Friday, June 7, 2013

testing, testing

Back March I had decided what pattern I was going to use for a 'me quilt' with my precious stash of Indie fabrics. Needless to say, despite my plans, I haven't started it yet. Besides the Crazy Spring of 2013 that I've just experienced, I have to say I've been putting it off because I'm feeling intimidated. It's my favorite fabric and a pretty complicated block - paper pieced even! Maybe I've been waiting for that elusive large chunk of time to appear so I can start. Regardless. Intimidated.

So I decided to test it. Sara requested paper pieced stars to add to her quilt-in-progress in the Bee Sew Modern bee this month. I perused her current blocks to check that no one has already made a Schoenrock Cross for her and decided that surely ONE block can't be that bad to make. Now that it's finished, I agree with myself. It wasn't really all that bad. Yay!


Sara requested a black background and a rainbow of colors. Yep, back to the scrap jars! I'm continually amazed at the things I can come up with out of those jars. I printed out four of the foundation paper piecing templates from Where the Orchids Grow, my original inspiration for this quilting adventure. After some cursing and ripping out of several seams I finished all the paper pieced sections. I may try using the freezer paper piecing method for my quilt -- I might go batty if I did a whole quilt using foundation paper piecing. 


The strips for the center cross were quick and easy, and now the whole rainbow is complete. 


The pattern is for 10 inch blocks, and I needed a 12.5 inch block for the bee. I added on borders in black to make up the difference; they are much wider than they need to be because my brain went on vacation, but she can trim it up when adding it to her collection. Better too big than too small. 


During the making I kept thinking to myself "Self, pick a simpler block!" but now that I've finished this one I'm pretty convinced the payoff is worth the effort. Am I crazy? Maybe. 


Check out what others are up to at Finish it up Friday

5 comments:

  1. New Follower here. Found you link at Crazy Mom's.

    I love this block! What a difference by adding the cross in the star. Your color choices are great!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Great job! It looks wonderful!!!
    Esther
    ipatchandquilt dot wordpress dot com
    esthersipatchandquilt at yahoo com

    ReplyDelete
  3. Great block! Love it with the black.

    ReplyDelete

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