Cutting the New Quilt

    Well, I got up a bit early this morning (early for me anyway). The plan was to go feed my friends' cats (I am cat sitting this weekend), and go sit on another friends porch and sip tea while a large group of tandem cyclists ride through our town. Just as I was about to leave, the sky opened up. Darn! So I sat down to write this post. Then the rain stopped, so I saved the draft and went. Then it rained again. No cyclists, but we had a nice time chatting, eating pastry, and sipping our coffee/tea on the porch while it rained and rained. Finally, we gave up; and went our separate ways to get on with our day. Now it looks like the sun is coming out! Go figure.

     I am trying a larger font for this blog post. I usually think the font on the blog is tiny, even though the size I use is called "normal". When I switch the size to large, it looks enormous while I am typing the post. So, I usually change it back to normal; but, it looks very different published than it does while you are typing.

     I have started on the custom quilt order that I mentioned last time. On Friday, my friend Eleanor came over, and we had our first sewing day together in months. She made several sets of beautiful pillow cases. I wish I had been thinking about blogging when she was here, and I would have taken photos of them for you. I worked on making a sample block for the quilt order. I thought I knew the size pieces to cut, but I wanted to sew 1 block together just to make sure I had the measurements correct. Then I cut out all of the red star centers, and all of the red star points.

     Last night, I worked on my blues, and I hope to finish the greens, and get to the neutral backgrounds today.

     I also ran out to Sweet Home Quilt Company to pick up some additional fabrics. This quilt used civil war and similar older looking fabrics, and Sweet Home is my "go to" place for civil war prints. I did not limit myself to using "official civil war reproduction" fabrics; but, added in other fabrics that I thought would coordinated well in the mix. I still have many of the fabrics I used in the original quilt, but I have run out of many. My purple collection is the worst. But, I could use a few more browns, and greens too. What better time to boost the stash a bit, than when I actually have an order. Good excuse-right? This is what I came home with.

     I'm not sure about using that bright coral on he top, but I really like it. I know I will use it for something. I may as well make a block or 2 with it. If it turns out to be too bright, I don't have to use them in this quilt. I love this about quilting. As a weaver, it is much much more difficult to work this way. In weaving, you have to make decisions on where things will go based on seeing only a foot at a time. Sometimes, you can add or delete a small amount when you are finished, but it is much more difficult. Things always look so different on the loom than they will when they reach their end use.  

 
     When I saw that coral fabric on the bolt, I thought of my customer saying that she wanted this quilt to be vibrant and varied like to original quilt. Most quilters would not have thought of that quilt as vibrant, but it is all relative, and it is a bit more lively than some other quilts in that genre. I think this because it is scrappy, instead of just coming from a single line of fabric.

     I only found 2 purples. Purples always seem to be the hardest to find. I want to add to my purples for another quilt that I have in the back of my mind too. I have 2 more quilt shops I want to check out this week, but neither are open in Sundays, so I will have to wait until next week. Patrick's carries a lot of "Kansas Troubles" fabrics, and A Scarlet Thread has a good selection of subdued colors. With it raining off and on (I was wrong about the sun earlier), today will be a great day for more cutting.

     So, it's off to the cutting board with me! Hope your Sunday is peaceful, and you get to do something you love. Thanks for stopping by!