Quilt Blocks Squared

At O'Hare airport

I have been rather obsessively sewing my red nine-patch blocks whenever I have a chance, including when Troy is driving and during the bus ride and flight I had recently. And lots of time on my couch in the late evenings, of course.

I don't have a count of how many I have sewn but I am keeping track of how many I have cut out. I divided the squares into two groups first: red and not-red. Then each group was separated into four categories from light to dark

Then I mix and match them with the lighter reds going with the darker not-reds, etc. I also make sure that I have equal number of squares with four dark patches and five dark patches because in the final quilt, you need half of each.

While I was at my sister's, she let me go through her scraps. She always says she doesn't have many and doesn't keep small pieces, but I found plenty to work with! I didn't cut any yardage she had; just the leftover bits. I cut 2.5" strips whatever length I could get (anywhere from 2.5" to width of fabric). When I got home, I cut them crosswise into 2.5" squares:

Isn't that a wealth of scraps!! I was just itching to use them up! It was fun to have fresh fabric to pair up with contrasting pieces.

Following are pictures of all the squares done so far on my flannel wall. I tried to lay them out in pattern, but for some of the groups, I had more of one layout than the other. Don't worry...I've cut out and set up the right pieces, but they haven't been sewn yet.

Light reds with medium-dark not-reds

Medium-light reds with dark not-reds

Medium-dark reds with light not-reds

Dark reds with medium-light not-reds

I think you can see how even though there are lots of colours, you will still get the checkerboard effect because of the light and dark values of the fabrics.

Right now I am thinking they will be arranged in the quilt either in a gradation of light blocks to dark, or maybe more of a colour wash--yellow toned blocks moving into orange into green, etc. while the red remains a constant. I think there will be a lot of playing with this one when the blocks are done!

I'm planning on 15 blocks on a side so that is 225 blocks. I'm pretty close to having enough pieces cut out but I have quite a bit of sewing to do!! Most of these are hand sewn just because I can take it with me and I enjoy doing it on the couch while watching TV/Netflix. But I'm not handsewing the batiks so they are all done on the machine. I also can't imagine doing the long seams by hand when I will be assembling the top. But we'll see...

I'm still excited about this crazy quilt of mine. It's a fun experiment in "what happens if I..."