FOTY 2010: Week of 2/7 Progress

FOTY 2009 Finished
FOTY 2009 Finished

I hung up FOTY 2009 in my hallway yesterday. It can be seen when people walk in the front door. I received a ton of compliments on it, which was very kind of people. I was planning to take it to work, but needed to solve a quick decorating dilema and decided to keep it at home for awhile. I have to think of something new to hang in my office as I am getting tired of seeing Seeing Red when I walk in.

In the meantime, I am still working on FOTY 2010 steadily, though I wasn’t able to do much more than unpick a few yellows this past week.

FOTY 2010: Where I started
FOTY 2010: Where I started

Pretty much, this is where I started this week. There were still lots of gaps in the blues, but I had started to piece the smaller pieces into larger. One can ‘chunk‘ this type of quilt in the piecing process, but not as easily, or for as long, as when piecing square or rectangular patches. At some point I had to piece long rows together.

Part of this has to do with the arrangement of this particular quilt. The colorwash type arrangement doesn’t lend itself well to piecing the patches into chunks of four patches, as I was able to do with the Eye Spy quilt.

FOTY 2010: Processing Blues
FOTY 2010: Processing Blues

Aren’t the blues behaving nicely? The placement is not ideal and I would do it differently if I had unlimited tints, hues, values and shades, but my FOTY rule is that I have to use what I have, and so far I am happy.

FOTY 2010: Section Pieced
FOTY 2010: Section Pieced

You can see, above, the whole blue section pieced.

FOTY 2010: Where I am Going
FOTY 2010: Where I am Going

I am heading towards the pink on the bottom. Now that the blues are behaving nicely, the pinks are becoming little brats. It reminds me of the Mandrakes in the book, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. That big gap has reappeared in the pink area. Grrrr!

I have been contemplating the yellow and pink sections and doing a bit of playing with their arrangement. I am not terribly fond of a big line of greens or yellows or pinks slashing through the quilt. I prefer more of a blob arrangement (like the pinks are in the above photo – more of an organic shape). I am not sure at this moment how I will have them blend into each other – the blue to pink – if I do the blob arrangement. I don’t have enough yellows, greens and oranges to wash very completely. I think the green to yellow to orange is much easier, but there is a space consideration up towards the top. I’ll have to play around and see what works.

Author: Jaye

Quiltmaker who enjoys writing and frozen chocolate covered bananas.