NOW What's She Up To?

Remember I mentioned the other day that I was working on an older Thimbleberries quilt project that I was going to show you after I finished the applique?  Well, I did the applique and I'm close to finishing the quilt top, but I needed more of one of the fabrics to do the border, so I had to order it from an online shop.  As a result, I couldn't work on that project this evening.  (And I don't think I want to show it until the border is added since it's so close.)

Of course, could have worked on the red and cream quilt.  That's the one where I need to sew together the 12,682 2-1/2" squares (maybe a slight exaggeration on the number of squares, but it seems about right).  Well, I sat in the Sweat Shop tonight and looked at it on the design wall, and then I looked a little more.  But nothing sparked me into getting up off that chair until my thoughts wandered to my stash of Christmas fabrics.  I thought I might just take a little peek at what I had.  (Of all my regular cotton fabrics, only my Christmas fabrics are hidden away--in another room, in fact!  Last year I decided not to give them shelf space any longer since they're so seasonal.)

When I poked around in one of the drawers that holds the Christmas stash, I came across an older jelly roll of a Robert Kaufman line called Sparkle All the Way--I think it came out about two years ago.  And I had some additional yardage suitable for borders.  So I pulled that out of the drawer and decided to see what I could do with it--something simple but colorful, I thought.  Maybe a tabletopper for the kitchen.

Since each strip is 42" long, I decided to cut the strips into 10-1/2" lengths, which meant I could get four pieces from each strip.

I decided to make blocks consisting of five strips each--which meant the blocks would measure 10-1/2" square.  I made four blocks using the same five strips in the same order--so all four blocks looked identical.  I then cut each of them on the same diagonal--you can see my ruler laid out on top of the block below.

That gave me four identical triangles with the long pink strip you see at the top side of the photo, and four more identical triangles with the long white strip you can see on the bottom.  I then sewed the triangles back together as you can see in the photo below.



To make two blocks, I used five of the jelly roll strips.  At this point, I'm not sure if I'll make 9 blocks for a 9-patch set or make it larger using 16 blocks, but in case you want to make something similar, 16 blocks would take 40 strips, which is perfect for most jelly rolls.  And each block is around 14" unfinished, I believe, so a 4 x 4 set would end up measuring around 54" without borders added--plenty large enough for a tabletopper or lap quilt.

Really, I have absolutely no business getting sidetracked with this project considering all the other things I've started--and you don't even know the half of it!--but I'm glad I did anyway.  I think this quilt will look so happy and cheerful, I won't be able to help but smile, even when I'm far, far behind on getting everything else done.