SusieQOH

Your post made me laugh!! Oh geez, Mookie and Baby have loads of quilts they occupy. They don't care whose name is on them haha!

Iceblossom

Have to admit it felt good to get up today with all my extra blocks done. Nope, didn't get the pressing done for the border but that can wait.

After the hubby left for work I quickly transformed the bed into my design space and chose the blocks I am going to use. Looks like I want to go through my blocks one more time with a ruler and size them correctly. Pretty good but some jogs and dips I want to check out. Still have some good options in the not being used pile if there are issues. I'm pretty happy with my choices, there were only a couple of blocks that made me cringe and now they are going away.

Iceblossom

Well, last night the hubby deserved a /bonk on the head. I was excitedly telling him about all the progress and that I was nearing the finishing line when he interrupted with "just how long is this going to take you anyway?". He's used to projects being turned around in under a month.

But I'm at that fun point where it all starts coming together rapidly. I've placed my blocks, I found that there is no ideal but that is part of the deal of scrappy. I did somewhat organize it with my brighter rings around the star in the center and the darker blocks around the edges.

I put the sashing on randomly on two sides of each block. Because I've been having problems visualizing these twists and turns I waited to put it on the setting triangles to make sure that wouldn't cause me any problems (it didn't). So I still have to put those on and then can place them. Since I have duplicates I'll divide it into two stacks (all four corners are identical). Because I have no floor or other space larger than my bed, I'll work on the diagonal corners. But again, nice for me to know that it really doesn't matter even if the two identical units land next to each other, it's so busy that isn't going to be something you notice.

Likewise, my border units are getting almost done. I caught myself before sewing too many units together, had to save out one set of 2, so there are 4 units of 6 this time and all the others are 8s. Short form, very few seams left and the math works out!

My inner border and outer border will look as designed, but I'm planning on using a miter down the corner. I'm going with whatever the "as-built" conditions are and using the coping strip inner border for fitting, no measuring. Well there will be a little math when I lay out the border to the bed of the quilt to figure out how big to cut the coping strip. I will be using one of the paler new Parakeet shades instead of yellow.

I realized today as I was laying out the top that I very rarely make square tops. I had enough extra blocks (or maybe still needed one more) to make it rectangular, but I quickly said "oh no way" to the idea of making more of the border/setting units. I'm not completely crazed, it just seems that way some times.

Carol in WI

Oh Iceblossom !! You're teasing us with the progress report and all the details of how you are placing the blocks. I can hardly wait for the photos. And I am amazed at the amount of work you have put into Frolic. It has been a delight to read your comments each day.

Iceblossom

What happens is that I come here when I take my coffee breaks, keeps me motivated to quilt instead of getting distracted by real life... so each day I typically get up early and put in a couple of hours in the project. Or at least I sort of do stuff for a couple of hours, I probably have as many breaks as work periods.

But here you go Carol, I put in fresh batteries into the camera and even managed to change the date (which defaults to 2007 btw) before I picked up/moved the blocks.

You can see laid out on my bed seeing the setting triangles is pretty hard, but getting them to stick in place is even harder. Whe I have sashing I find I get the best results by putting it on the blocks in an L shape. Sometimes you have to do what I call "long unwieldy skinny strip combined with long unwieldy block set" but I try to avoid that whenever possible.

So goal is still to have this done by Valentine's Day and posting here keeps me accountable for forward progress!

JeanieG

Wow - that is beautiful Iceblossom!!! I am sewing on the sashing strips to the blocks right now. The length fits perfectly, but I am finding I have to flip some of the seams as I go. I guess I did 'my thing' with the pressing the blocks, which did not follow the way the sashing strips were pressed. LOL - oh well! I am going to have to lay them out on my bed as well as the long row does not fit on my display wall. I am not in a hurry, and am enjoying watching it all come together.

ibex94

Iceblossom -- those fabrics are coming together beautifully. What a great job of dying and piecing!

retiredteacher09

Iceblossom: Lovely!

joe'smom

Iceblossom, that is dazzling!

Carol in WI

Ice blossom, thank you for posting the picture; it is indeed dazzling, beautiful, and lovely as mentioned above. Your posts keep me intrigued and motivated to finish my blocks. I still have about 12 to sew together for an enlarged size, but it won't have near the color pop that yours does. Congratulations on a fantastic quilt.