Upended

No sewing last week as it was half-term and there were all sorts of kid-related shenanigans going on instead.  I try to plan ahead for these moments and have piles of mindless piecing ready, so that I can keep ticking over, but this project doesn't lend itself to that approach.  As a result I was extremely happy to get back to it this morning.

I have decided to stick permanently with the rotated version of this quilt, although I haven't yet worked out a satisfactory way to add the extra bit of length it needs as a result.  I mostly worked today on accumulating more pieced chunks to work with.  I have run out of proper pieces of two fabrics now - you can see how a lot more of my basic squares are made up of scraps now.

These two pictures give a rough idea of where I'm headed - there's not much more sewn down than there was last time, but you get the gist.

Looking at things sideways on

My last progress post/update on this map quilt was over on the AHIQ blog (if you haven't already, do check out the other posts and see all the different takes on maps that are going on).  I was distinctly unhappy with what I had done, so I have unpicked the offending section and rather than trying to improve it I have left things to stew in the top right corner and moved on to other areas of the quilt.  

I 'm happier with this.  I was going to say that it's probably not going to get any wider, but then I looked at it from another angle.  I like it this way up too, but that would change the dimensions I'm aiming at.  Just so you know, in the first picture it's about 65" across and I was thinking of heading for about 80" in length.  

I think I'm going to make just a few more of my big chunks before I make any firm decisions about where they go.  That way I can mull this over but also, as is so often the way at this point, I'm running low on fabric.  I should see how far I can get and leave myself some wiggle room.

Missing the right bits

Slow progress.

I have added to the right hand side - and am not trying to figure out what happens above and below this piece.  

Quite a lot of the bits in this picture had not yet been sewn together, so the wider blue and white strips will end up rather narrower than they look.  The bit I'm struggling with right now is the top right-hand corner.  I would like the blue to extend around it, but can't find quite the right combination of bits.  Up until now I have just been using what I already had made, but I think the next step will be to make something specifically for the space.  

A whole lot of shuffling going on.

I still like the dark blue, which is a relief.  Right now I'm doing quite a lot of laying things out on the floor, like this...

to try and figure out where I want to use the dark stripes and where I want to stick with the pale ones.  Occasionally when I like something I'm pinning bits together, so that I don't forget next time I get them out and every so often I am biting the bullet and sewing.  

I'm still trying to avoid letting everything get too 'block-y' and this sort of placement creates little gaps to fill, which I hope will help with that.  Partial seams help too (and seem to have become a habit now).

Third time lucky

Well this has been interesting.

Having said I needed something extra, I started playing around with some different shapes.  I tried triangles

then I toyed with the idea of something circle-y, based on these vintage samples of furnishing fabric

but realistically I wasn't going to have enough fabric for this approach.

I'm not sure what led me back to my boxes, but I went furtling about in the one containing shirts and came up with this,

which led to this.

I like it, so I'm going to do a bit more and see how it goes. I'm guessing it will come down to whether I can balance the blue and the white stripy bits satisfactorily.

Fits and starts

It appears this is one of those projects that involves a fair bit of puzzling things out, though I hope my little strips are going to provide at least part of the answer. 

My issue currently is that although I like my individual pieces and the stripy fabric that is joining them together, I don't want it everywhere, otherwise each block is framed with the stripes and the whole thing ends up looking too- well, block-y.  Yes, I know that's not a word, but hopefully it conveys my problem.  If this is just a collection of big rectangles outlined with stripes then it becomes static, so I need to find ways to keep some movement.  I'm hoping the newest pieces will help with that, firstly just because they are a different element but also, on a more practical level, they are a way to stop any individual line of the stripy fabric extending too far, of disrupting the grid. 

This picture is quite a good example, even with the extra strip sets, of how easily this could feel static and lumpen. 

I think I need to add something more.

Quick update

Not much to say about this, but here's a bit of progress.  

My pile of "blocks" is growing

and I have started making these little strips too.

I am hoping these will let me sneak in some little bits of the purple and green fabrics as well as using up my smaller scraps.

A practical aside: I don't know which part of the gmail/blogger interface is to blame but comments are being emailed to me multiple times at the moment.  This means I have become hopelessly confused about which one I have replied to.  I am trying methodically to work my way through it, but will almost undoubtedly slip up somewhere, so apologies in advance to anyone I accidentally ignore.