Sidetracked again

 A couple weeks ago Mereth and I were both admiring a quilt on Jo's Country Junction blog. It was made by her daughter Kelli, from a pattern from Bonnie Hunter's Addicted To Scraps book. I'd been thinking of making that quilt for years, ever since I bought the book, but somehow it never seemed the right time to start it.  But Mereth said. 'I'm inclined to kit the whole thing, to get rid of my scraps'. And that was all it took to send us off the path and down the rabbit hole.

I'd been gloating to myself that my cutting table were clear, and the scraps under control, and suddenly none of that is true. I have 2 drawers of 2" strips, and the contents of both are strewn over the cutting tables, with stray pieces littering the mats.  I have piles of pieces stacked waiting to go into baggies, piles waiting for me to find another square to make enough for a whole block,piles of strips that are too small to get a whole block out of.  It's chaos again.

In one drawer was a pile of strips that I'd cut triangles from, at least 6 years ago. 

I took the time to square up the ends by cutting a triangle with the Easy Angle ruler. It took a while, but now I have a stack of HSTs for some future scrap project, 

and the strips were ready to cut into squares for the Carolina Chain. Why I couldn't have done that all those years ago I'll never know.

I don't want a quilt as big as the one in the book, so I did a quick mock up in EQ8. This is 75" x 85", 120 light blocks and 99 dark ones. 

I have 110 blocks kitted, and 52 made and on the design wall.  It's more than half kitted, which is encouraging. 

It's a fun block to make, so quick and easy. I'm really trying not to make the blocks as I go along, I want to have a box of them waiting on the shelf while I finish the things I'm working on now.  And I want to empty my scrap drawers (as if that's even possible).

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A finish

The floor under my sewing desk was covered in bits of thread and clippings of fabric, so I took a moment to vacuum it all up.  There, lovely and clean, for a little while at least.

It had to be clean because I was putting borders on this big quilt, and I didn't want it covered in rubbish every time it dipped down and touched the floor.

I really don't like wrestling with the whole top when I'm attaching borders, and I let that put me off finishing tops.  Having a clear desk and a clean floor makes it less of a chore.  Oddly enough, going slow also makes it more fun; if I'm trying to speed through then I just get cranky that it's taking so long. So yes, it took most of the evening, but I enjoyed it.

The top is called Autumn Sisters and was supposed to use up some rust, brown and red scraps, but I always get drawn back to my favourite colours; blue, green and brown.

These are my favourite blocks, and it would be lovely to make a whole quilt in these combinations,but not right now. I have more than enough projects already started, so this idea can go in the Maybe One Day folder.

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