Definitely Not Red and Green!

 The project I've been working on this December is anything but seasonal. (Honestly, I thought I'd already posted about this but maybe not.)

 I've long been intrigued with the idea of making a yellow and black quilt. I had a small assortment of blocks in that color scheme in the Parts Department so I pulled them out last month to see what there was. There were only five 12" Ohio Stars, a couple of 9" Ohio Stars, these 8" postage stamp stars and the two blocks I know as Crosses and Losses. There were a few 6" blocks as well but I quickly discarded them from the mix. The fifth 12" Ohio Star and the 9" versions didn't make the cut either. When I realized I could use the 8" blocks to surround a medallion made up of the 12" blocks I knew what to do. 

However, once I had this 40" square flimsy constructed I hit a wall. Leave it a square? Make it a rectangle and closer to 60" x 80"? Either way it needed to be at least a little bit larger. I added 3" wide whole cloth strips to the top and bottom edges thinking I would try to make it longer and then wider. The flimsy sat on the design wall, mute. In retrospect I think the print I used for the potential sashing was too busy for one thing. This was also about the time I had the meltdown about my sewing machine. 

I've used the new Janome Skyline 5 once since we brought it home. I think I'll be happy with it once it off-gasses more fully. There were oil or grease fumes coming off of it when I tried it out. That set me back for a couple of days. Once I'd made the decision to bring this project up to a 60" square it didn't take long to find a block to use for that purpose. In my block book it's called Butterfly at the Crossroads. It looks like a bunch of tulips to me. They finish at 10" each, which makes the math easy. Twenty of them will go around the medallion I have perfectly.

While I still really like this color palette, I have become slightly bored with it. And my variety of yellow prints is actually running low! I have one more block to create and then I can audition them for placement around the central medallion.

Black binding will finish it off. I don't have any specific plans for what quilt to tackle next. Whatever it turns out to be, it will be multi-color and multi-print. 😁 In the meantime,  

Happy Holidays Everyone!