The Week that Was

Most of this week has been spent plodding along with my RSC yellow blocks, and making hourglass blocks for Tillies Lane, after completing the blanket stitch on my applique units.

This means my RSC blocks for this month are finished already!  And I've got 14 of 24 hourglass blocks finished.

We have Papa Bear..

Mama Bear...

And Baby Bear, with the rest of the family!

Carol's Quilts Mystery Month Two instructions came online... so I read through those, and started worrying about everything... as you do.

When in doubt, start with a small step.  On Saturday I made up the first section of the instructions, four blocks, and then just kept on going.

It's fun to play with the blocks as they come off the production line... this layout gives a nice diagonal stripe effect.

With alternate blocks half rotated.

All blocks with large square to the centre

All blocks with small green square to the centre

It will be interesting to see how these blocks end up working together.

And a bit of a close up showing the variety of fabrics.  I added a tartan style print to the dark mix... which worked well in the construction of this unit.

The second part of the monthly instructions was for the creation of some long pieced units.  I have been undecided about how scrappy to take this quilt.  I know that I don't have enough fabrics within each category to make it truly scrappy - more of a controlled placement of multiple fabrics.  I had pulled out some additional background fabrics, as I worried that the spot background might take over the subtle nature of the other fabrics.  Plus, big spots... not always a good thing.  But, it was a safe choice to keep the spots in all the background positions; being a mystery quilt makes the placement of multiple fabrics a bit of a gamble.   This months units meant that I had to make a decision - to go with just one background... or several...??

Multiple choice it is!  Units pieced but long strips still requiring sewing. It passes my "squint" test.  I guess I will just need to wait until the mystery pans out to see whether it really works or not.

I've added an old fashioned ledger type fabric...

And a fine grey stripe.

While I was at it, I added a small piece of brown spot into the dark fabrics... just because I could and I found it among my scraps.

Rock on next week, in which I will attempt to get back to my VQR blocks for Monika.  I have printed out the paper foundations, so at least the first step has been made!