Current Work In Progress...

I took a class at Cotton Patch Quilt Shop in Lafayette last month, and have gotten all of the blocks made but, alas, am on hold for a while until I find the right color for the background. I was so proud of myself, in that I worked totally from my stash for this one - something I'm forced to do these days simply because I don't have any more room to store new fabric. Besides, I've come to a conclusion I should have reached years ago... to wit... exactly how much fabric do I need anyway??? I actually haven't bought any fabric since last year's PIQF (Pacific International Quilt Festival), at which time I went totally over the edge. I still haven't gotten all of my purchases put away from that escapade... and that was eight months ago, fercryingoutloud.

Anyway, this quilt is from a pattern by Laura Nownes, called 'Zig Zag Logs'. I almost never work from a pattern, but I flipped when I saw the sample quilt at the store, so I signed up for the class. I went to the first class, and got all of the basics down, then worked on my own after that. I dislike driving at night, and I dislike schlepping my sewing machine around even more, so I reverted to my one of my bad habits from college, and cut the second and third class meeting.

I chose a combination of yellows and pond-scum green batiks for my colors. I love both colors and was amazed to discover how much of each I had when I started pawing through my stash.

Step one is to sew 32 5-inch half square triangles...

Step 2 - Make 11 3-fabric strip sets using 11 different fabrics in colors that co-ordinate with the light half of the half-square triangle block.

Next, make 16 3-fabric strip sets using 16 different fabrics that co-ordinate with the dark half of the triangle block.

Now, take a deep breath, and take all of those beautiful strip sets that took hours and hours to make, and cut the yellow strips into 32 5" and 32 8" chunks, and cut the pond scum strips into 32 8" and 32 11" chunks. This is where the "measure twice, cut once" principle is very important... you can make one mistake with the yellows, but none/zero/nada/ziltch mistakes with the pond scums. If you screw up you have to make a new strip set!

Sew the chunks, log cabin style, around the 5" square - light chunks to the light sides of the square, and dark chunks to the dark sides. Make 32 blocks, and square them to 11".

Finally!! Assemble the blocks on the quilt wall. This piece is a complete crap-shoot color-wise... there's absolutely no way you're going to know how it will look until you get to this step! Fortunately, I really like it!

Unfortunately, this is where I'm stuck. I've auditioned at least 20 fabrics for the background, and haven't come up with anything I remotely like. I'm going to take some of the squares back to Cotton Patch, and see if I can find something. That means, I have to buy new fabric... phfffttt! I can pull from my stash for the borders and backing, so it'll be a 95% from-the-stash piece. I hope I can get this finished in the next week or so. I like it, but I'm getting tired of seeing it on my quilt wall while there are so many other quilts in my head that I'd rather see on the wall!