In the Groove

I'm there. Completely caught up in the development of this quilt. The one I wasn't excited about doing is now the thing I can't wait to get back to. Partly because it really is going together much more easily than I thought it would...must be because of all that 'special planning' I did. NOT. I'm definitely flying by the seat of my pants on this one. I told a new friend just yesterday one thing I'm having the hardest time with is the math part. Measuring. I would like to believe it's because I haven't had to really measure in years and not that this, too, is part of the aging process. Not only do I have to measure once, but two or three times because I forget...was that strip 1" or 1 1/2" and does that include the seam allowance? I have these idiotic conversations in my head constantly.

But Sunday was 11 hours straight, eating occasionally. I consider myself very fortunate to have long pieces of uninterrupted time. And because the first section has gone together so well, I now have a footprint for the remaining three. I now know the length, and width of each and I know I can layout the different 'postcards' and they'll fit. And will work together. That was one of my big concerns. All so different, will they work side by side? I think they do.

This is the center piece of the top section. Today I get to quilt it. This is the Bubbles at "Champagne" in Dominica...the bubbles will actually be shell white buttons of different sizes traveling up the quilt. Above this piece was an empty space that I filled in with three blue squares to look like continuation of the water. (Patchwork is so forgiving.) The bubbles will travel through these and out the top.





Even though the fabrics are different in each one, I've tried to keep at least one element common to all. They all have the same 1" frame surrounding htem and each has some brightly colored 1/4 " border inside the frame, a fabric which may occur in another square.

So this section combined with the previous post make up 2/3 of this top section. Tomorrow I'll post the last section, Tikal-Guatemala, which I'm happy with. I've also finished the quilting on the side piece, 20" by 90". Looks like this: