Obsessed

At the end of last week, I had a brainwave and decided to start a new quilt. Because I need another project. Ahem. I'd pulled this bundle of fabrics a few months ago, thinking I might use them for a Steam Punk quilt (still on my bucket list). I started with a bunch of MicroMod prints and pulled a bunch of purple/cerise, yellow/ochre, grey, black and deep teal prints to bulk them out.

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But the longer I looked at them the more I wondered if they were right for a steam punk quilt. A week or so later, I was faffing around in EQ7 playing with ideas for a completely unrelated project, when I remembered this fabulous block that Jess and I did as part of our modern sampler QAL a couple of years ago. And I decided they would be the perfect combination. It was one of those ideas that just had to happen straight away, so I've been a bit obsessed making them over the last week or so :o)

I think I've done more unpicking on this quilt than anything I've made before. Some of that has been due to dodgy piecing, but most of it has been because I've decided to swap fabrics around after I've joined the block together. My first block looked like this:

I liked it but I really didn't love it - I think there were just too many saturated tones vieing for attention. So I decided to swap the orange out and put black in there. And then it really was true love.

Obsession was pretty quick to follow. They are giant blocks - 24" finished - so they take a few hours each, but on the plus side I'll only need a few more to have a 72" square quilt. I was considering keeping on going and making a 4x4 block quilt - but my motivation is starting to wane a bit, and I'm too impatient to start quilting it ;o) So a 3x3 quilt it will be.

You can see I needed to fix the bottom left block in the photo above - while I was unpicking I decided to replace the teal Jungle Ave print with a smaller scale print. I will use that one somewhere else, just not with another large-scale print with a lot of white in it. Apologies for the lighting in these photos - my design wall has a light right above it, so I'll have to wait till I've joined them together for a decent photo. It will be nigh on impossible to photograph it once it grows anyway - my design wall is right behind my sewing desk, and I can't move any further back to get a bigger shot!

Hopefully I'll have the rest of the blocks made in the next week or two! I'll be back tomorrow with the next video tutorial in the Free Motion QAL - I haven't decided yet what it will be, but probably spirals...

xx Jess