This is the seventh block, which means if you’ve been following along with me, you know I’m finally starting a new set of fat quarters!
In the photos, it might end up looking just as bright as the previous set of fabric. I assure you this is because I cannot take or edit photos to save my life. One day perhaps I’ll buy a phone based on its photo-taking capabilities, but my budget is not a look-at-the-specs sort of budget.
I’ve also moved. I’m in the itty baby camper now. I’ll post photos for it eventually, I promise, but it’s currently chaos. I took it over from my parents, but they’re not fully moved in to their place yet, so a lot of their stuff is here still. It is crowded. I’ll give y’all a tour when it’s better arranged.
I lucked out this week with an easy start: this sweet little bonus block from Michelle White at Moda.
I love this little guy. It’s one of those blocks you could probably never make an entire quilt out of, not one that would make much sense, but that’s okay. It’s sweet and simple and lacks that ‘traditional’ kaleidoscope sort of look that most of the other blocks have had. My only struggle with it is I couldn’t really get creative with my color layout.
Wait, no. That wasn’t my only struggle. It should have been my only struggle. A reasonably decent quilter — which I consider myself to be — shouldn’t have had any other struggles. But I also recently upgraded my seam ripper, and I think I cursed myself.
Whyyyyyyyyy. And maybe you’re thinking, “Actually, that’s kind of cute.” If I wasn’t so irritated with myself for this, I might have run with it. Knowing me, I’d probably make a whole fresh page in my notebook to pass it off like I did this deliberately, only to blab about the mistake anyway. That’s who I am as a person. Instead, I broke in that new ripper.
It’s a good seam ripper. The size of it is more like a chunky sharpee, which makes it more comfortable to hold than the itty-bitty blue ripper I think we all started on. And when you’re ripping long seams, you really do want something that’s easier to hold. This also has the nice rubber ends, which you can use to ease the thread out of the stitch. This is *great* for quilting, with its smaller stitch width. The only flaw I will say with this ripper is the cap doesn’t fit on the back end. Quilters (and sewers in general) have a lot of stuff to manage all at once; it’s easy to lose a cap to the chaos and waste a bunch of time hunting it down.
I like the final block. I’m worried it might look out of place in the middle of all the busier blocks, but that might not be a bad thing. This was a good place to start a new set of fabrics in a new home.
C. A. Balkin 