starting new quilt

 I cut the "succulent" print material today for the quilt. This is one from the book "Simply Retro" by Camille Roskelley. It's going to be a block sometimes called Jacob's Ladder which looks like this. The one I'm doing is strip pieced, so you basically cut a lot of squares for the four patch part and some big squares to sew and then subcut into half-triangle squares (to save bias edges). This is supposed to require less fabric than the old fashioned "use templates, trace, and cut" and also is faster and less hard on your hands (a rotary cutter is easier to use than sewing shears. Not safer - you can cut yourself very badly on it - but if you have ANY arthritis at all sewing shears get painful after a while in a way a rotary cutter does not)

 

Unfortunately , there was either an error in the pattern (the amount of fabric required), the quilt shop undercut (unlikely; this is a well established one), or the fabric shrunk more in the wash than I anticipated, because once I cut everything I was short the print fabric for two of the 3 1/2"  strips that would be needed. 

So, first, I did a little calculation - sometimes these have you cut more than you need. Nope, the BEST outcome would be I'd have 108 of the 3 1/2" squares, and I need 120.

Then I thought - well, they show the original quilt with one "mistake block" (or "focus block" - a different color than the rest of the quilt) or a "humility block - there's an old legend, probably apocryphal, that Amish/Southern Black/rural Appalachian/insert your favorite legendary quilter group here quilters put in one block turned around, or with the fabrics in the "wrong" place, as a recognition that only God can make perfect things. 

And I went and looked at my fabric on the shelves, but I didn't immediately see anything that felt right - I have lots of things in the right color scheme, but this is a photorealistic print and most of the prints I have are cartoony or stylized, and I thought it would detract from the overall impact of the quilt.

Then I looked at the pattern again. It works up to 12" blocks, and the original is an arrangement of 5 x 6 blocks - so, what, 60" by 72"? If I made only 25 blocks and did a 5 x 5 array, that would still be 60" by 60" - certainly big enough to be usable and often these days I use a quilt only across the foot of the bed (warm climate). And anyway: I really make these to MAKE them, not so much as "oh I need lots of warm bedding" so having a slightly smaller than intended quilt is no problem, and I think that's the best solution because trying to find a coordinating fabric would feel wrong, and this was a fabric bought on closeout, so I know I couldn't get more of it, even if I drove down to the shop where I bought it tomorrow (And I can't: I have stats tomorrow). Also making it a little smaller means if I make a mistake in the sub-cutting it won't be a major problem; I will have more fabric than needed. 

But I put any additional cutting on hold for now; it took a bit of thought to figure out that solution and I admit I was briefly annoyed looking at the narrow sliver of fabric I had left after cutting the ninth 3 1/2" strip.