4. LLoni's version of Yellow Brick Road
This pattern, available at Atkinson Designs, is a good project for beginners. The cutting instructions are easy to follow, and paired with the piecing instructions, show the logic in a way that can be understood.
In this photo the finished quilt is spread on a queen-size bed to show the piece work. The actual size is for a day-bed, allowing only the border to fit behind the mattress on the back, and reaching all the way to the floor on the open (front) side.
The first task after deciding on a finished size, was to pick out 18 different fat quarters to cut for the top. Sue had (has!) an extensive stash that would rival some stores I've visited. Even so, deciding on 18 different pieces took the better part of a day, pulling groups together, rejecting several that were either too similar or just plain clashed, and sometimes pulling the rejects back because it was darned hard to pick 18 I do understand it would have been easier if I had given myself a wider spectrum of the color wheel to work with. Trying to stay in the green sector was a limiting factor on creativity as well as on color choices..
Finally it was time for actual cutting!
Actually it's a two-stage process ---- labeled Steps A and B. For each fat quarter, the preparation and cutting instruction is the same at the start..
But then the fun begins! Sew two strips together, press the seam, then turn and cut into blocked strips that will be sewn to other blocked strips. Sounds easy, doesn't it? Well it is!
As long as I followed the instructions, step by step, it wasn't long before I was making strips into blocks.
Big strips into little strips. Fat Quarters, to Strips, to Blocks -- and finally Blocks to Rows The object is to place the blocks in an appealing order -- while keeping them random -- and placing them in a way that no two seams butt against each other, and no two blocks repeat the same color/pattern as the one next to it.
That part was not as easy as it sounded. I spent two days rearranging strips, turning a few upside down to reverse some seam locations, and actually took two strips back apart with the seam ripper so I could assemble them differently. Lucky for me Sue had a spot that was large enough to lay out all the strips and see them together before I started sewing them into the finished piece.
The object is to place the blocks in an appealing order -- while keeping them random -- and placing them in a way that no two seams butt against each other, and no two blocks repeat the same color/pattern as the one next to it.
I was awfully proud of myself when I finally got all those strips together into a finished quilt top. A little too soon, maybe, because if you look closely in the above photo (in the lower right corner of the quilt) you'll see that both a fabric and a seam actually do butt up against an identical neighbor in spite of my attempt to prevent it.
Sometimes I just have to live with my imperfections, or "Navajo Blessings" as the quilting ladies called them. They explained the story like this: The Navajo women believe that when your blanket is finally perfect you'll be called to heaven, so imperfections are actually "blessings" that allow you to stay in this world to try again. In that line of thought, imperfections that CAN be fixed, SHOULD be fixed, but those that can't are just blessings to give you time to make another one, not reason to give up.
Still, I left the whole project alone for more than a week before I tackled the next step. Chances are if Sue hadn't goaded me a bit, it would have sat for a month.
