Monday, February 22, 2010

Pinwheels and Calico Cats

Here's another project I've been working on the past month or two. It started with some very scrappy calico pinwheels made in Pat Speth's class:


I decided I didn't want to do 35 pinwheels, to make the quilt 5 blocks by 7. Then I found this calico cat block in an old magazine. I redrew it to the size I needed and made four of them - it really made me like the blocks better to have some cats in there! I need ONE more cat for that empty bottom right corner.

My design wall is too small, so I had to overlap most of the blocks to get them to fit, even with folding the right hand row around to the back. I wish I had a bigger house --and a studio with a skylight and a maid to keep things clean and might as well wish to win the lottery while I'm at it-- but meanwhile, this design wall is as big as it's gonna get!

Now looking at the photo, I see that I've got to shift some blocks, those two brighter green background ones are too close together, and I don't think I like the two cats that're looking left being that close either. Anyone else get to this point and decide to just take them ALL down and start the layout over?

There'll have to be sashing between the blocks, because the pinwheels spin different directions. It'll be thin sashing, maybe 1 or 1½ inches, but I can't decide what color I want. There's a forest green... and a mauve, and a medium blue, and a dark blue. None of them are solid, but they're all a very tiny print, and almost read as solid. It's gotta be from stash, I'm on a no-buy thing till I use some fabric up. Any opinions?

4 comments:

julieQ said...

I really like your combination! Yes, I often try lots of combinations before I am happy...then when the quilt is altogether, I see another place or two I could have changed.

Joyce said...

I do that all the time. I have even done it accidentally with a huge kaleidoscope quilt when I took one piece down and they all fell down. Not so much fun. I'd go for the darkest color for the sashing. I like the way darks set off the other colors.

scraphappy said...

While you are making your list you should add a fairy to finish the binding and labels leaving you free to start something new. What is it they say, "You don't always get what you want, but sometimes you get what you need." The cats look great perched amongst all of those pinwheels. It adds a lot of interest. I am partial to green for the sashing, but any of those colors would work.

Ginger Quilter said...

Actually I like the position of those two cats close to each other. They provide a nice focal point.

A thin black sashing would set each block off nicely and showcase each one.

This is a really cute quilt.

I understand about your design wall as I have a similar problem but you are putting yours to good use:)

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