Orphan-Blocks Baby Quilt-AN ADVENTURE IN QUILTING

Once upon a time, a quilter was feeling very much overwhelmed by her growing bin of strips/strings ; so she set about one day to string piece a big star block.   Well, she was quite happy with the star points that she had come up with, and decided to look in her orphan-block shoe-box to see what kind of leftover she might use for the star's center.  Coming across these two Dresden plate blocks, she decided to combine them, one on top of the other, and THEN applique them onto a center.  

Having gone a bit bonkers from digging around in what seems to be an endless array of fabric choices, she somehow made the crazy choice of a very busy Walmart limes fabric of which she had purchased TWO one-yard packets.  

Thinking (or maybe NOT thinking too well by that point), she decided.......why not just keep digging in  this overstuffed sewing room and see what else has been lying dormant for too long ???  "Well, lookee there", she exclaimed, ...."a basket with a mess of plus blocks and another mess of squares on point.  I don't see that going forward anytime soon, so let's see what they'd look like surrounding that center star. "

(Probably should have known it was time for bed when she thought, "hey, that looks pretty rad ! ")

But, the next morning came and she still liked it, so away she went !  

Now, just about this same time, this ol' gal stumbled across (while innocently surfing the SHOPPING FOR QUILTERS section of the worldwide web), a low shank ruler foot with template, and a SET of circle ruler/templates for ruler quilting !  "Hey, now" she thought,  "I'd like to try that method on my pretty new Jazz 2 sewing machine, since free-motion quilting alone hasn't gone too well so far this decade."  So she placed quite an expensive/frightening order, and set about to piece a back for this little quilt...made of cuddly FLANNEL, no less ! 

Rulers being delivered just about the time she finished thread-basting this little quilty, she just knew that she had to give it a go...........BUT SHE WAS INTIMIDATED, now wasn't she ?????????  Yep.  What if she couldn't do it........what if she messed up !   Those tiny stitches of FMQ are not the easiest thing in the world to remove !!!!!!!!

Still, she thought, "I've made an investment in the rulers, and hardly  ANY investment in this quilt top.......when will I have a better opportunity than this ??????"

Giving herself some time (for her nerves to settle) she messed around first just quilting some basic lines on and around the piecing. But when nothing was left but the big open triangles and squares, she knew that it was NOW OR NEVER !

"Hmmmm.......this fan-quilting template's not too bad !  Oops, veered away from the template there.......oh shucks, where's that seam ripper....grrrrr.   Okay, here we go, .....we can do this......ah, THAT'S BETTER !  Hey, I think I'm getting the hang of this....wait, wait......get a better grip....there, you're back on course.  One triangle, two,  three......FOUR ! ........I DID IT !!!!!  "Before you know it, she'd found a use for the second, basic ruler, for quilting in the squares, and not long afterwards, she had a finished quilt............and gained a new .......well, she wouldn't quite call it 'skill' yet, but she had HOPE ! 

She had learned to use what she had,.......( and what she had splurged on while shopping lately), conquer her fear, and plunge on forward, knowing that tomorrow is another day, and there's still A HECK OF A LOT OF FABRIC LEFT IN THAT ROOM !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

*********************************************** 

Size of quilt top before laundering, approximately 44 x 48 inches.  Shrank after a wash and dry to 39 3/4 x 46 inches.  

All quilters' 100% cottons for top, cotton flannels for back, Pellon All Natural Cotton Batting, Cotton Essentials quilting thread.

Machine-pieced on Jazz 2 and JukiTL2010Q sewing machines, thread-basted in frame, quilted on Jazz 2 sewing machine.