Wednesday, February 24, 2010

The Big Box Mystery Challenge

You may remember these fabrics from the previous post:

That's 1-1/2 yds of the black-with-bright-dots and the others were a fat quarter bundle. I decided to just start cutting strips and see what would happen. That's why this is a mystery and a challenge!
Sewing in a motel room is fun, especially since I was by myself and wouldn't be in anyone else's way. Many motels have ironing boards now, so that's a real plus! Were they tired of finding iron-shaped burns in the carpeting?

When in doubt, cut a 2-1/2" strip....I believe the quilting industry has proven that's a convenient width!
I was thinking about a block with a square floating in the center. Maybe even some plain 6" squares. I really didn't know, so I cut 4 strips of each fabric, which left me enough to have some plain 6" squares if I wanted them.
This is like a dream come true (at least on a temporary basis). The chair was not comfortable, but when sitting there, I could type on the computer with one hand and open the refrigerator with the other!
I do not have a computer in my studio, so it was fun to cut strips and have email at the same time. I even watched The Quilt Show with Ricky Tims & Alex Anderson!
Oops! A boo-boo cut needs to be redone. This shows making a new clean cut before I continue.
The boo-boo was savable...if not, you know it just would have gone into the Pot Holder Pile when I got home.
See...I really did watch The Quilt Show! It was fun to be quilting and watch quilting...thanks to my good friend who gave me the trial subscription (you know who you are, PT...or should I say, AP?!).         
This is what I call a sweet set up! A comfy chair, a sewing machine, a TV, and an ironing board set at half-height! The iron is on the other side of the chair, where I could just reach over and plug it in after setting the machine down.
This is really the ultimate in lazy, eh? But what fun! I totally enjoyed sitting down to iron...at home, I have things set up so I must get out of my chair and stand up to press.
Oh boy..."American Idol" is on! I really wanted to have a picture of sewing with Simon Cowel, but couldn't wait for the shot.
What? You don't care for "American Idol"? Well, you'd probably like it a lot after watching 3 hours of curling!
The Olympics are great for sewing with the TV on. I watched a LOT of curling, and I still don't understand it. But I sure can appreciate that it takes tremendous skill. And I loved the way the guys would slide from one end of the court...alley...lane...whatever it is...on their one Teflon foot, to get up there by The House to confer about what stone to try to bump.
Well, maybe I absorbed more about curling than I thought! I love the sweepers.

By this point I had decided to sew some 9-Patches (both X and O). I tried to make each one with all different colored squares, hence these strip sets. Nope...I did NOT plan it out!
But they all came out great.
I ended up with 15 blocks that had colored corners, 9 with black corners, and 5 each with a black square surrounded by a color or a color surrounded by black:
Here they are back at home, just smacked up on the design wall. I like what I'm seeing....the way the background makes the block edges fade in and out.
I knew I would need both X and O 9-Patches (look at where the black is in the blocks to see why they are called that) if I wanted to put them together for a checkerboard, as you can see at the botton right.
That's as far as this project got (what? can you hear the steady thrumm of a UFO apporoaching????).
But I think I'll just whack up the rest of the fabric into strips and make more of the same blocks, then have some fun arranging them.
With a nice border, they'll make a wonderful kids quilt for the guild's charity project!

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