Keep Going

It's so satisfying to watch the piles of units growing. I'm almost ready to start assembling blocks! This started as Bonnie Hunter's latest Quiltville mystery Rhododendron Trail, but I will be putting it together differently. What happens is that I play around with the units before the final reveal, find something i really like, and decide to branch out on my own from there.

I had none of the hourglass units made before the reveal because I was hoping to make fewer of them. Unfortunately my layout will actually require more! But it will be worth it.

I also wasn't sure how far my white on white background fabric would go, and where best to use it, so that is another reason I waited. Now, knowing my final layout, I was able to place some additional colors in the block. My blocks are more flowerlike, so I added orange and green to the pinks and purples. 

I used a few light silver grey prints as the background for the pink and green hourglasses. I'm interested to see what, if anything, the placement of the background fabrics adds to the final design of the quilt. I'm thinking that because they're less scrappy they may have a more dominant role, since they won't blend the same way. We'll see!

Those green squares will be used the same way as in Bonnie's quilt. The aqua print would have been that skinny sashing in Bonnie's layout. But, since I'm not doing that, I decided to use it as another background fabric. I love the combination of aqua and lime! I'm excited about all the colors tbh. 😂

How is everyone doing with their New Year's resolutions? I did really well for about two weeks. 😅 Oh, this is easy, I thought! It was worth it to keep reminding myself to release the tension, because I was feeling a lot happier. But, then distractions happened and I lost focus for a while. 

About a week ago I realized I had to refocus on my resolution. After I did, I started seeing other things I could do to make my life better. And a couple things to stop doing! I can at least say that I've learned not to beat myself up for getting off track. No special occasion required, just recommit and keep going! 

Happy stitching everyone! ❤

Let Go

Happy new year! How much tension are you holding in your body right now? I've realized that I've been in a constant state of fight or flight throughout this whole pandemic. It's just not healthy. Since it's the new year and time to think about better habits, my intention for the new start is to let go of all that resistance and defensiveness. It's an internal change not an external one. I still follow all the guidelines to keep myself and everyone around me safe. But I'm also trying to identify and release all the mental and physical resistance I'm carrying in myself. We all know that releasing stress is the best defense against illness. But I admit it's an ongoing practice. 😂

Not a very quilty resolution? Maybe, we'll see how it develops! 

2021 was a good year for my quilting. A dedicated sewing space has made a huge difference. So my plan for 2022 is to just carry on. I'm more in the mood to finish projects than start new ones. Of course, "finishing" may involve making physical some ideas I've been refining for a year or more on paper. 😉

My pictures today are from the current Quiltville mystery, Rhododendron Trail. But I've also been working on a dark background version of Grassy Creek that I may start sewing this year. I have several tops that are very close to done as well. It would be great if this year i can make equal progress on getting them quilted.

Rhododendron Trail is going in a different direction than I first planned. I pulled all those shadowy grey and purple fabrics for the darks, but I'm not sure I'll use them now. Since the clues are using large pieces in matched sets, I went back to my stash and got more large pink prints. And since my white on white fabric is getting depleted I supplemented it with those tiny hearts that just caught my eye when I looking around. 

I haven't made any of the hundreds of hourglasses in clue 4 yet because I was worried about how far my background fabric will go. I also plan to make the quilt square instead of rectangular, so my final numbers will be different. I'll wait to see how they are used before I start those. Hopefully I won't need as many! 

I hope everyone is hanging in there! Take care of yourselves. ❤

Rhodie 123

Week 4 of Bonnie Hunter's Rhododendron Trail mystery quilt has just been released, so I think i should catch you up on my work for the first 3 weeks. 

The week 1 HSTs are right above. You can see I have a very wide range of values and hues for the pinks. I can get away with it thanks to the constant white on white fabric I'm using for the background. I've finally remembered why I have that -- I bought it for the background of my Texas Star EPP project. It's well over 10 years old and purchased from an LQS that closed long ago, sadly. It was torture hand piecing it and I switched to a solid white. But it looks great here, I'm very happy with it. Love that it's finally having its moment!

Week 2 was flying geese. With a scrap quilt I try to avoid sewing the same fabric to itself, just to heighten the scrappy feel and highlight the piecing. I've noticed that when units are mirror images like these they often end up close together in the final reveal. So I used completely different fabrics for the left and right geese. Hopefully that will simplify assembly later on!

Week 3 is just adding more white to our week 1 HSTs. It's quite boring, lol. You can see that I've been trimming the dog ears as i go, which definitely makes it slower now as well. But I know accuracy is a problem for me with a long diagonal seam, and it helps me a lot if the square sides are cut to measure before I sew. So hopefully that will make assembly easier as well. 

I've done enough mysteries now to know that the final assembly is the real test, and rushing the early weeks just costs time in the end if you have to go back and fix things. 

I still have a lot of week 3 left, but week 4 finally cuts into our darks, so I may jump ahead a bit. I have a good feeling about this one, with all the sharp contrast and saturated colours it should really pop!