Building Blocks

Woot! My first "Work in Progress Wednesday" blog. (Not to be confused with Malt Liquor Monday blogging that results from too many WIPs!)  I have been trying my damndest to work on blocks because I actually checked Flickr at the correct time and made it into a quilting bee! So excited. I am in Hive 4 of NuBees.

I am trying to decide what block to make so I have been trying some out. Trying out new quilt blocks is difficult during home construction because I really don't have access to my iron/ironing board. Normally, that wouldn't be an issue until the end of the blocks but other people are going to see the backs of these hypothetical blocks, and that terrifies me.

So I cut out tons of bits and actually did some piecing, trying to make things look pretty. Then I just started getting frazzled with so many pieces for so many things. I could go no further on any of them because of the lack of iron. Then the contractor who is doing the floors called and said he can't start for at least another week.

Finally, in desperation, I dug out the iron and ironed on the carpet. Rationalization? Carpet is being replaced in the next week or two.

I have made little bits of progress on a few possibly sponge-worthy blocks:

First: One half of a chevron block I tried to copycat. Well, technically I made 4 rows but it was reallyyyy late at night so I didn't think to cut 2 on the opposite diagonal so it is like I have only 2. Unless I decide to make 2 of these blocks. Pretty, but grr.

There is also this fun little one that is done. I love that basil fabric. Not as much as I love lettuce fabric, though. But still, this block was pretty dang simple to throw together. Somehow, in its simplicity, the template I followed didn't work for me! Notice the grey line in the top right corner. Notice how it doesn't go all the way to the edge of the block. Notice my eye twitch. Ah, well, this can be fixed.

 I have also been working on trying to turn a Japanese X Block into a perfectly sized finished 12" block.  The original tutorial (http://badskirt.blogspot.com/2011/04/japanese-x-and-scrappy-quilt-tutorial.html) is for a 7.5" block and that does me no good for bees. Thanks to the insanity on the previous picture, I came up with this gem:

I know, I know... the fabric choice is HORRIBLE. I was just going for the correct sized scraps. Really, I don't care how it looks because I just wanted to see if it would come out at 12" so I could be happy. Well, it came in a little over, but trimming works wonders. The only issue would appear to be at the intersections where the grey triangles, tan squares, lettuce squares, and blue "hatchets" are meeting up. Oh well. I will tweak it. Might try using the same fabric for all 4 hatchets.

Lastly, a picture of two WIPs that are actually organized. The half square triangles are for another block I am toying with. Obviously the fabric bits in the second bag are incorrectly labeled. They are not actually parts for the cedar chest. That would be silly since everyone knows cedar chests are made out of, well, cedar. These bits are for the upholstered cover to my new cedar chest. The cover it has now is yucky and makes me sad. So... quilted cover! Makes sense since the chest will hold quilts! Couldn't find the right colors in upholstery weight fabric so I'm using regular weight and lots of fusible interfacing. If it degrades after a few years of use, I just have an excuse to try again!

So excited to see if posting my progress will motivate me. Thanks to http://freshlypieced.blogspot.com/ for giving me the idea to do a WIP blog entry!