Thursday, November 26, 2009

These dreary blocks are more Broken Dishes, made with the cast-off triangles from the bindings that I make. I have no idea why I started doing this, probably from a misguided sense of economy, and I have no idea why I keep doing it. Most binding fabrics aren't particularly wonderful, so the combinations in the blocks are not anything I would normally choose. I guess I'm making it so that one day, when it's a quilt, I can show it to people and say 'Each block is the leftovers of bindings from two quilts, so there's 60 (or 80 or whatever) quilts represented.' And people will stare sideways at it and say 'Oh how interesting' and leave me to enjoy my ugly quilt.

But I won't stop making the blocks either; maybe I"ll just use nicer fabrics in my bindings.

It's been one of those non-stop weeks, full of outside appointments that play havoc with blogging, but I think we're done with all that now, and it's going to be workroom time from now on. We have Christmas quilt deadlines to meet for customers, so there will be a few marathon sessions to get as much done as soon as possible. I'm looking forward to it, especially as the weather is being so beautifully cool; it makes you want to get busy working when the conditions are so pleasant.

Last week I went through my grey fabric and culled 13.5 metres of stuff I didn't love. I have two grey quilts to make backings for, so I sliced up this pile, and another one the same size, into 10.5"squares for a Bonnie Backing. (See this page for Bonnie's Scrap User's System and her thoughts on backings, including a list of links to photos of pieced backs)Mereth and I have different attitudes to pieced backs. She doesn't see the sense in cutting lengths into smaller pieces, whereas I like the regularity of the squares. It's more piecing and more seams, but I love how it looks. So we agree to differ.

Now I just need a few spare moments to sew these together, and I will have an interesting back for my Grey Havens quilt. I needed more than 90 squares, so it certainly used a lot of fabric; I'm down to one drawer of greys and blacks, and I'm very happy about that. And I won't be buying more to replace them.

4 comments:

  1. I really like the Broken Dishes quilt, actually. The pieces are so small it doesn't really matter what fabrics you use.

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  2. Wow - I don't think your blocks are dreary at all - they look wonderful to me. I say, press on! Make some more of these great blocks! Can't wait to see your finished quilt.

    Dixie

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  3. I think thy are looking great. i admire your tenacity in using up scraps.

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  4. Red sashing? I just had a guilty twinge- I throw those triangle right away!

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