Monday 29 July 2013

In the pipeline

A friend gave me a strip of cartoon-style frogs, ideal for a baby/child quilt. There were 11 blocks on the strip, each measuring 3.5" square so just right to make the centre of a Log cabin block.

The frog blocks are bright primary colours and orange so I hunted out scraps of orange, yellow/cream, green and blue to make the logs.  When I made my two Peter Rabbit Log Cabin quilts I used the colours in rounds: pink, yellow, green and blue, alternating the order of the colour frames for each block.

Like this:



However, when I started to make the Frog Log Cabin blocks I don't think I was really concentrating (blame the hot weather!) and  I used the four colours in turn for each round of the log cabins.  By the time I had made all 9 blocks I really wasn't keen on them, they looked too busy and haphazard and I felt the logs rather detracted from the cute frog centres.
But I had trimmed the blocks on each round so didn't want to waste the fabric or my time unpicking.
So, I persevered and decided that aqua Kona Cotton might tone things down a little so I cut 2" sashing strips.  As soon as I started joining the blocks and then the rows with the sashing in between the blocks suddenly started to look much calmer and much better! Magic.

Yesterday I completed the sashing and made a narrowish aqua border around the whole quilt, again using 2" strips of my Kona Cotton.

At that point I stood back and decided the quilt needed two more borders, a bright scrappy one and a final aqua one. I raided my stash of 2.5" cut squares ( which I cut when I have suitable small scraps, one day perhaps making a Scrap Vomit Quilt?) and made the four scrap borders. 

So here we are, My Frog Quilt 'In the pipeline', ready for it's final 3" aqua border.

 
 
And a Close up of the blocks, sashing and scrappy border:
 


I still think I prefer the way I did the Log Cabin blocks for my Peter Rabbit Quilt but, as this Frog Quilt has evolved, I find I can live with it and will be happy to finish it and gift it at sometime in the future.  Two more babies due in the Autumn, and if one is a boy, then this is the quilt I will give as a present.

I do find it interesting how my ideas change as I work through the process of making a quilt. 
I set off with fairly clear intentions as to the colours and main design ( Log Cabin, Strips, Stars etc) and then as the quilt grows I find colours I thought would work well, especially for sashing, don't really pass muster, and I change my idea and colours.

This happened in my last quilt the QAYG Strip blocks when I changed my idea of aqua sashing to the yellow and again in this current project, adding two extra borders, including the scrappy squares one.

Do tell me if the same happens when you make quilts! 
 

3 comments:

  1. Hi Linda,
    I never, ever buy border fabrics at the same time as fabrics for the top. I find I always change my mind when I see the completed blocks. Also rarely buy sashing fabic until I have made some blocks too.

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    Replies
    1. Thank you for your comment. I agree with you, I never buy border fabric for a quilt project but tend to have ideas in my head of what I might use from my stash.

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  2. I keep a stash of Favourite colours of Kona Cottons which I tend to use for sashing and borders but I often find that the colour I really thought would be the one, actually isn't when I come to add the sashing or borders. Don't often buy fabrics for a specific quilt as I use a mx and match of what I have which I have bought when they appealed to me at various times.
    I also like spotted fabrics such as Michael Miller Dots for borders but never have enough of those to hand!

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