I spent much of yesterday sewing - a lot of hours. Earlier last week I had washed and pressed - yes I am a totally dedicated prewasher but you don't have to be - my set of the
she can quilt blogger's bundle from Fabric Spark. When Daryl gave me the chance to pick this bundle, it took me a long time to decide on the bundle because I wanted to choose the fabrics with particular projects in mind and actually use them. Yesterday was my opportunity to get those projects started.
First I laid out the fabrics for another version of my new pattern, Consider. Then I redrew the pattern and checked all the measurements and cut according to the pattern, and it even worked.
Once I made the centre motif I laid it out to pick the outer borders. My plan had been to use that subway Gramercy print on the left. But, the truth is I don't like quilts that are that busy, and this pattern is again supposed to be a large geometric modern sort of motif inspired by Josef Albers, so some negative space seemed like what I needed.
So I pulled out some more fabrics that I have big enough pieces of and asked the instagrammers. No clear consensus arose and I did not like any of them much, so I decided to sleep on it. Right now, my last large piece of Kona Charcoal is in the dryer. I am pretty sure I will either use it or Kona Snow - predictable but both good as negative space.
So my plan for the rest of my bundle was to make another giant plus quilt. So I cut up the remaining bits of my bundle into 5" squares. I started laying them out on my design wall. When I realized that I did not have enough for lots of full pluses, I just made some with empty middles. I rearranged and sewed the vertical rows together. I pulled out the Kona snow and made squares and later strips to finish it off.
As I look at this quilt now, I realize if I had been paying more attention I would have moved those two similar blue pluses so they were not aligned in the same row. But maybe it's more random this way, and anyway she is sewn together so I am ok with that.
And before I went to bed, the quilt top was all done. I just love the simple sewing of this kind of quilt. A number of folks have asked, and I have promised before, so I will make it a priority to make a pattern for my approach to this quilt too. In the meantime, if you need one, google it or check on Craftsy as there are many others available already.
So I used up my entire set of 12 fat quarters in one long day of sewing. Today I hope to get some of the quilting done on these tops, we shall see. In the meantime, I used the random number generator and drew the winner of the bundle donated by
Fabric Spark to give away. The lucky winner is # 106, Rhiannon, who blogs at
Sew Punny. Thank you all for joining in the fun, and a big thank you to Daryl for such a lovely give away.
If you want your own bundle and did not win,
Fabric Spark has some for sale here.
Today I am off to quilt a little and to finish the first written version of the Consider pattern so that I can give my pattern testing volunteers a chance to try it. I have a Decipher Your Quilt post to write for Thursday and to take some photographs for. I want to work on my scrappy projects and maybe sort and tidy those scraps some more. I've already voted over at the Blogger's Quilt Festival, you should too. It's a good thing that I have an extra hour - we are off daylight savings time in Canada today.
Best,
Leanne
