Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Inspiration!!! And now a road-block :0(

The 2nd step (actually 3rd) of Life's a Stitch's Seven Shirts & Seven Steps was posted. I printed it off and headed downstairs all set on tackling it.......

but......I first needed to unpack everything (including the sewing machine) from last night's class. In the process, I set the 12 Diamond Strings blocks on the ironing board for the time-being. Just as I was getting ready to dive into the SS&SS, I had a moment of "ah-ha!," because in the back of my mind was what I was ultimately going to do with the DS blocks.......

For those of you who have been around my blog for awhile, you may remember these gems???? These are from May (2008); 10 of them have been completed. So.....I played........

I pulled some mauve/pink fabric; cut and sewed some sashing. I pulled a cute flowery (very GRANDMA-ish) black fabric; cut and sewed some corner-stones.......and 9 of my Scrappy Baskets are now a quilt center.....

And after sewing up 4 more complete Diamond String blocks..........

I HIT A ROAD BLOCK! I've been staring at the layout.....I've been sketching and drawing on paper.....and I just am at a loss on how to continue. This is why: the Basket blocks are 8.5" (8" finished).......BUT the Diamond strings are 9" (8.5" finished!).

If I continue with the same sashing fabric, the "lines" won't line up due to the uneven size of the outer blocks vs. the inner. So....maybe a different sashing fabric? Maybe the black that I used as the corners in the center section?

Do I sacrifice nice corners in the Diamond blocks and simply trim them down to 8.5" (8" finished)??? JUST to make it piece nicely?? (I think that's what I'm leaning towards......)

So...I needed to take a break anyway...I figured I'd post to see if anyone had any advice.

Do you?

In the meantime, I'm back off downstairs to actually work on the SS&SS quilt.......
Happy Tuesday!

5 comments:

Chris Daly said...

do you have more of the neutral background color? I'm thinking add a little strip of neutral sashing between the diamond string blocks so that you can avoid cutting off the diamond tips. It looks so nice in the layout you have there.

Amanda said...

Oh don't cut off your points, that would really be a shame. I'd go for a completely different colour sashing (maybe the black) between your diamond blocks, so that they look intentionally separate from the basket blocks.

That Christine said...

I'm with Amanda. I see an inner frame around the baskets section. That will make it a quilt within a quilt. It looks good.

Cornfield Quilter said...

I also think a small border of a dark color would really set it off! You are smart to take a break and think about the next step. Whatever you come up with I know it will be perfect! Have a great Wednesday :D

scraphappy said...

Please don't cut off your points. If you just switch colors and reduce the size for the sashing of the border blocks it will look different enough that people will be sure you did it on purpose. Good job of pasting together two potential UFO's and turning them into almost a quilt. What a great way to cross two things off the list at the same time.