Why oh why do I make my layouts so complicated? After the marathon of my 4th Of July quilt, I swore I would never do it again.
Well, now I am deep into it with my #100days100blocks2021 quilt. My first layout was nice and straightforward. I was going to sash it in purple with the blocks and sashing in the lower right corner in lime green. That is until I realized my blocks were finishing at 13” x 8”. That meant when they stacked, the stagger was not the lovely 45 degree I had envisioned
So it was back to the drawing board. Literally, when I made my sashing video for my #100days100block2018, I made a graphic that showed you that not all sashing had to be the same colour. I remember thinking, I’d like to try that…perhaps this was the quilt to try it on.
But again it’s not as straightforward as I initially thought. My blocks are made of a 4” x 8” block, a one-inch strip and then an 8” x 8” block. Some are sewn left to right and some are right to left. And many of my blocks are directional.
So laying them out has been a multi-week challenge as I sort, then re-sort ad nauseum, trying to find the “perfect” layout. I am thankful for my new design wall which has given me the space I need to see them all at once and keep them in place as my brain percolates the various arrangements. I also find that taking pictures is very helpful. There is something about seeing the design in two dimensions instead of three that gives me clarity.
So I have now committed to my design and my rows are now all sewn together. Now I am adding the rows between sashing it’s making me second guess some of my choices.
Unfortunately, I did more than my fair share of ripping and rearranging as I saw the impact of the sashing strips on the design.
People often ask me how I come up with my video ideas. For the sake of my sanity, I am always trying to pull from the quilt at hand. As I was squaring up my blocks and some of them were small, I thought that you might want to know more about how I dealt with them. And as I am assembling the blocks and I am pulling my favourite tools out to help me, I realized that they don't put these tips and tips in a book. So I pulled my 10 favourites out and made a video about it. And I think I might have a couple more before the binding gets on.
For now, this quilt top has finally been ticked off the to-do list and it’s on to this year’s #100days100block2022 quilt.