Design Wall Monday - January 24, 2022

 Good Morning Quilters!   TaDah! Viola!  Bazinga!  The WIP from last week has become a quilt top!  There were several issues to overcome, as there always are, but I overcame them.  Here is a picture of it on my design wall:

If you are interested in the issues, here they are:

A) Several blocks were made years ago when I didn’t understand that these blocks would all have to fit together into one big quilt top.  The upper left side block with the hour glasses next to it was too small.  So a small border on two sides corrected that.  Some pieces had to be trimmed, or tweaked, or redone, to make them fit.  Trust me, a consistent 1/4 inch seam is essential when combining blocks of different shapes and sizes.

B) Partial seams were involved in the instructions.  I hadn’t joined very much of the quilt together until this week, and found I could eliminate one of the partial seams.  See this picture of the lower third:

The original instructions had the checkerboard piece being sewn onto a block above it before sewing other pieces together.  I kept it with these pieces and no partial seam was needed.

C) My love for making appliquéd  pieces had waned by assembly time,  and I substituted three 6x6 inch churn dash blocks for the last undone appliquéd block.  The appliquéd piece was 6x18 inches.   Easy decision for me, because I am more comfortable piecing than appliquéing.

 D)  When sewing seams together, I found some of my appliquéd leaves were too close to a seam line, and I adjusted them slightly (made the leaf smaller) to avoid losing part of it in a seam.  This happened three times.  I shall be conscious of this in future projects to be sure nothing is in the 1/4 inch seam line,

E) My color choice did not show enough contrast in one blue three blocks set.  I moved the block set to the top of the quilt, which helped slightly, and I ended up redoing one of the three pieced blocks to make the center a lighter color, to give more contrast.  Here is a picture before I substituted a lighter blue for the far left block of the three:

The first picture at the top of this post shows the revised version.  Probably wouldn’t have bothered anyone else, but I like it better with the change.

I intend to add an appliquéd border to this quilt.  The original quilt, made by Blackbird Designs, has an outer border of vines, leaves, and small birds.  Barb Adams of Blackbird Designs’ version:

I saw one version with the makers initials added at the bottom, and I may do that.  So I am on the next happy step of making biased vines and lots of leaves.  It makes me smile to move this quilt along.  The darker inner border will be about 1 or 1.5 inches wide and the cream colored outer border will be 9.5 inches wide.

What is on your design wall this week?  I’m looking forward to seeing what you are working on!  Please join the Design Wall Mondays Linky Party below.  Those of you who link back to this post and mention the Design Wall Monday Linky Party in your post are appreciated.  Thank you.

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