Making Progress

So I'm moving along and getting myself psyched about this quilt. I have about two-thirds of the center star pieced. Since I have the bright diamonds for the center all done, and the diamonds with the bright and dark green more than half done -- but the half diamonds for the outer part are only a quarter done -- I decided to put a quarter section together. And here it is. Ta-da! [below]

I think I can begin to see the whole thing in my imagination. That will be the "900 pieces" of the title of the design I'm using. But I'm feeling so enthused right now, I think I will do a very narrow border in two of the brights and then piece the half-diamonds, as many as needed, for a serious border. That may bring the count to about 1200 pieces. Am I insane? Probably. However I really enjoy paper piecing and I'm just delighted that this quarter is lying flat and the diamonds meet neatly where they're supposed to. Why not go all out?

As can be seen a fair amount will be trimmed off, the plastic rulers are lying where the cutting will happen. All in all it's not a lot of fabric waste although it's probably a few hours of sewing. I suppose I could figure out how to do just what's needed but I think that would be more harrowing than just sewing it as the pattern suggests which is what I've done so far. It's still going to take a good bit of time to complete but will be done, I think by the new year -- at least pieced. Quilted? Well ... it will be simple in-the-ditch but that will take plenty of time too.

Thanks -- and an unconnected thought

Thanks to the people who've weighed in on my choices of arrangements, include a couple of emails not in the comment section. I'm still very torn and have turned for the moment to making a baby quilt for charity while my mind is spinning. Any other comments will be appreciated also.

As I was working at my transcription job today I was stopped with great sadness by a rather casual remark. The interviewee is a woman who moved back with her mother's house to care for her as she slips deeper into Alzheimers. The patient had six children, four sons and two daughters. Said the caretaker daughter, apparently without pain, "when you ask her how many children she has, she names the four boys. Then I said, but what about me?" And the mother says, "oh, yes, there was Cathy and Linda."

We feminists will never win our battles for equality as long as mothers value their sons more than their daughters. How many hundreds of years will it be before boy children and girl children are valued equally? How often do we hear of sons giving up everything else in their lives to care for an aging, needy, perhaps demented parent? And how often is it the daughter or even daughter-in-law? 'Nuf said.

Choices

I've realized I must make a choice. I have eight of each set of diamonds: dark blue and deep orange, and green with orange/yellow. The inner set is only 8 but the next row around is 16 -- so which will it be? What arrangement will I use? No design wall and crappy light for photos. But here are the choices.

I think it will be the above with the final row of half-diamonds in a tourquoise-y color. That's how I'm leaning at the moment. Originally I thought it would be exciting to start with a firey center and cooler colors on out toward the edge. That still kind of appeals to me. I'm going to think about this for a couple of days.
The picture that inspired me really used only two color sets, very dark and very light. I liked it but I have a somewhat contrary need to do something different. Lots of people don't like orange and don't collect fabrics in that range. For a long time I didn't like orange or yellow very much but in the last few years I've become fond of both and I really like the contrast with both blue and green. If any readers have thoughts I'd love to hear them. However, as the "fine print" usually says, all rights are reserved [by me] to make my own decision even if it is contrary to every one else's and even if it's the dumbest possible.

I'm trying to keep in mind that there is yet one more color to piece and then the matter of border[s] -- that could make a big difference in the eventual overall appearance. Ah ... choices, choices. Well, one thing at a time.

Just the Beginning

It's been a while since I've had time to think a lot about the quilt projects that are started and that I hope to complete [maybe] this summer. This paper pieced star was started early in June and is progressing in baby steps so far. It looks a bit lumpy because the diamonds are only pinned, I can't sew them together at this point, there's more to add -- a lot more. In a way I'm flying blind. I found a picture in one of the QNMs that I was about to give away, it was called "The 900 piece Quilt". Each diamond has 17 pieces so, without doing any math obviously there's many more diamonds or parts of diamonds to be made.

The reason I say I'm "flying blind" is I photo copied the page that had the paper piecing diagrams but didn't photocopy the page with a picture of the finished quilt -- and I left the magazine in the photocopy machine -- a mistake I have made with distressing frequency. Often I go back and retrieve it the next day but in this case the unhelpful attendant did not even think there was a lost-and-found drawer. So the picture, in color, is gone and all I have is the instructions, which, of course, is the really necessary part.

I know that the light/bright part was NOT the center, but when I pinned it together today I decided to try it and I liked the effect. I remain doubtful about my color choices so reversing dark/light may be a mistake. At this point it's okay to contemplate because it's only pinned. I think I like it. I'll keep thinking about it as I make the next set of diamonds. Each diamond takes at least an hour so this is actually likely to be longer term than summer.

Because I haven't had time for much quilting for over six weeks, the fabric, mostly fat quarters but some bigger cuts, has been piling up. So I sorted them before I started sewing today and and thus had a brief opportunity to review at least part of my stash. The only conclusion is I must live to 110 at least in order to do this stash justice. But what a nice problem to have! I was then inspired to start a quilt I've been thinking about. More about that tomorrow.