UP 2012 #1 - Green Chinese Lanterns - the next stage.

And here are the finished Chinese Lantern blocks laid out together to get the right distribution of light and dark fabrics and balance of patterns. And to my surprise! (not really) I have made two halves too many and the layout of blocks didn't match my hand-drawn draft. I've got four whole lantern blocks in each column instead of three that I drafted, but I also have only six columns instead of eight.

And I have noticed that there are some variances with the block widths which might make for some tricky sewing as I continue. Oh well! I've had worse! At this stage it's currently about 57" x 55" in size, which should shrink some with better placement and seam allowances. But it should make for a small double bed size quilt when I add borders.

At this point I will walk away and do something else and periodically come back to check the placement of blocks and make any adjustments until I'm entirely happy that all these blocks can stay where they are permanently. This advice I pass along from the lovely ladies who ran Mad About Quilting at Morningside, which is sadly no longer there. Layout your fabrics and then walk away to refresh your view.  Come back and check things out in different lights, angles and try different fabrics, which can be a delaying process but it makes for no regrets after things have been cut and sewn and quilted. Well, in most cases.

Unfinished Project #1 for 2012 - Circa 2000

Okay, well since last post I've fallen out of interest with my project involving the reuse of old embroidered doilies and resurrected a project that I started back in 2000. When I started this project "Chinese Lanterns" from Australian Patchwork & Quilting magazine Vol 8. No. 1 I had made three quilts and all of them I had given away. And with this pattern I had found a design that appealed to me and I was making this quilt for myself.

But I hadn't until this time used a pattern based on templates. Cue music of doom. I didn't have the skill or experience to work with templates under my own steam.

Hence why this project has been packed away throughout the past 12 years; even though I have collected green fabrics over the years with the intent to be incorporated in the quilt.

I loved the picture of the blue lanterns on their cream background, but in my head I saw them as green lanterns, green being my favourite colour, so I started getting together some green fabrics. (Like I needed the excuse to buy more fabric, but it helps with the rationalizing if you have a specific project to use as an excuse).

And I went about collecting my materials at Mad About Quilting, Morningside, where I found a lovely floral green dot-print on cream background that I would use as the quilt background and was going to use 36 different green fabrics for each lantern. Until I started making the blocks.

Cutting with template plastic is not fun or easy or quick. You need to know what you're doing. And I didn't. At all.

And even when I got advice from the lovely Caroline at MAQ, I couldn't seem to improve the way I pieced together my blocks. So as my frustration mounted with each block I assembled, coaxing the strips to align in vain I felt it was best to put everything away until I knew better.

That took 12 years.

But I have been doing well these past few weeks over the Easter break, and I've got about twenty blocks now, with only a few more blocks to make to complete a rectangle big enough to maybe fit a double bed with borders.

The best thing has been that I found some green fabric leftover from my first ever completed quilt and I have got a green lantern made out of it to go within the quilt. This is going to be a sentimental memory quilt for me.

My aim for this year is to complete my unfinished projects. At least one every three months. And I've got a few to go.