Monday, August 05, 2013

Rocky Road to Kansas, 5 Rows

Whew - so far, so good, but that's a LOTTA white!  I have one more row in process, making 30 blocks. Blocks are 12 inches finished.  Seems like a DARK, strong border is needed.  hmmmmm, perhaps more dark wedges paired with a medium blue???  Border ideas anyone?  Maybe there are enough wedges already?

My original plan was to keep the centers upper left dark.  But, somewhere along row 3, after closely concentrating on sewing those persnickety pointy corners, my disciplined layout was forgotten.  (Can't-See-the-Forest-for-the-Trees-Syndrome).  Some centers had dark in upper left, others had light in upper left - they did NOT look right.  My casualness said "OK, leave them that way."  Well -- every time I LOOKED at the quilt, it said "you messed up".  Eventually, I couldn't stand them laid wrong, and begrudgingly, unsewed the first 3 rows.  (Note to self, "follow your instinct." )

This is from Eleanor Burns/Quilt in a Day, and I love that she provided heavy card stock templates in her book.  That long white triangle along the side is one piece and sewn from pointy tip to the center, then pivoted, then down to the other point - no stopping.  My technique improved after 3-4 blocks, with the use of a tweezers at the pivot point, and I only had to fix a few.

7 comments:

  1. See my blog for a very similar pattern that I messed up but added an adequate border to!

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  2. I've been following Joan's progress on her quilt and at first glance I assumed the two of you were working from the same pattern.
    Oh, you people who so patiently sew up those string blocks! Why is my string project from MANY years ago still in the cupboard unfinished? : )

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  3. This is looking fine! Would you consider a red narrow inner border? And then a very dark wider outer border with it?

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  4. Wow! Looks great. Borders? Hum, nothing is coming to my mind right now. But I'm not sure I'd go really dark, maybe a medium. Ach, must be too early in am for me to think much!

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  5. Elaine, I made this quilt 3x. Love it but finally had to stop! My borders are 5"cut, and scrappy, using up chunks. One could probably use bricks effectively but that was before I started making Bonnie quilts.
    Annette

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  6. I like the little touches of red you added. I think Vic's idea of a red inner border would pick up on this nicely. After that I'm not sure ... you'll have to audition some ideas :)

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