After my last entry I made the rounds of the blogs I read regularly and discovered that Finn at Pieces From My Scrapbag had made a couple of posts since my last visit (only yesterday!). She's been talking about orphan blocks and quilts and has posted some great pictures and issued a challenge to those inclined to pick up the gauntlet. Consequently I have opened my drawer of orphan blocks to see what could be done with them.
They are all neatly sorted according to size... except for the ones I've thrown in most recently of course ("recent" being anytime in the last year or so!). I went through a couple of the bags and quickly realized that I was going to have to divide them up in some other way. There are blocks I want to keep and work into one or more baby quilts (we have a second grandchild on the way - yippee!) and other blocks that technically aren't orphans yet because I still think I may make more of them and make that quilt someday. Then there's the fact that I have so many 12" orphan blocks that I could probably make a quilt out of them without any other blocks being thrown into the mix. But what fun would that be?
I want to divide my blocks into at least two groups. I know, I know, the ideal is to put together blocks that totally do not go together and make it work (because it always does somehow) but there are limits to my time and energy. My goal is to combine as many different sizes of blocks as I can and to play with the various options for making them fit together. My thinking is that I can use this opportunity as practice for assembling my friendship quilt (seen in a previous post). So you see, I have to divide my blocks up! The really bright ones can go into one quilt and the more subdued ones can go in another quilt. (Geez, did I just commit to making two quilts?! I hope there's no time frame for this project!) I'm going to try to make at least one quilt 56" x 84" so it can be donated to Quilts With Love, an organization that is working to get quilts to our active duty soldiers. We'll see. Like I've said before, I'm not doing big quilts these days. But there's always the exception to prove the rule!
Sounds like an excellent plan. Have fun laying out the blocks.
ReplyDeleteHi Sue, wow! You have lots and lots of blocks to play with!! I am very impressed and your approach sure sounds sensible to me. There are blocks that we just don't want to use for one reason or another, and some that can go elsewhere. It makes perfect sense to me. It's suppose to be fun remember, so don't start stressing about it..*VBS* There is NO time deadline or due line or any other line. It's just a challenge to play with orphans and see what you get. If you've looked and Tonya's and I'm guessing you have, you see just how many she has??? And that's mostly the ones in her favorite colors, there are others she's not showing us...I KNOW there are!!!LOL...
ReplyDeletebut she doesn't want to try and combine ones with white(like her christmas quilt or blue and white X & O's and I've agreed she doesn't have it. It's what I challenged her to, but I've modified it for this time....LOL
I'll get those suggested "terms" of play posted, honest...as soon as I can! Big hugs, Finn