Where's your sash, Miss America?

Definitely progress. It lacks horizontal sashing, and the final border, but this is very nearly a finished quilt top:

The rows are assembled with their appropriate 2' sashing, but need to be joined together with more sashing. This, I think, can wait for tomorrow night. THEN I'll look at the remaining midnight blue fabric and figure out how much border I can give this quilt. Post about this photo: domesticat.net/2010/01/wheres-your-sash-miss-americaWhere's your sash, Miss America?
 by domesticat.
['Where's your sash, Miss America?']

I learned some things along the way. If I'm going to do this again, I need to be really careful about pieces bowing inward in the middle. I also need to make my last stripe fairly substantial, so that I don't trim most of it away when cutting it down to the finished size.

Offset squares are good. Uneven is good. Some of the squares weren't quite big enough, and I had two choices; add another round, which would then get trimmed down, or use extra background fabric and end up with deliberately mismatched square sizes. I opted for the latter. I liked the thought of it being a little homey and uneven.

Quilts != architecture. Anyone who cries over a quarter-inch can go make their own damn quilt.

I never could identify the fabric, and given that it was printed eight years ago, I think it's unlikely I'll find more. I decided to not use it in bits and pieces, but to instead cut six chunks of it. It'll never see better use than in this design. I might as well showcase it. Post about this photo: domesticat.net/2010/01/wheres-your-sash-miss-americaOut in a blaze of glory
 by domesticat.
['Out in a blaze of glory']

I decided to do something unusual. I've been parceling out this Japanese fabric in drips and drops, having never been able to identify it or get more. I smoothed it out on the table last week and thought, No. This isn't the right way to do it. Instead of cutting the rest into single-panel pieces, I opted to cut out a full repeat and use that for the basis of six squares. Better that the fabric was visible as it really was. It'll never see a better use.

I'll miss this one when it goes; it's monochromatic without being boring, and it's an entire quilt top full of my favorite color.

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quilts

Comments

On , Tialessa said...

Love love love love love!

Every quilt I see is better! Looking good, Amy!

On , domesticat said...

I'm gonna be sorry to see this one go. It was all my favorite colors rolled up into one quilt. If you look for the purple / blue / green peacocky batik, you'll see one of my all-time favorite fabrics. I knew about it from equilter but had never seen it in person. When Jacob and I were walking around the quilting shop in White Bear Lake, MN, I went right to it. I told him I knew who had made it, even without checking the bolt.

I cut it very wide - I couldn't bear to leave it small. If you look at the top photo, you'll see the batik in the top right square and the far left square.

This was definitely a snack quilt: small portions done over a period of time. I liked being able to improv pieces as I went, and for that reason alone I'll definitely do this pattern again. It's a good warmup for my next quilt, which has a lot of meticulous, exact piecing requirements and an extremely subtle / limited color palette.

I'm gonna cuss that quilt. I just know it.