Seeing Red

Oh bummer! It seems Bin Laden caused me to lose one of my followers, and for that I'd kill him if he wasn't already dead. At least most of us think he is. But enough about him--he's gotten too much attention anyway. I actually wanted to tell you what I'm up to in the Sweat Shop these days.

Even if you're not participating, I suspect you know about the monthly Le Petite projects, right? This month's project is from the Moda Bake Shop. It's called Candy Bar Pinwheels (because you use a candy bar precut), and here's what it looks like--

Sinta, I think, mentioned being able to make it scrappy, and that started me thinking. Eventually, after the old brain cogs turned awhile, I figured out how I could kill three birds with one stone: Make the project, use some of my overflowing Thimbleberries scraps, and end up with a gift quilt I needed to make anyway!

I called this post "seeing red" because that's what I've been doing:

Well, that AND seeing white too. I've decided to make the project in red and white, but for a little twist, where you see the white in the first photo, I'll use the scrappy reds for the background, and the scrappy whites will be the pinwheels.

And I'll need to make it larger--because I need a lap sized quilt for the gift I'm making. Instead of a two by three block setting, I'll make mine five by five. So, 300 2-1/2" squares and 200 2-1/2" x 4-1/2" rectangles later . . .

And I think I have enough. Actually, I'm pretty sure I have closer to 300 rectangles, but by the time I finished cutting the scraps to the right size, I really didn't feel much like counting them. Tomorrow night, I'll start piecing.

I'm concerned, though, that I may be getting a little behind in the 11 in '11 challenge. My quilt number 4 is pinned and ready to be quilted but has been sidelined by this project--which has a bit of a deadline, and so it needs to take priority. Hopefully I can catch up in the next couple months. AND this red and white quilt will count as one of my 11 quilts for the year.

If you haven't done so lately, click over to the 11 in '11 Flickr group photos--there are some terrific projects to look at, comment upon, and be inspired by. Thanks for stopping by to visit!