Hourglass Ticker

My Texas Star Ticker in the right sidebar has proven to be very motivating for me, so I've decided to add another one for my Hourglass quilt. Each hourglass unit will finish to 3" square, and I've decided to join them 16 at a time into 12" finished blocks. Here's my first one:

The pattern calls for the 3" units to be joined in long strips, and then the strips all sewn together. I think I will prefer to minimize the number of long seams I sew, so this is my plan instead. There will be 56 of the 12" blocks, and 896 of the 3" hourglass units.

I usually sew the hourglasses in batches of 32, so hopefully things will move along well now that I've recommitted to this project. Today I managed to sew one batch and one block without too much trouble, despite the summer heat. It is nice, mindless sewing, perfect for this weather!

(Edit - At the time of this post, the ticker started at 225 units. How far have I come now?)

High or Low?

When I started to collect fabrics for this quilt, I had something of a "let's see what happens" attitude. My goal with the quilt is for it to "sparkle," and my theory was that a lot of contrast in the quilt would do that.

So, is this block high contrast, or low contrast?

I think the star almost disappears, but there's still plenty of contrast in the fabrics themselves. Same with this one:

Cute, eh? High contrast or low, they're sure fun! 5 down, 20 to go.