Decisions, Decisions

I got busy and put the borders on my scrap squares quilt. The green was the perfect stop border and the light blue made the perfect frame. I love having a huge stash so that there's always something to find in the border department. Though I had to ask Mereth for her piece of the blue, because I couldn't find mine. I know I haven't used it all, as it was a big bargain piece, but I've misfiled it somewhere. All I found were some strips cut for the blue scrap quilts. I need to sort out the stash so I can actually find things again.

In the sewing room I have been happily sewing up these blocks.

I can't find a name for them in EQ8. I will have to allocate a name for them so I can label the project box. I absolutely love piecing these, they're like a checkerboard, but with extra triangles. It makes me happy to lay out another one and methodically piece it together. So much so that I have 27 blocks, and I'm not sick of them yet, so I've made a whole heap more kitted blocks. I will need to consult EQ8 for a setting, because I definitely will not be joining them edge to edge. That would be a pressing nightmare with all those seams meeting.

I need my design board, but it's still full of the Fancy 4-Patch blocks. I keep telling myself to sew them together and be done with it, but I have thoughts about that. I know I want to keep it and quilt it myself, but the thought of all that cream is putting me off. Do I want a mainly cream quilt that will get grubby? What an annoyingly sensible question. How will I quilt it?  I would like to use a Baptist Fan pattern, but cream thread might look awful on the print fabric. I should just do whatever I want to. But still I hesitate. Should I substitute darker alternate squares like Tazzie's quilt?

While sewing up my checkerboard blocks, in my happy place, I spied the leftover HSTs from the Fancy 4-Patch. Hmmm. What if I made a little practice piece, to see what the quilting would actually look like?

When I finished the block I was working on I started putting together little 4-patches, and found the leftover cream fabric, and voila! 

A little practice piece, ready for quilting. When quilting all-over patterns on customer quilts I've often been surprised to see that their chosen cream or white thread doesn't look garish or out of place. Maybe it will be fine on my 1800s repro fabrics.  We'll see. I now have a cute little 18" quiltlet, and no more leftovers.