They make dodecahedrons!
I used scraps for the pentagons, and "rags" (scraps that are too small to use for sewing) for the innards. This will probably expand into a full set of Platonic solids. Or, if I'm really ambitious, a full set of fair dice.
On an unrelated note, I've managed to get the sashing put on the first four blocks for the Den Haan quilt:
These blocks take FOREVER to put together, but I'm really enjoying the process. Well, except for all the ironing...
Not only have I finished the last 5 blocks of the scrappy Civil War quilt, I've managed to put sashing on them as well (click any picture to enlarge):
I had originally wanted to use something from the Dargate Ribbons line for the sashing, but it didn't work out. I have a dark red, a medium red, a purple (identical to the dark red except for the color), and a pink. The pink was right out - the plain nine-patch squares are pink, and more pink is too much. The purple didn't contrast enough with the blocks - the whole thing just looked muddy. This was OK, because I wanted to use the reds together anyway. But when I laid it out, the two reds just didn't look good together. So I spent three days not sewing, auditioning every single fabric I had, and finally I just had enough. I liked the way the blocks looked against the dark carpet, so I just picked the darkest fabric that I had enough of and used that. The lighter brown is from the Dargate line, but it's Violet and Chocolate, not Ribbons.
As a smaller, more portable project, I've been working on these:
These are practice for the quilt in Kaffe Fassett fabrics that I still plan to make. These are half the size, though - 5" square finished, rather than 10". I'm not sure how many of these blocks I'll make, but I sure do have a lot of stripey reproduction fabrics.....
I've put the James pentagons together, and added a little border:
(It's not really wonky, it just needs to be pressed. There are about a million seams on the back and I just couldn't get it to lie flat!)
I'm thinking with a pieced outer border, this will make a very nice doll quilt...
(click to enlarge)
Five more blocks to go, and I can start assembling the top! I have enough four-patches made already for two more blocks. I still have plenty of scraps, but I'm starting to have trouble matching them up into pairs. I might have to start cheating, and cut some squares out from the fabrics in my stash...
I have three or four candidates picked out for the sashing strips. I'm going to have to choose one soon! I also have a red print from the Dargate Ribbons line that I want to use for the extra triangles. I still have no idea at all what I want to do for an outer border. I do know that I definitely want some kind of outer border, but that's all I've got for now.
My quilty resolutions for 2009:
1. Finish the quilt for my niece!!!!! And get it done by her birthday (May 17th). It's all basted and everything, it just needs to be quilted and bound.
2. Finish the red pentagons quilt for my son, by his birthday (July 11th). This one just needs a little bit of work before the top is done. One dedicated Saturday (or perhaps two) should do it. I intend to get this quilted for me at my local quilt shop.
3. Finish at least one of the following lap quilts started in 2008: Snowflake Variation, Hourglass, or Scrappy Nine-Patch. Ideally, I'd like to finish all three of them, but that would probably mean not starting anything new. And that ain't gonna happen. Especially since I'd like to do the Doll Quilt Swap at least once next year.
4. Take a class on hand applique.
5. Try paper piecing, even if it's just for a small project.
6. As much as I love my Civil War repros, I need a bit of a break. I've been silently stashing Asian prints, Japanese taupes, and Kaffe Fassett fabrics, and not touching them. Next year, I will touch them. And I will make something. Even if it's just a potholder.
And that's it. Happy New Year, everyone!
Work has been a nightmare, plus I've been busy coping with the stomach flu, holiday shopping, nursing my four-year-old through the stomach flu, rearranging my schedule around my husband's new job, and who knows what else. I just haven't had the time or energy to put a post together. But I have been sewing in what little free time I have had.
There are more hourglass blocks:
And somewhere along the way, my scrap envelope started to overflow:
So, inspired by Lucy, I took some of those scraps and turned them into four-patches:
Then I took the four-patches, and turned them into nine-patches:
Some of my scraps were large enough that there were leftovers after making the four-patches. So I've decided to go on a crusade. I love one-patch quilts - tiny squares, hexagons, tumblers, diamonds, all of them. But I feel like the humble pentagon is being ignored. Every once in a while you see a quilt made up of the pentagons that are one-third of a hexagon, or even more rarely the pentagons that are shaped like a house or the Cairo pentagon. But there are in fact FOURTEEN different types of pentagons that it is possible to make a one-patch quilt with. So I took my extra scraps and cut out some James (aka Type 10) pentagons from them. See how they tile the plane:
I've been making more of those hourglass blocks. I think I'm going to make a simple lap quilt - I've got this green fabric with little triangles on it (you can see some of it in the Snowflake quilt, the X of the left block) that I want to use for sashing. 117 blocks (9 x 13) would make a nice big lap quilt, but I could stop as early as 63 (7 x 9) if I get tired of making these.
I'm not sure exactly what I'll be doing with these...
... but they sure are a great way to avoid cutting binding strips for your otherwise finished potholder. Or doing the hand quilting on your niece's quilt (which you were supposed to give her parents before she was born, and she's almost 6 months old).
