Tutor Tuesday Quilt

Hey Everyone, welcome to the first instalment of  Story Time Monday.  Story Time will talk about quilts I have made, why I have made them, the process to build them and so on as well as highlight UFO’s, students work and quilts by other quilters. Maybe a few interviews with fellow quilters as well.

In my Saturday post I mentioned that while I was searching for inspiration for my post I discovered a picture of a quilt that I was not happy with – one block in particular – and this block and quilt are the topic for Story Time today.

This quilt has been hanging around for 2 years now.  I started this quilt during my last blog challenge event with Ruth Blanchett of Arbee Designs and Cricket Walker – the blog challenge leader then and now.  Ruth had decided to do a weekly post called Tutor Tuesday with a quilt designed by her and asked me to join in and make the quilt.  I said sure, no problem.  I faithfully did the weekly lessons, posted a post each week of my progress and how to make the blocks.

The First Go

Finally I had all the lessons finished and the blocks were complete but there was one problem I didn’t like my star block – they just didn’t work for me – now other people would say no those looks great, what is your problem with them.  I guess my problem is that I am a bit of a perfectionist and I wasn’t happy with the quilt and the overall effect these 6 blocks brought to the finished product.  .

Quilt with the original pink/yellow star blocks.

Quilt with the original pink/yellow star blocks.

The pink and yellow blocks took centre stage and I didn’t want them to have centre stage.  Because the pink fabric had the same burgundy as one of the other fabrics I thought this will tie in very nicely – I was wrong.  Often times when you are making and designing what you think is going to look fabulous ends up being very disappointing and not working at all – this was the case this time. So back to the design board and fabric stash I went.

Back to the Design Wall

I re-made the blocks with a different coloured background fabric and still I wasn’t happy with the finished product – I felt like they were dragging the whole quilt down,

there was no magical flow for the eye to follow or at least not my eye.

The new turquoise blocks - still not feeling the magic with these ones either.

The new turquoise blocks – still not feeling the magic with these ones either.

Although the turquoise colour matched one of the colours in the squiggly line fabric as did all the other colours in the quilt this particular turquoise I felt did not fit in with the rest of the fabrics in the quilt.  Once again these blocks were overpowering the quilt and drawing my eye directly to them while the rest of the quilt stood in the background waiting to be seen.

Life became busy and we moved back to Canada from Australia so quilting took a bit of a back burner role for a bit – hard to quilt when your stuff is sitting in a sea can somewhere on a boat somewhere on a huge body of water.  We received all of our belongings but by then I was off on other quilting ventures and Tuesday Tutor was definitely put on the back burner not to see the light of day again for many, many months.  I do remember unpacking it and placing all the pieces in the drawer where I pulled them out from yesterday to see the light of day again.

My ah-ha moment the other day was why not use the dark blue fabric that is already in the quilt as the background fabric for the stars – not try and add in another fabric to a quilt with odd colours and many colours.  I set to work yesterday afternoon cutting, sewing and pinning to create 6 new blocks that now have a home and complete the Tuesday Tutor quilt.

Ah-ha now why didn't I think of this two years ago.

Ah-ha now why didn’t I think of this two years ago.

The dark blue background with the yellow stars works very well blending in with the rest of the quilt and tying all the rows together.  There is now a pleasing visual effect for the eye with a direction to follow from the top left corner around to the bottom left corner.  Now all the quilt needs is the blocks sewn together, a border added and quilted – hopefully it doesn’t have to sit in a drawer for another couple of years waiting to see the light of day again.

I am very pleased with the results now and there will be no more trips to the design wall for this little star block – well there might be as I now have 12 homeless star blocks in pink and turquoise that I need to do something with.

Do you have a quilt that you are just not sure about a block, colour, border and need help.  I would be happy to give you hand – all you have to do is ask – I am only an e-mail away.

Happy Quilting!

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