Sewing Projects - A quilt in progress....

One day in January about three years ago I was off from work, stuck at home due to ice and snow, and since I had no baby yet and nothing else to do I proceeded to cut out rectangles to make a brick path quilt.  I had seen a picture on the internet or a blog or somewhere and thought, now that would be nice and fast and I wanted a new quilt for our bedroom.  Our comforter was getting scruffy and worn and I like a quilt a whole lot better than a comforter anyway.  There's nothing better than settling down under a pile of quilts on a winter night.  

I got all my rectangles cut out and proceeded to try and figure out how I was going to arrange them.  I wanted something scrappy and unplanned looking.  I laid out several variations and pretty soon it was supper time so put my pieces away and there they have sat -- for the last three years.

Oh I've pulled them out here and there and tried to find a pleasing arrangement, heck I even sewed two rows together, but away it went back into my fabric cabinet to be pushed aside again.

Last year and continuing into this year I said I wanted to sew through some or hopefully the better part of my stash and buy NO NEW FABRIC.  Anyone that sews knows this is a lie and somehow or another for every yard you use three more comes in and there you are.  But on January 1 when the weather was less than cooperative I said I'm going to do something with those quilt pieces so out they came again.  I turned this way and that way and nothing made me happy.  I said I know, I'll cut them in half making them smaller maybe the proportions are off because the blocks are too big.  Nope.

So I looked online some more and saw where some people were using white squares to break up the design a little and I thought ah ha!  That's what I need to do.  So off to WalMart I go and pick out two white print design fabrics and head off to the house.  I cut out some rectangles the same size as my original squares and still nada.  I was stumped.  I whined on Facebook.  I fixed supper.  I played with the tiny terrorist.  Put the terrorist to bed and played on Facebook a little more.

quilting hallelujah

At about 11:30 on a Friday night it came to me.  I narrowed my fabric selection to four, cut the white pieces into squares and finally, finally found something that worked!  Hallelujah!  I spent the rest of the weekend as time allowed pinning my pieces together and hopefully will finish up tonight.  I hope to start sewing tomorrow night and then we will see if all this is going to work.

Quilting and Cocktails - that should be the name of a book

I know there are patterns out there that will tell me exactly what size to cut and give recommendations on fabric and all that, but I prefer to work off the cuff.  It leads to a little frustration sometimes, but the results can't be beat.  Quilting is time consuming enough that if I'm going to spend all that time sewing and piecing I better be making something original that I'm going to love forever and ever amen. 

Hope you're all having a great day my lovelies!