Getting started……

Back in May I posted about a challenge that was presented to a group of friends.  You can check here for the original post about this project.

Well, after laying out the fabrics in all sorts of arrangements, and looking at tons of books for ideas, and changing my mind every day, I finally got fed up with waiting and tromped upstairs to make a start on the project.  I decided that I would just start cutting and sewing and see what would happen!!

I started out by spending time measuring various pieces and trying to determine the sizes that might work best.  I finally came up with the idea of basing the project on 6 inch blocks…..4 patch blocks that use 3 inch patches and 9 patch blocks that use 2 inch patches.

I began making a few half-square triangles and then added some other squares to make a block…..

This is the back of one such block, showing that I had to make a TINY, TINY seam in one of the fabrics to make the patch big enough…..

I then started making 9 patch blocks

After I had made 4 of these I realized that they didn’t have enough contrast so ended up taking them apart and re-piecing them with some light colored fabrics.

On of the fabrics that I was given had large dots on it so I decided to fussy-cut it to make the best use of the dots.  After making a photocopy of the fabric, I played with different layouts so that I wouldn’t cut the fabric wrong…..

Having “un-sewed” and re-pieced almost everything that I did originally, I was pleased to lay them out and see that they looked ok……

Now it was time to see if I could add the 4-patch blocks that I had made.  Unfortunately, I tried every imaginable layout, but they just didn’t look right.  So, I pulled out the thread picker and started taking them apart too.    I turned the triangles  into Flying Geese blocks and laid them out around the 9 patches……

VOILA…..at last, I can say that I am starting to like the piece!!!!