Time to Get Back to This . . .

Remember the Garden Club quilt I've been working on since . . . oh, I think it was probably in the late summer/early fall of 2011 when I started it. When I finished piecing Doc Monday morning, I wasn't sure what to work on next. I'd already finished this month's Autumn House and Country Cottages blocks; did I want to work on Merry, Merry Snowmen? I have nearly two weeks until the next block kit arrives, and this month's block looks like it will go fairly quickly. Or did I want to work on Harrington and Hannah? I have more than two weeks before the next block of that project is posted. I kept feeling like I was forgetting something, and then I remembered the Garden Club quilt. I hadn't worked on that for about two months. What block was supposed to be completed next?

I flipped through the book and the next block was of three topiaries--yep, I could do that easily in a couple days. So I pulled out the bag of fabrics I set aside for this project and started planning.

The really hard thing about doing a block of the month when you're not using the same types of fabrics and colors as were used in the original is trying to keep track of what colors have been used in which places. A really smart quilter probably would have made a photocopy of the overall quilt pattern--because there is a page with outlines of the different blocks that would lend itself fairly well to the idea--and colored in the blocks as she went. Apparently I'm not that really smart quilter.

What I did instead was to lay out the pieces I've made so far on my bed and take a photo of what's done. Then I printed that out as a color reference. Since I only have a couple sections left to make, I think this should work okay for me. Here's my photo, but be aware that it's kind of hard to differentiate between my blocks and the "hat quilt" that's on my bed--they both use many of the same colors and tones--and the photo doesn't really show everything--I was mostly interested in what colors are already used in blocks that border the waiting-to-be-made sections.

The topiary section I'm working on will fit above the chair and beehive on the right side of the quilt.

The nice thing about laying out the pieces on my bed is that I can see it's probably not going to be wide enough--even for the double bed I'll want to put it on--although it's certainly LOOOOONG enough. And in the original pattern, there are two long snakes running along the right side of the quilt--I'm not planning to add snakes to my quilt, so I won't even have the benefit of knowing I can count on the width of the snakes to make the quilt a little larger. What I'm thinking instead is that these quilt sections don't fit nicely together--as designed, there are at least a couple inset seams, and I don't like that, so maybe I can add a little width in those sections by adding in some small pieced blocks. Pinwheels seem right for a garden, don't they? I'll have to play around with the idea and decide.

Anyway, here's the topiary section--it's nearly done but I have two of the green circles to finish appliqueing:

The next section should be pretty fast too, so maybe I'll go on to make it. Or maybe I'll put it away until next month, because there are a couple other projects I need to work on. I don't think I'll ever lack for projects to work on, that's for sure!