kaleidoscope | Drowning in Fabric

November ALYOF Finish – Kaleidoscope

by laurelar

Wow, so I am just sneaking this in under the wire. I really didn’t think I was going to finish. I have spent my whole vacation slaving away at this. I finished yesterday afternoon, but it was too dark to take pictures til today.

Even though for all the work and triangles this took it is smaller than I expected, it was still taller than my husband, so it is a little hard to see the whole thing in the picture. The edges right now are angled. My intention was to eventually square it up, but I actually kind of like it. I am not sure about binding it though, so I don’t know what I will do in the end.

I got quite good at getting my points in the middle to meet, but not so much where the blocks join. I think that had something to do with inconsistent trimming of the blocks. They are all 10.5″, but may not all be centered properly. I think unless you are looking closely, it isn’t distracting in most cases.

Like most of my tops, I kind of put this together randomly. I matched pairs of triangles first, then built the kaleidoscope center blocks from that, then created a layout and filled in the kaleidoscope outer blocks as needed. I also didn’t want any Kaleidoscopes hanging off the edges, so I spent some time making the “border” to complete all the kaleidoscopes and filling in with diamonds. Like all my quilts, I had a love/hate relationship with it. Now that it is done, I am really pleased with it (a few days ago I hated it), however, if I were to do it again, I think I should take the time and patience to plan ahead. I don’t totally like where the blue backgrounds break into the brown and peach backgrounds. I feel it is different enough to break up the background flow. But not enough that I hate the top. Just a nitpicky now that I have done it.

I have no plans to finish it anytime soon. I have holiday and “special” projects that are going to fill my next couple months, so into the growing wip pile it goes.

Here is my goal post

Here are other posts about this quilt

Finishes LYOF

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November ALYOF goal

by laurelar

I am not feeling very optimistic this month, as we are already a week in and I haven’t touched anything since I finished my economy block. I’ve been tearing my house apart trying to get things cleaned up and out. I am desperately needing to get rid of stuff, but it is really hard for me and there isn’t anywhere to put anything in the meantime. Anyway, that’s what I am up to. Plus there’s the holiday season bearing down on me.

So I’ve been debating between trying to chose between getting another quilt finished (I have three basted and waiting) or trying to finish my kaleidoscope top that is my goal for the year. I am not sure which is more likely to get done… I was tempted to choose quilting since my table is still extended and I’d like to get some more finishes under my belt, but I am at a loss on how to quilt some of these. I have most of my blocks done for my kaleidoscope, so that may be the better way to go.

Here’s hoping

LYOF

Saturday Swap. But not.

by laurelar

So, I haven’t had any swaps come through recently. BUT I have two that should be completed next week.

So instead I will share what is back up on my design wall right now.

My Kaleidoscope is my goal for the year. It’s been put away for some time. After the focus on quilt backs, I was itching to start something, but found myself turning back to the kaleidoscope instead of starting something new. It is probably the smart choice. I also am not sure what I was thinking…. I apparently thought I was going to need about twice the blocks that I now think I need. I am kind of getting worn out on these huge quilts (that I am scared to machine quilt) so maybe I just want to scale back a bit. This is so totally not the final layout, just the blocks I was working on today.

Ok. Maybe some of you are in some fun swaps right now??

Here are the link up rules:

1. Link up a post about a recent fabric, block or hand made item swap. You may share both what you sent and received. You may also post about an upcoming swap you are hosting.

2. In the post, link up back here to my blog.

3. Comment on a few other links!

swap

Wip Wednesday: Too many wips!

by laurelar

I am simultaneously working so many projects. And I am itching to start a couple new ones. But I am already tripping over too many piles and pushing too much stuff off my cutting board… I feel so scattered.

My most important wip right now is my Anchors Aweigh. I’ve completed the back. It is huge and I am hurting for space to spread it out. I had yardage of a couple of the coral prints so that is the main part of the back. Then I also wanted to add some other pieces (as usual). Even though it would have made more sense yardage-wise to place the pieced strip vertically, I really wanted it to go horizontally on this one. That took some math to figure out the best way to cut the yardage with as little waste as possible, which also meant more piecing in the background areas. I decided I’d rather do that than cut off another 2 yard piece and waste most of it. I was pretty impressed with myself that even at 3am I was able to calculate how wide a piece I needed to cut to fill that gap.

For the blocks, I pulled out all the water related layers from my huge Tula swap layer cake pile. I think initially, I was just going to sew a row of them together and sew them in between the backgrounds. But the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to frame them somewhat. In the end it was a good thing I did, because for whatever reason, I needed that extra length. I wanted grey, but I didn’t have enough left over and my closest store doesn’t carry it. I had a scrap with me of the Octos and selected the snow and stone to take home and play with. I really thought I was going to go with snow, but as I laid everything out, I liked the look of the stone. It was more toned down and also reminded me of sand (even though the sand at our beach is probably closer to the snow color. hmm….).

Here is how it turned out, as best as I was able to photograph it at that time. Now I am starting to baste it. I am really intimidated by quilting this. I know it is going to take forever. But, onward and upward!

In the meantime, I’ve been pushing through blocks for two other projects. First up, my economy quilt. This is going to be a graduation/college gift for my cousin. I was going to make it 120 blocks (roughly 50×60) but I am wondering now it that’s going to be big enough. I am moving right along on it. I get hung up every now and then trying to pick colors for the blocks, but once I have a bunch of those chosen and cut and ready to go, I make good progress til I get stopped again.

And my goal for the year is to make a kaleidoscope quilt. As the year is half over, I need to get moving on that! I had cut out about a million triangles and taken them to stash bash, but didn’t actually start on it there. I eventually started putting pieces together and playing around. I’ve tried several times to plot it out – both on the computer and on paper – and it just isn’t working for me. I am such a control freak, but when it comes to quilting, I kind of like to let things happen organically and make decisions as I go. So, here I am playing with some blocks on the design wall.

This one still has a long way to go. Again, wishing for bigger spaces to work in.

So, that’s a lot of small progress on many things!