Closer to a FInish

I got a bee in my bonnet about finishing This And That, and sewed steadily on the blocks, sure that I would have units left over. Imagine my horror then, to find I actually need another 5 units. It felt like making those 10 extra HSTs would take forever and I would never get it done. 

Once I put the histrionics to one side it actually took less than half an hour, and I could then sew them into the required blocks and get them on the design wall.

It took a whole evening to sew the blocks into a top. There was much nesting of seams and pinning, but I really enjoyed it.

Because the unit and then the block seams were twirled, every seam nested perfectly, and it was a pleasure to pin and sew. Even if one piece was a little long or short, I could contain that within a 2" area, so the whole thing is flat as a tack. It was very satisfying. As far as choosing borders for it, that wasn't so pleasant; it was a struggle to find something acceptable, but I won that little battle after a few hours.

What have I been doing since then? Sewing on this bright project. I had a mild memory problem calling it Arkansas Traveller, which of course is an applique sampler quilt from the 1800s.  It's actually an Arkansas Crossroads, which I suddenly remembered while I was cooking dinner one night. It's very strange how minds work sometimes.

This will only be a single bed quilt, because I just want to use the leftovers from those bright strips; I don't want to cut a whole heap for this and then have to plan another quilt to use up the excess. What is on the design wall is half of what I need; I think another few nights will see this done and the box of squares emptied out.

I've been playing with another scrap design from Americana Quilting.  I have a box of blue and green scraps from a Bargello quilt and a Many Trips Around The World that I made probably a decade ago.

I knew I had more, and then Mereth unearthed another box of them from the scrap containers.

 Yep, that's a lot. They've been cluttering up the place since 2015, and I was close to putting them all in the bin, but I saw this video first. 

I made sample blocks, and I think it will be a wonderful way to get rid of these entirely. The blocks are a lot of fun to make, and I'm keen to get sewing on them.  I love how the internet can supply all these inspirations that are a solution at last to long term scrap problems. But it would have been a lot quicker to bin the lot of them......