Saturday, September 30, 2017

Disaster Averted

You may remember (but probably not because it's been so long ago) the infamous "Rainbow Disaster" quilt I talked about in this post.  Fairly quickly after starting I had to give up on it. Everything was turning out wonky, and I was getting completely frustrated.  I finally figured out it was because the pre-cut jelly roll strips were cut out sooooooo badly.  See?


















I had never bought a kit before.  I got as far as having some of the blocks partially made then decided to replace the planned inserts with eggplant colored strips.   The eggplant was included with the kit and was intended for the binding.   


This is the mess I ended up with.  










Into the UFO pile it all went.  And there it stayed.  Until now. Since one of my goals for this year was to complete some of my UFO's (Hmmmm, I think that's a goal every year!)  I pulled it out and decided to just get it done.  In my own way, of course.  

First, I played with the blocks I'd already made to see what I could come up with.  I tried several variations .....




















..... then thought about using that eggplant in the blocks instead of just saving it for the binding.  I'll worry about binding later.  You can't think that far ahead when you decide to just play.  

I decided that half-square-triangle blocks didn't actually look too horrible .....

























.....but then again, they didn't look so great laid out together on the design wall. 





















What to do, what to do.  Play some more, right?  Grab all those rejected insert pieces .....




















..... cut up all those strip sets .....
















..... and start really playing.  Now this is fun!



















After a few days of moving things around, stepping back to look, thinking and re-thinking, I ended up with a flimsy I'm really happy with.  It has gone a long way from this .....

















..... to this!

























I had a lot of pieces left which I could have used somehow to make it a little bigger, but honestly I was kind of sick of looking at it.  So I offered all of it to whoever wanted them in my online quilting group, and Alice spoke up first, so they are outta here!



















The quilt will be a decent size for a throw, about 55" x 55" so that's not too bad.  Plus, as soon as I decide how to quilt it there will be one less thing on the dreaded UFO list.  I can live with that!

I'm linking up with Confessions of a Fabric Addict for Can I get a Whoop Whoop?
Check out other bloggers there!








10 comments:

Mimi said...

I love this quilt. One other thought though.....giving away UFO's counts as getting through you UFO pile? :D

piecefulwendy said...

I have had a similar experience with precut strips. I no longer assume they are accurate or straight! I think your outcome is really nice though!

Louise said...

What a great outcome from a frustrating kit! Your improv piece is so much more interesting and unique :)

Alycia~Quiltygirl said...

Oh I really like what you came up with! Making lemonade out of lemons :-)

Snowcatcher said...

I've had at least one jelly roll that did that to me. I like to cut my own now. :) You did a marvelous job of not only finishing the flimsy, but turning it into something equally as interesting as the original pattern. If it were me, I'd use the leftover blocks somehow in the backing, just to get rid of them. I know how good it feels to finish up something I am very tired of looking at. Great job, and very creative!

Rebecca said...

I remember that debacle! It had me afraid to buy strip sets for years, but I've passed that. I was also thinking "lemonade." I think keeping those frustrating pieces was good, because those ombre colors look so good up there!

Pam @ Quilting Fun said...

Great quilt! Love what you finally arrived at, very creative play.

Kate @ Smiles From Kate said...

I haven't been happy with a couple of layer cakes too not being true squares and not cut on the true grain. You made a great job of rescuing the blocks.

Soma @ inkTorrents.com said...

Your new flimsy looks fantastic!! Great job!!

-Soma

Dar said...

Sandy, You are amazing. That was an eye grabbing finish to that less than perfect cut of a jellyroll. It really looks great. I'm getting back on line so stop by sometime. Looking forward to being with you at retreat ....really soon. Will send out info soon.