My design wall runneth over

Oh no! I've run out of room on my design wall and I still have 2 more rows of blocks!

WOW, these are really BIG blocks - they measure about 18 inches across and 21 inches top to bottom. The pattern is Ballerina by Jaybird Quilts and you can find it here.

Now why am I starting a new quilt when I should be sorting and organizing stuff I want to move? Well, isn't it obvious? I should be sorting and organizing and that isn't a lot of fun. To my credit I was sorting my batik fabrics when this idea popped into my head. I had pulled out the pattern when my BFF called and we were trying to figure out the difference between the Jaybird patterns Ballerina and Tiny Dancer. (FYI- The difference is Tiny Dancer makes a smaller pinwheel block.) As the pattern sat on the table and I was shuffling stacks of batiks a little voice said "hmmm, I wonder what one of those blocks would look like if you used a batik." Really, I swear I heard it! LOL! And there isn't any harm in making one block now, is there? Well, actually, it is hard to make just one, kinda like eating potato chips or M&M's - particularly the almond ones, but I digress.

After one block I got to thinking,(again a dangerous activity),that this could make a really cool quilt for my son if I stuck with non-cutesy fabrics and more manly colors. Next thing I knew I had selected 36 different batik fabrics and I found a piece of yardage of that deep blue batik for the triangles. I have to say I really like how it looks and it is totally not my normal palette. (Even my boys remarked that these aren't my normal colors - observant children aren't they?) Also, they noticed that these aren't my normal fabrics - true again. I like batiks, I think they make lovely quilts, I have a nice stash of batiks, but I have only made 2 batiks quilts in the last 20 years. Obviously this is a once in a decade occurrence. Very rare - LOL!

Here are some close up of a couple of blocks. Batiks have some beautiful shading, don't they?

I'm hoping to get the blocks for the last 2 rows put together and then I think I'll take them upstairs and lay them out on my foyer floor. Then I can run (okay, walk) up the stairs and get some distance to see how the colors look. I have some high contrast blocks and some very low contrast blocks and I think that adds to the overall feel of this quilt. When I have the blocks sewn together I will be trimming off the top and bottom, eliminating the pointy parts, to make it a rectangle. I'm not into binding all those angles and the quilt is getting waaaaay longer than it is wide. I prefer to make square quilts but that isn't possible with this block.

Hope your week is productive and fun. I've got a bunch of stuff to do and I didn't finish any of the painting I wanted done last week, so it is still on my list. And the renovation project hit a big bump in the road last week. The tile floor in the kitchen and the ceiling in the basement - both finished projects - have to be cut into to move a heat duct - ugh!!!! I just want this finished so I can move. I did talk to a guy who is going to do my solid surface counter tops and he shared that the sentence, "We got done a week early" has never ever ever been uttered by any contractor....true, true!

Happy stitching-
carol fun