J. M. & Emma, we must be having the weather you're supposed to be having...
Western Kansas USA July typically high 90*s - low 100*s and very dry. were having high 60*s, with lots of moisture. It's head-scratching ??? for certain... I've never known it to be this mild. But, I'm loving it!
Ok, I auditioned mom's UFO last night, laying the made units all out on my bed, trying to plan sections for rows. Gracious. I've never seen anything like it. You know the fabric where it's strip units placed vertical then horizontal, and it looks wavy, but it's just an optical illusion? This is like that, but it's no illusion. The only thing I can figure is, she knew she was in a race against time, and wanted one more quilt for someone in particular before she died - no idea who-and was working fast and possibly highly medicated. She matched up the inside corners of the 4 unit patches, but there is 3/8" variance. Also, I mentioned previously the imprecise pressing, she's sewed over folds in the bad pressing, so they go wonky-er when I press.. So when she sewed the 4p together, the seam allowance is 1/8" on the short one, and 1/2" on the long one. Mercy. So I went thru & sewed along them, inside the SA to reinforce the 1/8 SA.
I tried pressing, but the blocks are very wavy. I would have difficulty quilting it, even with a walking foot. It could be tied, but I've sort of moved away from tied quilts, in my enjoyment of the end product.
The length of the rails is way shorter than the width of the rails. There is no fixing this, short of taking apart all her sewn together units. If I do that, and square up, then I have to sacrifice width on the dark or light (or both) rails.
I woke up early, having my subconscious on it all night. The options I thought of are:
Take all the patches apart (not the rails).
1. Put a contrast rail crosswise of the rails, then lay them out in spinner pattern. It'd be cute, but not really what I wanted out of this quilt.
2A. Go with the rectangular block, lay two together, rails facing same direction, and sew corner to corner (twice same direction) Cut apart, put together bento box style, alternating dark centers & light centers. I did a test block of this, I like this.
2B. Same cut, but put opposite cuts together, with the end layout being...what I envisioned would be diamonds, but they turned out to be just off kilter non-squares. I did a test block, didn't like it, no "interest", just looks OFF.
3. Mark center of light rails, cut a pyramid out, sew them together as diamonds. I did a tester, but only cut the pyramids & laid them together, not sewing them. It's pretty, but very fussy cutting work, you have to mark the center of the rail on the pyramid peak and the 1/4 seam for the cuts. I thought the cut off pieces could be put together as a border diamond style (we have seen this border on X box quilts), but the cut off pieces are very small. It's fussy work, and an additional cut to the block, so I would loose twice as much in SA as in 2A & 2B.
I'm liking 2A. I made 2 test rails, sewed diagonally, and cut & pressed. Ended up with 1/2 dark bento and 1/2 light bento. they're cute.
I have taken no action with the UFO blocks.
Anyone have thoughts? suggestions?
My other thoughts:
1B, alternate layout -offset pattern, like jumping 9P
4. cut the rails in half, across the rails:
4A. sew a strip across the rails, layout alternating left, right, kind of a Jumping piano keys effect
4B. Make the whole quilt piano keys, alternating with solid fabric sashings.