Monday, February 17, 2020

Revising, Removing, Replacing, Rearranging...

... and a lot of seam ripping...


This is how the Color Spoke project looked on the wall on Feb. 11. It definitely needs some work. There are blocks I don't like, and some units I want to move, and just a lot of rearranging needed.

I've been moving elements around and adding sashing strips. This unit will be turned so the stripes run vertical.

All of the horizontal sashing strips are made of black and white stripes. The stripes will line up from top to bottom on the quilt.

I've been obsessed with this project and spending a lot of time on it. Just when I think I have a section laid out where I want it and I sew the parts together, then I look at it again and decide to change it and end up unsewing those parts. My seam ripper has been getting quite the workout.

What I've learned so far is that small fussy filler blocks aren't working. I made a lot of 3" diamond-in-a-square blocks thinking I'd need them for fillers as I puzzle this together, but they're too busy and their scale is too small.

Here's where I left it on Friday. The Drunkards Path and Scrappy Trips blocks have been switched and the modified Have Faith block has been replaced by a new block that mirrors the diagonal of the Scrappy Trips block. The entire lower half here still needs a lot of work.

I like where this is going. The original challenge was to choose one spoke of the color wheel and use only that hue plus neutrals in the blocks each month. I chose yellow green because I had some of these fabrics in my stash and they worked, but I ended up buying more. Although the yellow green blocks worked for the BOM challenge and they work okay here, a brighter color might have been visually more powerful against the black and white stripes in this concept.

(These dull indoor photos don't help the color any!)

This project is calling me. I need to get off the computer and back to it in the sewing room.


Link ups:
Small Quilts and Doll Quilts
Love Laugh Quilt

8 comments:

  1. Keeping the stripes lined up ala Gypsy wife! I like the neutralness of your green.

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  2. Love those black and white stripes against the yellow green. Totally understand how this kind of a challenge can take over the brain cells.

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  3. I really liked the first photo! Trying to line up all of the strips sounds like a recipe for disaster. Best of luck getting everything situated!

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  4. I like the black and white stripes too! It’s looking great! I think this challenge would have been too much for me!!!

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  5. I know what it feels like to be a bit obsessed by a project like this! Something about laying out the puzzle pieces is really compelling. I'm sure you'll find something to do with the smaller filler blocks, too. Maybe a strip of them across the back?

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  6. Very pretty, Jan! I love how your black and white sashing jazzes up the soothing sage green and white blocks. For those 3" diamond in a square blocks, what would happen if you sewed them together 2x2 to create 6" blocks, or 3x3 to create 9" blocks? Perhaps a few of them could be scattered throughout the quilt top that way. If not, you could stitch them together into rows that you could piece into the backing fabric. I hate it when time is spent sewing lovely little blocks that have to be abandoned instead of making it into a quilt! I feel sorry for them. There ought to be a charity called "Save the Orphan Blocks!"

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  7. Oh I like how it is coming together! you have quite the placement eye!

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  8. I've been catching up and had the advantage of seeing the finished quilt before I saw these earlier attempts at layout. I'm absolutely amazed at how this "jumble" got ruthlessly pared down to your gorgeous end result. And, for the record, I'm totally in love with your color scheme. Bright colors are great and I use them often but these neutral schemes are exceptional and strikingly beautiful.

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