Friday 28 April 2017

Patchwork as an organic thing

what do I mean by that? Well there are quilts with patterns.  Exact measurements, recommended materials and set yardage.  Some even come with cutting diagrams to get the most from the fabric allowance.

However, that is not always the way I do my patchwork.  Well to be honest the tops I make that way are the exception rather than the rule and I am trying to think when I have properly followed a pattern from a book.  

OK the hidden-star quilt,snail trail and maybe the sampler quilt sort of.  Others, well they may start with the basic block in a book perhaps modified to the fabric I have, or it might be the fabric, or the bits, or a measuring mistake that morphs it into something else.

I have just completed a patched top. I was given some pink material about 28" wide and quite long.  It reminded me that there were some fussy cut rose patches from the roses-for-helen-quilt.(which did a bit of organic growing too).  And there might be some other bits left from that quilt which added to the gifted pink might make something.  

It was whilst looking for the rose patches I reacquainted myself with the blue material in the previous post.

So patches located 2 with the roses in one direction and 6 the other. There was also some strips of the very dark shade from the binding on the previous quilt.

Little panels and strips , so the roses got a boarder. Four squares cut from left over light pink (reducing what was left of that to scrap status) and then some from the new pink and a top formed.  A bit skinny so wide borders (which may be reduced before the quilt is finished) added and the top is done.  Now I need to plan what to quilt in those big pink blocks.  Till then at least the roses have stopped nagging at the back of my head as something that needs doing something with.



So nagging silenced for the moment I can go back to figuring out what size triangles to cut, what width that will require the stripes to be cut, what size that is going to make the finished block / quilt and how to get the most out of the material I have for the blue and beige quilt.

And will any of it be ready for this years show....and what am I going to do with the dragon panel, still undecided, to quilt or not to quilt, that is the question, whether it is nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of regret that it is not all it might have been, or to take needle to fabric and wadding and end all speculation.  To fuss with it and perchance to make a mess of it....

It is obviously messing with my head....I could always make a second one to quilt but I am not so good at doing over.  

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