Puzzle Quilt - First Steps

Because I can't do anything easy or simple (as evidenced by the dry spell I had to go through after making the easy, simple quilt for our dear son-in-law) I decided to make a quilt to send to Japan out of my collection of scrappy and orphan blocks. The Bow Tie blocks were first up:


Meh. Maybe if I start with a different block?

That covered more territory but I still wasn't completely happy with it. All those blocks came off the wall and I started over for a third time.

I have a couple of bins of UFO's and experimental starts that I hadn't looked through in a long time. When I got into them this week I realized it's time to go through them again and redistribute things. Projects that I expected to finish someday have now become fodder for orphan block quilts. One of those was intended to be a wall hanging for the fall season. I know now that that will not happen. But it was a fun addition to the odd Shoo Fly block!

After that blocks with pointy bits became the focus of my design.

At this stage it measured roughly 30" x 39." The finished quilt needs to be a minimum of 45" wide and 60" long. Time to audition more blocks.

I like this strip of blocks but I'll tell you right now they didn't make it into the quilt top. At least, not yet. Stay tuned!

The new studio canary is still nameless. I want to give my daughter a shot at naming him because she seems to have a gift for that sort of thing. I expect her and all the granddaughters over later today. Have to say I'm excited to introduce the older grandgirls to him (he will not be leaving the cage however; canaries are not that sort of pet). After living with him for a week I admit to seriously thinking of calling him something like Loudmouth or Pretty Piggy. It's gratifying that he's comfortable enough to sing so often and so loudly. I'm surprised at how much interest he seems to take in what's going on outside the cage. And boy, does he love his mirror with the bell on the bottom! Who knew canaries could be so entertaining?!