Finished with Unfinishing

I'd hope to share a picture of my Supernova quilt, pinned to my umbrella clothesline... gently waving in the wind. Ha! Iowa hasn't yet heard that spring is supposed to be here. We've had endless days of dreariness, strong winds, rain, cold (36F/2C this morning) and no sunshine. It's downright depressing.

Dare I be honest and tell you how many times I re-made blocks for the Supernova quilt? No. You don't want to know that a quilter with 35 years of experience re-made blocks that many times! The latest iteration is the last. I swear it.

I completely removed a dark green block that didn't suit and made a yellow block (upper right) to replace it. Then, I changed fabrics on two blocks, completely removing brown prints. Even now, as I study this, I don't like the green center block that makes my eye stop with its abrupt change from dark green outer patches to different colors in adjacent blocks.

62" X 62" Supernova quilt top

The rejected dark green block has been sewn into the backing.

Supernova backing

This backing fabric was 25 percent off at my LQS. That isn't much of a discount when I can remember $6 to $7 a yard quilting cotton that could be bought half price. I heard recently that cotton prices are stabilizing and I hope that's true.

Though the Supernova quilt is ready to sandwich and pin-baste, I can't baste it just yet. Believe it or not, almost all my safety pins are in this 80" X 80" "Snowflake Medallion" quilt.... and they've been in the quilt since last June! How sad is that?

 

Pretty darned sad, I'd say. It's not that I don't want to quilt it. It's that I don't know what to quilt! It's my same old problem. And I've surely set myself up for failure too because I want the quilting in this one to be knock-your-socks-off awesome. Though I've been looking for, studying, and drawing quilting designs seen on blogs, I'm just not confident in my ability to choose the "right design." There must be a trick to it. Advice eagerly accepted, please!

I find it much easier to sew and piece. Even resewing 120 HST for the "Roll Roll Cotton Boll" quilt wasn't too bad. How nice to have the blocks sewn together now. 

"Roll Roll Cotton Boll" 11" X 11" unfinished block

These 30 blocks are ready to be joined to string-pieced blocks to make the quilt center. Yay!

30 "Roll, Roll, Cotton Boll" blocks

I've made a little quilting progress on "Glinda." Oh how I adore those ruby slippers. I found an interesting picture of the real ones here.

Now, what shall I quilt in the next triangular shaped sections? Lola (whose "Glinda" quilt it is) and I are thinking yellow brick road, kinda like this. One of Glinda the Good Witch's lines in the Wizard of Oz movie is, "Just follow the yellow brick road." Maybe bricks quilted with yellow silk thread? 

"Inspiration. Do come for a nice long visit," says Linda.

Have a blessed Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter Sunday.