Eternal autumn

While I have had a bad case of startitis with my knitting, the same can't be said for my sewing. Instead of starting a new project this week, I focused on one I had on the go - albeit one you haven't seen yet.

I've mentioned before that I'm changing the colours in my bedroom. They were pale green, pale pink, and cream. But a few years back (when I bought the fabric for the bear paw quilt), I thought Dave might appreciate something a little more masculine. Or at least not so darn feminine. He insists he doesn't care... but I decided to go ahead anyway and settled on the idea of rich browns and reds.

Now Dave and I don't share blankets. Aside from fights over who is hogging them... Dave prefers just one thin blanket, while I like heavy layers, piled high. I currently sleep with a sheet, two quilts and a thick, heavy faux fur blankie.

The Bear Paws (which Mom is almost done quilting!!!) will be for Dave. But that means I need to make myself at least two quilts.

So back when I first started buying fabric from MSQ, I grab a pretty little charm pack of gorgeous autumn-coloured fabrics. 

I wanted to make an Around the World quilt. But I didn't actually pay attention to the tutorial - I just looked at the pretty quilt. And naively, I thought one charm pack would be enough to make a decent size centre. Then I could just make it the size I wanted with a few borders.

AHAHAHAHAHAHA.

Back in September, I merrily sewed away, turning the charm pack into HSTs.  It wasn't until I started laying them out that I realized I'd made a terrible miscalculation. It wasn't even going to be big enough for a baby blanket.

And of course, when I went to order another charm pack - it was "Sold out forever!" Luckily, Moda, the company who put it out, tends to make different collections with similar shades, and there was one that was close.

Almost as soon as it arrived, I turned it into HSTs too. But I didn't get around to piecing all those HSTs together until this week. 

I had planned to do it all in one day. But since sewing all those HSTs, I've learned a few things. The most important of which is "Square up your blocks!"  So that slowed down progress. Thanks to my back, I can't do much more than two hours a day, so in the end, it took me about three days.

The first day went fine. The second day gave me fits. I don't know what was going on but I just couldn't sew anything the right way. I think I ripped more than I sewed. The third day went much better and you can see the final result here.

When making my HSTs, I did my best to split the charm packs into light and dark. But some colours were right in the middle. I arbitrarily labeled them one or another... but with the medium green, it looks like I forgot my own system...

And it got to play both light and dark. I probably wouldn't have noticed, except that these ones got put side by side.

This layout, while simple to assemble, is one that will give anyone with even mild OCD fits if you do it with charm packs like I did. (an easier way to do it is a solid colour for one half of all the HSTs) I did my best to mix up the colours, but you could literally spend weeks moving blocks around trying to get things just right.

I am pretty far from a perfectionist, so I didn't have too much trouble just letting the blocks fall where they may....

And you can tell when you see all these dark green blocks together! Oh well.

Since it's only two charm packs, it's still pretty small. It will need quite a few borders to make a decent size quilt. And right now I don't have any fabric that will work for it... so I don't expect to see this one finished for a while.

Though Relic thinks it will go just lovely with his fur coat when it is....