I'm in the same boat, Pamela. The light aqua was the hardest color to come by. But there are so many of the blues that you shouldn't have any trouble getting the variety you want.

I finally finished clue #3. I always make more units than needed, so I have some ability to exchange units if I manage to get fabrics too close together. Or, as Mr. Monk would say, if they aren't "snuff."

Leslie

I managed to get one set cut yesterday just so I could measure the length of strip needed to get a completed matched set (17 inches as KalamaQuilts posted) using the Essential Triangle tool. Since I love aqua, I have plenty to choose from and will try to get the other 40 sets cut today. I like Iceblossom’s idea so I will put some blue painters tape on my ruler today to help with slipping.

Iceblossom, thank you for the picture! Love your colors! I know I am a very visual person and this really helps me.

I am still just following along. Haven't sewn anything yet. (I am currently working on Long Time Gone quilt).

I just want to say that sometimes, if you turn your fabric to the "wrong" side, you get "another" fabric. I remember hearing that you bought both sides of the fabric, so why not use them (? Eleanor Burns)? This may help stretch the number of fabrics that you have to use. I realize that some fabric's wrong side is not at all pretty or usable, but others look wonderful and look quite different from the "right" side.

I love seeing what everyone has come up with so far!

That's part of the reason why I'm moving slowly with this step, Ilovetoquilt, these hand dyes each have a usable side, sometimes I'll use the up of one side with the down of the other just to get the colors to match a bit more closely!

I'm about half done, have some comments about cutting/trimming/rulers before I go back to it.

First off -- best idea of the day, I changed the blades on both my rotary cutters. The one started yesterday with just a tick of a missed thread here and there and just got worse as the day progressed until I was muttering to myself and shredding fabric. I am slicing and dicing with ease today!

About my trimming ruler, I've been using a small square, I'm wondering if maybe I shouldn't go up to a 6" square just to fit my hands better but instead this morning I found an even smaller square but with clearer lines for me and I've gotten it working just lovely.

I did my double line of masking seam tape at the appropriate spot and then I went to look to see if I could find my sandpaper dots. The answer was no, but I solved my problem which was the teeter-toter effect of the seam in the middle of the HST. I went to the medicine chest and pulled out a clear small finger cut sized bandage, cut it in half and put one on either side of my diagonal and no more wobbles plus more traction! (you want to have the dots about 1/2" from either side of the diagonal, approx halfway down the square for the best results)

I have a variety of vision issues and often use tape on my rulers, especially when I'm doing repeated cuts so I don't have to read the markers. Improves my accuracy greatly. I also tend to sew large and trim down. Below is a picture from another project so no give-aways on this one. For the picture I took pre-cut squares that varied between 6-6.5", sliced them on the diagonal and then made a 7.5" block; ie, not a standard size for rulers. You can see I used the diagonal line on the ruler to help me.

Doing a similar thing for this project, I have the tape at the straight outside edge of the desired finished measurement, and I'm using the diagonal to guide me for my finished size.

Edit: In this picture I was mostly marking that 7.5" size, that's where the tape goes side to side. I always put my tape on the down side of the line, that's just a preference.

In the Frolic project since I'm using it to help stabilize my cuts, the double thickness of tape is on the bottom of the ruler, along with those bandage dots.

About working with scraps for those that aren't so used to it...

In this step I'm faced with a number of issues, smaller pieces of fabric. Very similar fabrics and far more variety in my "blues" than in my aqua.

I've found I can only do a few sets at a time, 4 is probably better but I did 6 here. I've found that if I cut my QST first, it can be hard to tell which batch is which. I make my HST first, keeping them in the same order that I cut, which is the order shown to the left of the picture. Now that the HSTs are trimmed, I will do the X cut and clip the sets together and move to the next set of blocks.

With my dark and mediums, most of them started out as odd shaped/roughly fat quarters to begin with and they are getting smaller now. I'm cutting one strip of each width of each fabric, typically I'm getting 3-6 of any given dark/medium. I have a limited number of aqua, so what I do is I stack the aquas so they are each a different color. Then when I have the same dark/medium three times in a row, they each get a different aqua.

Sorry, not a lot of variety in the darks/mediums this round for a good picture, but I think you can see the aqua tones sorted up top. When I'm actually working the stacks aren't spread out like that and as soon as I post this I'm cutting those combos on the side!

So here's those same pieces as in the post above, now prepared for sewing. I've got one dark green, three dark purple and three speckled purple, but each of the purples got a different aqua.

Edit: You can see how different the same pieces of fabric are piece to piece here and why it can be hard for me to tell which one goes with which set. Each set of two is from the same fabric, even if one edge looks yellow and the next green, or one is light and the rest dark.

Also, those are little dots of maroon ink on the bottom square. No blood or stains on this project yet!

I got my fabrics paired and strips cut last night. It's certainly a convenient clue for those using FQ or WOF strips, being the perfect number of pieces to cut from those lengths. I'm very slow cutting with the Easy/Companion Angle rulers, but I hope to make good progress on cutting today (although the Christmas tree needs decorating, too; DH and I came to the conclusion that we are too old for a large tree, so he brought the base of the old dog house up from the basement, and we bought a nice 4 footer and put it on top of the upside down base; no more bending to the floor to get lights on the tree! But I will have to learn to decorate with smaller ornaments).

IceBlossom, what you've done with your bandage is make a free bloc-lock ruler :) well done.

I've finished my little wad. I love sewing with 30's so much, so cheerful I'm so tempted to go back and upsize the project. But I won't, I know I don't have enough fabric to do it.

edited to add there was a quilt cam this week from her post office, very nice.
https://quiltville.blogspot.com/2019...n-morning.html

Iceblossom - "" Oh, did you ever make me homesick!! Here Come the Brides! I mostly lurk on this website, enjoying all the adventures and trying to learn before getting started on a 'real' project. Been in Virginia since 1985 but my heart is forever in Washington. From Olympia and Spokane with a son in Kent.