CCII Sewn at Last

Taking a break from the outer border of Chinese Coins II: Stacked Bricks was a smart move. I needed time away from it but hadn't realized it has been over a month. I am trying to marry conflicting guidelines: 1) give quilts enough time to evolve and 2) quit tucking projects away for years.

This quilt originated with a photo of Nettie Young's Stacked Bricks. Link in this post. Interestingly, Monica at Lakeview Stitching was concurrently inspired by Nettie's quilt. Although they all different, I can see the relationship between them.

Chinese Coins II: Stacked Bricks top

Several pennants were replaced. It wasn't difficult but certainly was a pain in the neck.  As each pennant was removed, I laid it over another and then trimmed the new one to fit exactly.

Cutting new pennants to fit the old

Layering and slicing sets of strips worked very well until I moved pennants around. When I changed my mind about their order I realized I'd created a mess. The angles and curves are slightly different for each and required lots of adjustments to keep the border level. For examples of places where true freehand works well, look at Stephie's Fete and Sujata's Endless Mountains. Stephie uses freehand to make all her pennants different. Sujata actually maintained the order of cutting in her outer border. {She chose fabric order well.} For someone like me who changes her mind frequently, cutting with a ruler at a set angle would have been a more rational choice. I am going to try layering/slicing/rotating again but swear to determine all the colors before cutting anything.

By the time I reached the corners I simply needed a fail-safe method. I  squared up the corners of extra pennants, laid them on large background squares {at least two-inches larger than the finished size}, and cut both sides. {The mid-section of light fabric went straight to the scrap bag.}

Cutting corner squares

Now it needs a back, quilting, and binding.

So many people stricken with disasters. Floods in Texas, Florida, the Caribbean, India, Nepal, and Bangladesh. Fires throughout the North American West. Magnitude-8 earthquake in Mexico; aftershocks expected. Heat wave in Europe.

"Sometimes we come to gratitude too late. 

It's only after blessing has passed on that we realize what we had." 

Philip Gulley

Let's all lend a hand. We will need one someday, too.

Enjoy the day, Ann