Work in Progress

Do your quilt projects end up the way you planned them? Mine seldom do!  I enjoy the design process about as much as any other part of quilt-making.  

I started my latest quilt project with a pack of a bunch of Kaffe Fassett 6" in squares, all colors and patterns.  Yummy, gorgeous fabrics!  I planned to use them in a quick throw-size quilt to comfort a friend who has suffered the loss of her husband.

As much as I love these fabrics, I couldn't figure out what to do with them.  So - off to one of my favorite local quilt shops (The Quilt Merchant in Winfield). 

I was trying to create some kind of color scheme out of these varied fabric squares.  I bought a bunch of the glorious Kaffe print, and several other fabrics to add in for...I didn't know yet.  Would I make star blocks?  Square in a square?  Hard to say.

But when I got the fabrics home, and started throwing the fabrics on the wall, the fabrics told me to tone it down.  Too much color variety for a calming, comforting quilt.  So - I pulled out only the blue and purple print squares, and went to my stash to find more.  Plus, I added in the three newly-purchased fabrics on the right side above, and the Kaffe print, too.  I cut them all into more 6" squares, and settled on a streak of lightning set.  Sometimes simple is best.

I'm sewing the squares together into a web, adding one vertical row at a time.  First, I designed the quilt on the design wall (forgot to take a photo), and then took down all the rows, carefully labelling each row.  It's risky to leave a whole wall full of squares on the design wall - sometimes you come back the next day and half of them are on the floor!

I got half of the squares sewn together in one direction.  I will add the other half of the squares tomorrow, then press, and sew the crosswise seams.