During the past little while, I have been flinging curses at the Peacock as it sits on my design wall, taking up space and glaring smugly at me.
No more.
I made two cuts on Sunday and was off. With those two rotary cut strips, everything changed. Finishing the piecing actually became possible…. no probable. I only had time for a little work on it, but the piece progresses. I am snatching bits of time where I can and making some progress. It is amazing how something can change so quickly. I do think that, more importantly, my attitude about the project changed.
First, I had along rest with absolutely no sewing. The closest I came was visiting a craft shop that carried quilt fabrics and magazines.
Next, solving the problem of squaring up the piece began to rumble around in the back of my mind until I had a solution I wanted to try. Two cuts and I realized that what I wanted to do would work and it was actually a reasonable idea.
The idea was to cut 3.5″ strips (same width as half one of the blocks), cut a 60 degree angle on one side and sew it to the edge blocks. These short strips work. The black, with which I have started, blends nicely in with the very darkest blocks.
Third, I started to move the blocks around after taking some photos. Some of the blocks looked out of place in the photos. Moving them make the piece come together better.
In the photo, right, I have moved some of the solids around to try and blend the background a little better. I haven’t tried super hard yet and I know I won’t be able to blend as well as I do with the Fabric of the Year quilts, but I want to give the impression of a bit of blending going on. That I immediately started to blend the blocks into an Impressionist look tells me I have much more color blending in my future.
Most importantly, I have changed out the black on the bottom and used green (see arrows at the bottom). The black was too jarring near some blocks that had no black. The green isn’t a perfect match to those feather blocks, but it is the green I used in the other feather blocks.
I am also trying out some of the blues at the top, but I am thinking they may be too dark and I might try some light blue. I have a stack of solids I can try. I just haven’t tried very hard to find the right one yet.
I plan to have a sort of irregular line of blocks, as the quilt looks now, though the background will make the quilt square. There are still some unknowns. I don’t know what the quilt will look like exactly. I am not sure how I will make the small blocks float around the edges as you see them now. I will let it mull in the back of my mind and see what comes up.