Desert Rose Piecing Finished

I had great hopes of getting this quilt pieced about a week ago so I could be quilting this Thanksgiving Weekend.  But then there was that math error.  I think that the work around turned out great.   In fact, better than the original plan in many ways.   But it did take a LONG time since I had to lay it all on the floor and make sure it was going to work out.   There was also a lot of unpicking of seams.  And twice I had had 2 blocks get a quarter turn off.  Of course, in the middle of the quilt.

I have posted pictures periodically on my Facebook for friends and family.   It's easy to tell the quilters from the non-quilters by the comments.  Non-quilters post things like "very pretty".  Quilters post "Too.Many.Points"  and "WTF"..

We're off to watch some football, but hopefully will get this sandwiched before the weekend is over and I can finally do what I like best.  Quilt.

Desert Rose Progress

There's good news and bad news.   The good news is that I had this much finished by late afternoon on Sunday.  This is the center 12 blocks of the quilt.  I tried to pick the blocks with the best points. 

It will cover the top of a Queen bed.  There is another round of 18" blocks around this part to be the drape part of the quilt.

And then there's the bad news.  As I was headed to bed with visions of finishing this quilt on Sunday, it occurred to me that I seemed to be out of the dark green HST pieces that are the star points.  I searched again in the morning than double checked my planning page which confirmed my fears.  It appears that I made half as many as I need to finish the quilt.  

This alone would be annoying, but while I padded my yardage enough for the dark green and the pale background,  I don't have enough of the mid-background to finish the quilt to the edge.  The original plan being to continue the pattern all the way to the edges as in the picture below.  

 The bottom in this pic would be the outer border.
Oh, I just found a square inserted wrong in this picture.  Damn.

After considering a half dozen options, I went with this one.  All of the HST blocks are supposed to be green/mid, but this plan replaces half with green/light. (Not noticeable in these photos and only up close in person) But in the process, I decided to remove the green corner blocks so the outside edges would finish with points.  I've spent a lot of the day ripping out stitches. 

I spent my weekend trying to finish up block sets.   It made me realize whey there is no copy of a quilt with this pattern anywhere on the internet.  Because it is a royal pain in the butt.  Even with efforts to use clever techniques to minimize stretch, those blocks never had a chance of being square.

232 squares is a lot of trimming.


But it will be worth the time and effort for the final joining of the strip sets.

29  more final blocks to make.  Each with 29 blocks to sew.

How do I keep talking myself into these things?

Pieces

I finished the first test block in the purchased fabrics and am, for the most part pleased with it.

Here's what the mock-up looks like.
At this point I had second thoughts about the dark brown squares.  It created the bold repeat I had planned for.   But is it too much?

So a week was spent considering options.

1) Terra Cotta.  Made the overall look very warm. Reads in a mid-tone. Tends to look very orange at a distance.

2) Original.  Boldest of the options.  Texture of the print preferred over all others among live viewers.

3) Picks up the other colors wanted, but reads as grey and makes the whole quilt look very cool colored.

4) A favorite print, but not enough contrast with the background fabrics, so it fades away.

A week and $30 later, I am back to the original plan.

Spent Saturday finishing cutting things out.

Tried a new HST tool from Quilt in a Day.  Unfortunately, I first encountered Elenor early in my quilting life and really dislike her presentation style so have ignored anything associated with the name.  My 6" ruler has gone missing and her 6 1/2" Triangle Square Up Ruler was what was available at the quilt shop where I went.   It is actually a very handy tool.  Since I quite like HST quilts, I see using it a lot in the future.

I discovered a major math error.   I had figured yardage before I changed the light green from a 2" square with a Y seam to 2 triangles.   Unfortunately that quilt shop is an hour away, and I was happily sewing in my PJ's, so I'll save that run for Monday.

It's not evident in this photo, but after I had about 1/2 of these sewn and pressed, I realized that I need to press the seams differently for the sake of quilting.

The one on the left is the original pressing which makes sense from a sewing standpoint.

But I want the pale sections to recede and I will be hand quilting, so I went back and pressed to the dark.


My plan for today is to finish all the piecing that I can without the stupid light green triangles.