First of all I combed through my collection of smaller blocks in the Parts Department. That helped to fill in some of the white space between the nine and 12 inch blocks. I made a flock or two of geese too.
Then I had to figure out how to fill in the remaining background areas. Everything I'd done so far was based on a 3" grid so I started cutting 3" squares (3.5" in their raw state).
I played with value placements over the course of a couple of days and then finally decided it wasn't going to get any better. I started at the bottom of the quilt, sewing the loose squares together first and working my way up to the larger blocks. I discovered I could assemble the lower part of the quilt in two halves. Once that was done I could move the upper section down the design wall for easier access to those top rows.
I had to make a few more geese to flesh out that upper left corner. Then it was a matter of figuring out how to divide up and assemble that upper section.
With the puzzle complete the flimsy measured 51" wide and 63" long. At this point I was feeling a lot better about this project. However, I wanted a bit more width and length since this is going to be given to an adult male.
The simple solution was to add a frame and border treatment. The prints I thought I would use for that purpose didn't look as good as I'd expected. Fortunately the leftover strips from the back of our F2F quilt for the Ovarian Cancer Quilt Project turned out to be perfect for the frame. And I had enough of the warm brown print I'd used in some of the geese to do the outer border.
After whining about this project in the last post, I now love this quilt top. This will be my contribution to Covered in Love as part of the Hands2Help quilt drive sponsored by Sarah over at Confessions of a Fabric Addict. I'm delighted to have the top done already. I can now relax, confident that it will be quilted and bound well before the deadline for mailing this year. :- )
Light then darker frame and border, perfect finish, I like it, And although brown is not a fabric I have much of in my stash, well, probably only one small piece, you have arranged this wonderfully. (is that a proper word).I am so glad you like it now as well,
ReplyDeleteI agree, it's looking gorgeous, even though brown is one of my least favourite quilting colours! The addition of those geese was inspired, they add movement, and it all looks so much better with the warm pale background colours instead of the isolated blocks we saw before against a cool white background. I can well see why you're so pleased with it! I also love the idea that leftovers from Pat's quilt are also going to another good cause.
ReplyDeleteOh, it's beautiful! Just beautiful!
ReplyDeleteI knew it would turn out fine... 8)
I love your quilt top, too - lovely mix of backgrounds and blocks!
ReplyDeleteIt's lovely Sue. I've found, with the F2F blocks, that I can become quite fond of colours I wasn't too keen on at first. I'm sure any man would be happy with this beautiful brown quilt.
ReplyDeleteIt's great! It's not at all how I thought it would turn out, but I like your solution with the 3" squares. What fun!
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