Up & Down

I made a few more crumb blocks yesterday. Then I remembered some patches I'd cut from a cute teddy bear print decades ago... Sure enough, the patches and the rest of the fabric were right where I thought they'd be. And voila, a new preemie quilt-to-be!

These blocks will finish at 5". That makes this layout 25" square when I fill in those corner spots. My plan is to find something to use as a border at the top and bottom and also use that to fill in the corners. That may change. I don't have enough of the teddy bears to cut four more 5.5" patches so the corners will have to be something different.

At first I had all the bears with their feet pointing south as it were. But I've come to realize that for some quilts it's better to have the pattern of the quilt top look good from any direction, not just one way. I decided this was one of those cases and I think it worked out pretty well!

What I am less happy with is the way the blocks are turning out for DGD's quilt. You may (or may not) recall that I had to hunt for appropriate background fabric for this project. I had some pieces in my stash that I really liked as background but there wasn't enough for a twin size quilt. So I shopped around a bit and brought home the butterfly print you see in the block below, on the left.

I thought that very colorful, busy retro print would be strong enough to stand up to the butterflies. Now I don't think so. I much prefer the look of the block on the right (above).

Granted, those are 9" blocks. The butterflies aren't quite so overwhelming in these 12" blocks with good strong colors for the star points. It's still busier than I want however. So I am planning to go out today, to a couple of different stores in the area, to see what I can find. If I don't come home with a new potential background print maybe I'll at least come home with a possible solution for this dilemma. Let's just hope I don't also come home with a crippling reaction to toxic fumes!