Allietare Golds

Well, it's Thursday, not Monday, but Week 3 of Bonnie Hunter's 2015-16 Mystery Quilt, Allietare, is now wrapped up! I had hoped to spend last Sunday finishing the remaining four patches, but I developed some tendonitis in my shoulder. I've found the best cure is to do nothing at all, which is challenging, but it worked and I am better now.

It seems like I get this every year at this time. I used to think it was from hand sewing, but I've realized that it's the computer that's the problem, and sewing is just the collateral. Then I wondered, why do I spend more time on the computer at this time of year? I realized the answer is too much online shopping! So there's a lesson in there somewhere. :D

I was happy to be working with all the Kaffe golds, ochres and umbers this week. They were my main inspiration for this project, so it was nice to finally use them. A lot of Kaffe's older designs used this palette, so I've been using up some long time stash inhabitants...

...like this gold Lotus Leaf. I love that combination of gold with chalky pink! I bought most of these in long quarters (9" x 42"), and they were a tangled nightmare to wash. They all frayed down to about 8.5". I'll never buy a long quarter again!

For this week's clue, where all the cuts are multiples of 2", it made the most sense to cut across in short 2" x 8.5" strips. And with a tricky large print like this, I thought it would be easiest to manage if I made the four patches from the same two fabrics, rather than random fabrics like Bonnie suggests.

So they just naturally came out in matching sets of four. Maybe I can do something interesting with that down the road, maybe not!

I had hoped that we would be sewing the golds together with our constant fabric, which is my blue batik. The blue would have helped my browner fabrics seem more gold:

We're only halfway, so I guess there's still time for that!

I think I missed the boat on that aqua and taupe four patch on the left there. But otherwise, the big prints work as long as there is enough contrast between the fabrics.

Last time I forgot to show you my black squares...

...which I decided to cut all from the same fabric. I didn't have a lot of suitable black in my stash, so most of it will be from this red hearts fabric. It just seemed easier to cut them all the same.

This week we had to cut 36 large light rectangles, and I decided to cut them all from the same fabric too:

They feel like they will be sashings or borders, so I think that will look good.

And finally, last week I finished the first step on all my hourglass leaders and enders. Now I've started on step two:

I'm amazed at how fast this moves along! I had 300 or so sets left when I started in late October. At this rate they could be done by the end of January, with no extra effort at all. In fact, I miss them right away if I sit down to sew and I forgot to take them out. Now I'm thinking of a new project for when these are done.

The Week 4 Allietare clue comes out tomorrow, and I think a reasonable goal will be to finish it by Thursday, not Monday! My Week 2 post was too late for the link up, so if you missed it you can find it here. And of course, you can see everyone else's Week 3 results right here. We're half way, and I seem to be sorting out the challenges and keeping up, so, woo hoo! Bring it on. :D

Allietare Matched Sets

If part of my intention with this project, Bonnie Hunter's 2015-16 Mystery Quilt "Allietare," is to figure out why all my projects seem to take forever, then this past week has been a huge success!

The answer is "scope creep." Scope creep is a term in product or program development, when the thing you are making gets fancier and fancier, until the project is both late and way over budget. Say you are building a house, and then halfway through you decide you need bigger windows. And some extra cupboards in the kitchen. That's scope creep.

Right before the clue came out for Week 2, I decided that since I don't know the whole picture with this mystery quilt, I will just focus on the details. Then the clue was published, and it called for 20 matched sets of these red flying geese:

And somehow, between "matched sets" and "details," I became obsessed with the idea that some of my fabrics could be fussy cut. Not those ones above, but these fabrics below:

Those fans in the first fabric would fit exactly into one of those red flying geese. And wouldn't it be cool to match up the Oriental Trees in the bottom fabric? And then I had to decide how best to do it, and that used up the rest of the weekend. By Monday I simply couldn't think about it any more, and I decided to work on those Christmas Crumbs instead. That gave me enough perspective to see sense! Was I going to do the same thing when it came time to cut the gold fabrics? No way! And any way I cut it, it was going to waste fabric.

I did try it out with the stripes:

Then to cap it off, I realized that the fussy cut pieces were going to end up too far apart for the effect to work. My best guess for how the pieces will be used looks like this:

Fussy cutting makes no difference at all! I cut the remaining fabric normally. I did match up similar colours though:

And, it's fun to play around with the pieces:

But, the whole experience has now made me clearly aware of how corrosive scope creep can be. It's not just that it slowed down this project, but it also sent me haring off to start other projects as well. I realized that I've done the same thing many times before.

And ultimately, scope creep is bad design. It's much better to have a single cohesive concept than to try to fit every idea I ever had into the same project. Good design is something that I take seriously, and I'm hoping that will be the thing I remember in future. If I'm not completely immune now, at least I'm inoculated!

I missed the Week 2 link up, but you can still see everyone else's work here. Week 3 looks pretty straightforward, so it is a good chance to catch up. Heck, Mary Ellen finished her Week 3 pieces in one day, so I should be ready by Monday, right? ;)

See you again soon!