Aw, tut!

It took me awhile to come up with an idea for the 2nd go at the FQ bundle, Elinore’s Endeavors. And then, true to my nature, I got bored pretty quickly with my decision which was going to be all HSTs.

So, after some fits and starts, I got something going that I am excited about. Or at least interested enough to stick with. (One of my worst faults, I admit.) Hopefully it will serve these lovely prints well.

But in this quilt I chose for the middle portion to use the back side of the light prints because I didn’t want them to distract from the colored ones and I wanted them to match the plain ivory background of the center print. But boy, I could sure feel my mother’s disproval! “Why are you wasting such beautiful fabric?” I could just hear her tut-tutting me.

You can see that on the backs I cut close enough to save some of the printing on the selvedge, which has the names of the line and the designer: Elinore and Betsy.

Though I do love the way lights in the center triangles hint at an image — like something misty and mysterious! — to assuage my guilt, I decided to be a good girl and use the front sides as I continued around the center with the Nine Patch blocks.

The center piece, a large floral design, is one of the FQ’s that was simply too gorgeous to cut up. I love it because it reminds me of Indian artwork, specifically the beautiful chipped-stone inlays on marble. Then I remembered that quilt makers of old started a quilt with a small center piece of fabric (often expensive; often chintz) or a panel of embroidery, and then built the quilt out from that center by adding various rounds of patchwork. These “medallion” quilts are my absolute favorite way to make a quilt now. (I’ve written about them elsewhere on this blog.) There’s absolutely no way to get bored making a quilt this way. And your math skills get a good workout, too.

This is what I’ve got going so far. And hopefully my mother will be pleased that I abandoned the shockingly unorthodox use of the back of some prints. Tut-tut!!