Friday, January 7

Scrappy is as scrappy does....

I had every intention of having the Christmas quilt I've been working on be scrappy...my kind of scrappy. Which means each block has all the same fabrics in it and the same background fabric throughout the whole quilt, and all of them a full piece of fabric (that isn't a few pieces stitched together): That's not happening.

I think I miss calculated somewhere along the line, and grossly underestimated the amount of fabric I would need. Considering I bought the fabric last year and can't even remember from where I can't buy more.

So, my quilt is going to be much more "scrappy" than I would have liked. I am the queen of symmetry and things being balanced and looking right...this quilt has become a lesson in dealing with things when they aren't perfect.

As of right now I've had to: Pick out other neutral fabrics to use as my background (and will now have 3 different patterns in those), I have had to piece together strips of the same fabric to eek out the last few pieces that I need, and even, in some desperate cases, had to piece together similar (BUT DIFFERENT) fabrics to get the pieces that I need.

Will it be ok? Yes, it will....the quilt will still come out all right and it's just going to be scrappier than I originally wanted.

What's my issue with scrappy quilts? I honestly don't know. I always love quilts that are scrappy, but for some reason have never liked making them that way myself. I suppose I just think it's too much work pulling together all these random little pieces and trying to make something out of them.

I've been known to take scrappy patterns, dissect the pattern to see what I can do to make it scrappy, but out of a select number of fabrics and prints....which defeats the purpose of a scrappy quilt (which is to use up whatever you have lying around).

I'm almost done cutting out all of the fabrics (500 4 1/2" squares cut into triangles - not as hard as it sounds), but then it gets tough. Because now I have to take all of my pieces of fabrics and mix and match them in a way that doesn't drive me nuts (because remember I have to have everything symmetrical and patterned and perfect), but looks like it's scrappy.

This is becoming a lot more work than I anticipated....oy!

1 comment:

Gettysburg Homestead said...

HA I can't make a scrappy looking one either. I think I'm too OCD. I was just reading yesterday on the web that instead of cutting the triangles leave them as squares draw a line down the center and stitch 1/4" on each side then cut apart and voila already 2 sets of triangles sen together. I have been looking for fat quarter patterns to use up my stash and try something a little more challenging before I use my good fabric. LOL. can't wait to see your progress.

Mary

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