Friday 21 November 2014

Murphy's Law meets Night Sky QAL

I've been making progress on my Night Sky Quilt this week.  Not a lot of progress it has to be said, but still some!

Jana @ Jana Machado has organised a Quilt-A-Long using Camille Roskelly's pattern Night Sky.  Today is link up day over on her blog and I am pleased to say I have one block made.  Yup, just the one!

The rest are like a giant jigsaw puzzle in pieces up on the design wall!

I'm making a small version of this quilt 48" x 56" from my on hand Christmas fabrics.  Mine is a scrappy version made up of a left over Layer Cake of Joy by Kate Spain, Riley Blake's Santa's Little Helpers and a smattering of Folk Art holiday.

I've added in Kona Snow, Ash and Navy in an attempt to pull the scrappiness together, very similar to the palette in the original pattern made with Bonnie & Camille's new line of fabric, Daysail.

Not using fat quarters, I started with cutting up all the pieces I would need, working out how many of each block and what colours I wanted, whiled away the whole afternoon last Sunday. 
I thought I had everything nice and orderly, then realised the aqua solids I had sewn into my centre 4 patches, were meant to be star points!  I am very good friends with my seam ripper (have 4 of them!)
 So I ripped and laid them out again this time by block!  Much better.
Then got to chain piecing.  All was going fine until I ran out of bobbin thread.  I didn't notice until the last one went through- doh!  
So I wound a new bobbin, decided to be very good and give the machine a clean while I was at it and tried again.
Yup made a hames (Irish term for a right royal mess!) of threading my machine and chain pieced them all like this!  More ripping and redoing.  I didn't swear once, I might have sighed a lot though!  I eventually got this one lone navy block sewn together.
As I was working from layer cakes one of my big blocks is made up of 2 colours of the same print.  I quite like it though it is a bit crazy looking!

I'm loving the large 16" blocks in this pattern.  This red block is my favourite so far.  I really like the red white and aqua colour scheme too.  Must think about that for another project!
So, worrying I wouldn't have much to show you today for Jana's blog hop, only 1 poor solitary star block pieced together, I cleared the design wall and started laying out.  This was tons of fun!  It really is like playing with a big jigsaw!  And look,  I have one piece in the large aqua block, second row, laid out backwards! 
Quite a bit left to do but it's coming together, despite Murphy's what can go wrong will go wrong influence.  Row 3 and 5 will be very similar to row 1, so a really scrappy Christmas looking quilt I hope, in the end.  Eventually!

Linking up to Jana today.  Please head on over there for more of the blog hop and to see her fabulous blocks.  So far Jana has managed to make unique blocks, no two the same!  Some people even have a finished quilt top!  No pressure then, it's not like I have a deadline or anything!   34 more days, plenty of time don't you think?

10 comments:

  1. Hi Ruth! Wow, all the stars look fantastic! I love the colours in your projects and beautiful Fabrics! Each photo is so inspiring! x Teje

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  2. Sorry for all the troubles! I wish I could say that hasn't happened to me but I think all quilters are good friends with their seam rippers! Everything looks FANTASTIC though!! Love that pattern!

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  3. Wow, you are so patient! I love the aqua, read, and white, too and would love to see what you come up with using that color scheme in the future. :)

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  4. Murphy was visiting my house yesterday too. I tried very hard to breath deeply and slowly. Persevered, Then finished the block today. Yeah!
    Your quilt is coming together nicely.

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  5. i love the aqua, red, and white color scheme and think this pattern is perfect for scrappy stars!! I have had similar occurrences happen to me and sometimes it is a wonder that i ever finish a project as it seems i have to redo everything! you have put a lot of work in and it looks fabulous!!

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  6. It looks a little difficult for a confident beginner I'm working on one now that takes time. I thought I wanted this pattern but I think I will pass. Thank you for sharing this post. It has helped me. I think your quilt is going to be Beautiful!! jlblvn at gmail dot com

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  7. Dear Ruth, I just loved reading your steps and decisions about this quilt! Many times I could see myself on your words, messing with fabrics, ripping, running out of bobbin thread, running out of fabrics! Hahaha
    Your Christmas fabrics and aquas are just lovely in this quilt. It's so nice to see the blocks on your design wall. I should do it at some point. I'm not repeating blocks what make the process like putting a puzzle together also make it very slow... But, I do enjoy it too, just crazy!
    Thank you so much for participating!

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  8. Cool combo. I really like your version. Star blocks are probably my fav :)

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  9. Looking good!! Sometime machine has own mind. Keep up the good job!!

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