Initially, I was going to call this quilt, "monkeying around" (because I do love those little monkeys)
But, though there are a lot of those little monkeys in this quilt, there aren't enough to make it obvious why the quilt would be called "monkeying around". In fact, there's a lot of not-so-obvious fabric in this quilt, a lot of which fell under the category of "Now why did I buy that"?
On one of my very rare visits to a quilt shop (the quilt shop in question, was in fact, going out of business and was on its third last day!), I found and fell in love with the monkeys. So then, I needed to get something to go with the monkeys, namely these palm trees.
Nice. But, uhm, what'll I do with those? Which is not what happened when I bought these little lovelies.
I actually bought this fabric for a very specific project (my very first commission quilt, which was in fact, only my second quilt ever), but my client decided that he wanted red only rather than the autumnal shades we had discussed, so I ended up making him Saucy Divo, and then had this orange and gold dragonfly fabric. And thought, "So, uhm, what am I going to do with that?" Which was not the case with this fabric.
This fabric, I bought for a very specific purpose. It was going to be in the quilt I finally finished up just recently - Man's Fans". But I didn't like it as much as I thought I did (in that quilt, anyway) so ended up with quite a bit of yardage left. I tried to put some of it in "Autumn Steals In", but used only tiny bits of it, so once again. That question came up - "What am I going to do with that"?
Well, one day I was thinking to myself "I need to make something quick and easy" and decided to make a half triangle quilt, using all of those lost and now found fabrics. Turned out, that though it was indeed easy, it wasn't fast at all. (Why did I think true-ing up 500 blocks would be fast????!!!! I should have made a baby size quilt!) So, after they were sewn, I trued them up 20 or so at a time, and did other things concurrently.
Today I'm home because my youngest is sick - but a 14 year old boy with a tv and a Playstation in his room is very easy to take care of (!), so I decided to work on another top I started on the weekend. I finished it and was going to start quilting it, but found I didn't have the right backing fabric for it. So I decided to finally finish up my half triangles and show it to you.
I won't be quilting it tonight - BSP reminded me we have a dinner date tonight with friends, and tomorrow night, I have a night out with my best girlfriend - so on Friday, I'll have to show you the other top I made today.
And then I guess I'm going to be busy quilting all weekend. Do you think I can quilt two queen sized quilts over one weekend? We're going to find out!
For this one, I've been thinking about free motion monkeys and palm trees, or perhaps I could try (once more) to make straight lines, or maybe some simple x's across the squares or....? I don't know!
What do you think?
In any case, I'm glad to finally use up some of those "What am I going to do with that?" fabrics, and though I bored myself to tears with this quilt (*laughs*), I'm happy to prove that I can so too make something traditional! (In fact, when its done, I'm going to bring it to my guild just to show those ladies that I can!)
*blows a raspberry* ;)
In the meantime, happy quilting to you all!
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I am so impressed with the size of this quilt, it's going to be wonderful all quilted up! I have so many, "what the heck was I thinking when I bought this?" fabrics... I really like your solution to using them!
ReplyDeleteHope your son gets better.
ReplyDeleteYou accomplished alot today. Love your quilt and love your fabrics....seems are taste are along the same line...
Do you want me to tell you about the oops?
ReplyDeleteDo you "need" the border to get the quilot to be a certain size? If not, consider the quilt without a border...
Love the colors & the use of orange!
(I also loved the Saucy Divo quilt - thanks for linking back to it.)
I love the look of triangle quilts but I can't stand to make the little triangle squares. Brava!! I'm jealous of your perseverance.
ReplyDeleteAnd the quilt itself is lovely...I love the colors together. Fantastic job using up fabrics you didn't think you'd be able to use.
Ah! Love those triangles!!! You may recall me saying I have to do also but do you think I have started that yet? I'm seriously procrastinating it.... Sigh.... Yours is lovely, nice job!
ReplyDelete