Friday, August 11, 2017

Searching for Unity in a world of Orphaned Blocks?!

Being a volunteer for the guild Flea Market has it's advantages;  I often get first pick from the scraps and Orphaned blocks at only $4.00 / pound!  At that price I can afford to do a lot of experimenting!  Maybe they are leftovers blocks or blocks that did not make the cut or just the starts of an idea that did not pan-out.  What ever the case,  I see them as fun challenges. Design problems to be solved.  And when finished they make great charitable donations.

Sometimes the challenge is made easy because there are enough blocks to simply sash and sew borders and sometimes there are only 3-5 related blocks and you have to figure out how to put them together.  Sometimes unrelated blocks can be combined. They should have some commonality.  It could be Color,  type of prints, brightness, darkness etc.

Here's a bunch that I brought to the cabin to play with.

This first one was easy peasy.  It's kind of small but I'll figure some borders for it when I get home to my stash. The extra block on the right worked into the next top... 
This bunch was more of a mix, but the commonality is they are all improv blocks with a big mix of prints.  They just needed a fabric repeated here and there to tie things together.  The turquoise poke-a-dot did the trick.
It needs a border too.
This next bunch is a bit more of a stretch...The commonality is the color blue,  batiks and the blue and white stripe.
The blocks on the right are actually a rather large deconstructed "disappearing 4 patch" block.
Sometimes it's easier to cut something up than sew something together. 
After a bit of splicing and dicing and sewing back together this emerged...
Like I said this one was kind of a stretch...it kind works?!
These will all finish to about 36" x 48"  the prescribed size for Vet lap quilts.  It's a good size for these odds and ends blocks.  
Happy weekend!
Claire W.

6 comments:

  1. Wow, you really know how to make it work! I love how you added fabric here and there to give it unity. I can learn from that. Have a great week.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Too cool! I have a few orphans, and was wondering what to do, other than potholders. Need more orphans; need to experiment. Thank you!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Oh goody, more Vet quilts! These are perfect, and will be greatly appreciated.
    See you soon!
    Sandy

    ReplyDelete
  4. Very interesting to see how you put these disparate blocks together.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Oh, gosh...that looks like lots of fun and resulted in some fancy Vet lap quilts! Totally awesome!

    ReplyDelete
  6. You are so creative! Great results, too.

    ReplyDelete