Pastiche (7/2020)

There's been quite a bit of work going on here in The Magpie's Nest of late. We're getting summer heat now though, so I may be slacking off for a while. I didn't show the work as it happened because of other, scheduled, posts.

When I finished the top for Sunset Stars I moved right into building another lap quilt. I'd asked for Chinese Coins blocks from my local quilt guild members the last time it was my turn for a friendship block request. There seemed to be two distinct types of blocks in the abundance I received. Half were darker, muted colors while the other half were brighter and tended toward whimsical. After sorting through them I started building columns with the darker Chinese Coins. Originally I was going to insert an occasional Shoofly block from my extensive collection among the Coins but very quickly I realized that wouldn't be necessary to achieve the length I was after. Instead I chose to make alternate columns that incorporated a few Shoofly blocks.

For visual interest and also to get the width I wanted I searched for larger blocks to use in the middle column of the quilt top. There weren't any 12" blocks in the Parts Dept. that would work but I did find 6" Bear Paw units that became 14" blocks.

And then there were a couple of 10" blocks in the right colors that I framed up to 14 inches.

I think it turned out to be quite a handsome quilt top. Before quilting it measures 51" wide by 61" long. I struggled to find a name or title for it, if only for my own reference. I think I must have come across the word 'pastiche' on someone else's blog (Quitldivajulie perhaps?). When it came to mind I looked it up and sure enough, it's perfect for this and all the other scrap quilts I tend to make that offer up no specific name for themselves. So I'm going to use it for any future quilt out of the Parts Dept. along with the date the top was completed - unless the quilt tells me otherwise of course! 😉