. Other days I just want to move on.

Starting to sew the rows together!

I left the project stacked up in the single strips for awhile. Just seemed like more effort than I wanted to expend when it came to cutting them all the same length. Then, once I made the time, it wasn't that big a deal. Isn't that usually the case? Thankfully I had a huge chunk of quiet time when it came to laying them out on the floor and figuring out where all the cuts needed to go. So much easier to do that part without distractions!

Too pretty to sew or maybe that's a good excuse...

As I will need the first {demo} quilt top ready to go for the next meeting, it was time to address the border situation. I had used every bit of the cut strips possible and in doing so, ended up with a quilt that was 1" wider than it was tall. Very weird proportions that were not to my taste at all. Yes, it could have been easily turned to the vertical presentation, but that's not what I wanted!

Always better with applique

So borders it will be. I cut and sewed narrow borders onto the sides and then decided to applique words onto the much wider bottom border. I have four or five applique projects prepped and ready to go and what do I do? Throw something right in the middle of it all and try for a rushed finish! In this pic, nothing is sewn down there yet, but I'm working on it. Word by word, letter by letter. The applique fabric used was that interesting light lavender mauve fabric that started the entire color palette. Looking pretty washed out in this picture but I can assure you that it looks way better than it might seem.

Starting to come together

Remember the new project? After playing around with the practice strips the other day, I came up with this idea for layout. Because the blocks only finish out at 9", 16 blocks make it way too small for an entire quilt. I took the remaining strips and cut all the really wide ones in half. Then I added another two fat quarters and a couple remnants of others. Still have to cut more cream strips, but the plan is to make a whole border surround with a longish strippy coin look. 

The not-very-exciting-looking strips

It's not the most 'wowza' quilt ever, but I'm actually really enjoying the work. More so than the improv. quilt meeting project at this point! I mean, who likes sewing the rows together? I think it's the open ended results, the already cut strips, the Gee-Bend vibe and now {moving forward}, maybe the medallion layout problem solving. It's been fun to see if I can make anything interesting out of these very 'blah' fabrics. The good thing is, I've been bemoaning for awhile the absolute lack of manly looking quilt tops in the drawers. Once in awhile I want to gift a quilt to a guy and it just seems so silly to give them a girly look quilt! So yeah. Win, win. Making lemonade out of lemons and all that.