Diamonds in the Rough

These brown fabrics kept calling out to me everytime I came across them in my 'sewing room'.  They're mostly fatquarters that Jodie Ann has shared with me over the  past few years, and somehow, they got placed with some bright fabrics, which got my head to spinnin'.    I just kept having a crazy desire to put them together into SOMETHING, not knowing what pattern I'd use, and realizing that I didn't have enough of any of the fabrics to make something big.

I really love this layout and wish that I had gone with it !

Well, I got the fabrics out one day last week and just started playing.   I went through several ideas before I started cutting out diamond shapes.

A star was an obvious consideration, but when laid out, it was just TOO traditional for me, even though the fabric combination was fresh.

Lottie is 3/4 grown, and gives you some idea how small the quitie was.

I finally settled on this layout, and spent a day assembling it.  It came out so very small that I first thought of turning it into a pillow sham for a full size bed pillow.   But it was a bit too big for that, and it wouldn't have gone with any quilt that I have anyway.

Today, I just cut and added 4 different fabrics for wide 6 inch borders.   I left all of the points of the diamonds on the outside edges until I had sewn on the borders, hopefully avoiding stretching .  I don't think that it is square, since I didn't square it up before adding the borders, and knowing that diagonal seams tend to make things go a bit wonky.  But it is big enough now for a lap quilt for someone who is wheelchair-bound, or for a baby quilt.   Hopefully, I'll baste it and machine-quilt it soon, though I'll need to buy some brown thread first !

In the closeup view of this, it sortof looks like it is pieced from squares rather than diamonds......it's NOT !

The finished measurements are are about 42 x 47 inches.