iwanttobequilting

So a little while ago I took a picture of my sewing workspace to preserve it in history...kind of for the same reason I took a picture of our old apartment in Oakland [see below]...so I can remember the awesome crappiness.

That is one of those TV tray tables I got at some furniture junkyard place in Berkeley. Recently I ducktaped a cardboard box to the back of the sewing machine to increase the surface area....

Our apartment in Oakland. The lot next door was vacant, with the exception of an old vacuum and a few other pieces of junk thrown in there. Also notice the giant billboard right near us, and the hobo walking past (he was brushing his teeth with his finger as he walked past). I decided that the way to find out if you live in the ghetto is to look on Google Maps Street View, and if a hobo just happens to be in that single representative photo of your house, it is the ghetto.

Anyways, I didn't mean to go off on my old apartment. I just hope that someday I will get a proper table and workspace for quilting, but for now it totally works.

So my current project is a queen-size quilt that I intend to put on our bed. I am kind of obsessed with the color combination of red, dark blue, and turquoise ever since going to Turkey and seeing it in all the elaborate tiles throughout the mosques and Topkapi Palace. I also wanted to do a quilt that was a single large design (not a grid of blocks) if that makes any sense. I wanted it to be similar to all those henna-type designs I am always doodling (anyone who has sat next to me in church or any meeting knows what I am talking about) My original design was this:

 

I still think that design is cool, and I spent a long time coming up with it and choosing fabric. However, once I started making it...I hated it. yuck yuck yuck.

First two center blocks

See? I think it looks a lot more intricate in the sketch because the sketch is so small. But I started making it and the shapes were so big and it did not look intricate (even though it was complicated to make). I pretty much never want to make a quilt that looks easier to make than it was. 

So I changed it! I had been interested in doing a lonestar quilt, and I saw a really cool Amish quilt (see link, image on the right). The reason I liked it is because it is a more interesting and elaborate lonestar motif. So here is what I have so far on the wall. 

It has been very frustrating coming up with the proper dimensions for the surrounding blocks because it is all diagonals. I drew it in AutoCAD at my office after work to help get exact dimensions, however it has still been tricky. I learned how to do Y seams for this quilt from a tutorial from some extremely adorable lady's video online.

We shall see how it turns out...