Buildin' Stuff

With Christmas over, I've been buildin' stuff today. Want to know what I've been buildin'? A couple of my favorite things: tamales and a quilt.

Other than tamales and a quilt, I haven't done much today. Oh, I took a nap. So we have tamales, a quilt, and a nap. And I thought to myself, "What would my blog readers want to hear about most?" I figured it was probably the quilt. Had I asked myself, "What would my blog readers want to EAT most?," it would be the tamales, hands down, but I've TALKED about tamales on my blog before, so I'll skip tamales for now and talk about the quilt. I apologize if any of you wanted to hear about the nap. I don't remember much of it.

I thought I'd talk about my quilt design process a little bit. So here's how the magic happens.

I was thinking about red and white quilts the last couple weeks. And then those visions of basket blocks started floating around in my head a few days ago. I often like to start my quilt designing thought processes with traditional blocks.

So I went to my shelf of red fabric and pulled out some happy reds I liked. Then I went to my shelf of white background fabrics and pulled out some white I liked. After that, I thought a little bit about the size and number of blocks I wanted to make, and I pulled out some half square triangle paper. Here's my first step:

Next, I put the red and white half square triangles up on the design wall and figured out what I needed to cut to complete the blocks. I cut the white pieces and added them to the design wall.

Around this time, I decided I would need more room for the handles, so I decided to add additional strips to the top two sides of the blocks. Also around this time, I decided the flowers I was going to add to the baskets were going to be red, pink, teal, and lavender. Because my stash is a little short on pink, teal, and lavender, I ran off to visit Lindy and the gang at Bearpaws & Hollyhocks.

And after a nice little visit, I came home with a yummy looking collection of fat quarters, above. (The teals aren't actually as green as they look here.) And for color inspiration (and very likely borders and setting triangles), I brought home these fabrics too:

Once home, I started sewing some of the basket blocks together. When I put them back up on the design wall, I decided the blocks would probably look best with sashing and cornerstones between them. My eye also caught a length of red rick rack sitting on a desk in the Sweat Shop. Basket handles maybe? Hummmmmm.

So this is where I am so far. Five blocks sewn together; eight blocks still to sew. Sashing and cornerstones to decide on. More rick rack to buy and another trip to Bearpaws and Hollyhocks if rick rack basket handles are decided upon. And? The biggest next step? All the hand applique to design, prep, and sew. Yep, long term building project ahead! But I like it so far.

Tomorrow? More tamale building. Today I made all the fillings; tomorrow I play around with dough and corn husks and assemble dozens of tamales. And those of you who were hoping to see tamales? Just wait--you may get your wish tomorrow.