Hedging my bets

I haven't quite made my mind up yet where this is going, so I have been working on two fronts.  First off I made a few more of the big blocks. This is my favourite.

It is very clear that if I want to make many more of these I will need to add in extra shirts; I can only get two or three of those big curves out of a shirt before I have to start piecing bits back together again. I'm not ruling that out but in the meantime I have  started making smaller blocks as a way of using up the weird leftovers I was creating.

I don't know how/where they fit into the scheme of things yet, but it feels like they will come in handy at some point, and they are kind of satisfying to make.

And then there were four

My posting adventures continue, since this is posted from an iPad, something else I don’t usually try.  Here are a few more blocks. 

A number of people thought they had a bit of a double wedding ring vibe and I agree. I have been looking at quite a few vintage quilts, but mostly very simple, restrained colour palettes and repeated bocks. Those our my favourite double wedding rings, but I don’t want to make one. I guess all that browsing has seeped into this quilt though. 

On a practical note, curves and shirts are tricky partners: what you ready want are nice expanses of fabric to slice your curves from, but mostly what you get are lots of compromises and extra piecing. In the end, I think this will give  the quilt its own particular character and it certainly stops me getting bored! 

Sometimes I am sewing together two pieces of the same fabric, sometimes I’m using a contrasting bit and sometimes,  as with the yellow block, I do one thing and then change my mind and try again.

These blocks are quite big, for me - maybe 10 inches or thereabouts. If I kept making them I would have a top in pretty good time. On one level that sounds appealing but I’m not sure now whether I’ll make more of them or start tinkering about. The good money is on tinkering.

 

First pass at the sun

I am posting from my phone for the first time ever, so this may or may not work,  but let's give it a go. 

I've done several quilts in a row that used not only similar shapes (chunky wedges) but also a similar approach (broadly speaking the medallion). I'm not sure whether I'm done with the edge but have decided to have a  play with some curves this time round. 

This is my first attempt. 

I am thinking,  I guess,  of the sun and sunflowers, but mostly,  as ever,  just trying to find shapes and colour combinations that please my eye.

And here's a second block. I can see that there is s hint of a chunky wedge here,  but what can you do?  It's clearly not going quietly.

 

All the yellows

Ann's newest challenge landed just as I was thinking about what to start next so I have pulled out a great big pile of shirts and dived right in.  Here is a photo of every single yellow and orange shirt I could find, plus some others that seemed to sit nicely with them.

Seems like a good place to start, so off I go.