Goldilocks rides again

One morning this week I got up early and decided to start cutting out a triple Irish Chain that I'd been wanting to do for ages.  It was all in red, blue and white, with a touch of grey and pink; wonderful colours, against a green background.

I'd worked out a cutting plan, knew roughly how many blocks I wanted to make, so I dragged out material and cut up a mountain of strips.  It was great fun.  I even made a few test nine-patches, and that's when it occurred to me that I had intended to make it with 2" strips, not 1.5" ones. Doh! The blocks were just too tiny for the prints I wanted to use.

The material hadn't been put away yet, so I cut out a few 2"strips, and made a nine-patch from them, and thought, 'You know, that looks a little bit Big to me'. 

 So I did the only sensible thing and made a block out of 1.75" strips.  And they were juuuust right.  So now I have enough wrong sized strips to make a whole other project, but that's OK.  I'm sure I'll make quite a few red, white and blue quilts, it's a lovely colour scheme.

I cut madly for a couple of days, and sewed four complete blocks. just to make sure I was happy. 

I AM happy. Isn't it amazing what that extra quarter inch per square does?  The 1" squares look so cramped and dark, and the 1.25" ones seem a lot happier and brighter. 

Then it occurred to me that I wasn't supposed to start anything new, until I'd finished two old projects.  Failed big time there.  So I went through the drawers of almost finished tops, and found two that just needed borders.

This Jacks On Six only needed a border on one side, so I cut the needed strips and joined them and now they are ready to sew on. 

This pretty apricot, blue and rust top stalled at the border stage too.   It took about an hour to choose the fabrics for two borders ; I've cut and sew them into strips and I'll add them later today.  So now I don't have to feel bad about starting that Irish Chain quilt.