Design Wall Monday 9/19/2022

Saturday was one of those days taken over by the need to work on a specific quilt project. I even warned Ed at the beginning of the day that I didn't intend to cook that day. Fortunately, he took care of making dinner!

That day was also "National Sew a Jelly Roll Day." One of my prizes from the guild auction a couple days earlier was a pile of 4-patch blocks plus additional jelly roll strips to make more. These were what filled up my day.

All of the precut strips are from the fabric line "Karma" by Benartex. I have no idea how long ago the line was made. There are also some fabrics that were not part of the line included in the blocks. The 4-patch blocks are sorted into matching stacks of blocks, with each pile holding 15-16 blocks, with a total of about 80.

I couldn't figure out a layout that worked for me with the blocks as they were made. I ended up taking all the 4P blocks apart, separating each block into two halves. Then I rejoined two matching halves into blocks. For instance, this set of 16 matching blocks...

turned into two sets like these, 8 of each.

I made more blocks from the extra jelly roll strips, plus occasional additions from my stash, until I ended up with 120 blocks total. They were placed on the design wall in diagonal chains of matching blocks. This is what was up on the wall at the end of the day.

Karma 4-patch blocks

Do I love it? Well, not really. It's awfully busy for my taste, and I wish those diagonal lines of the darkest blue were more evenly spaced. The bold prints in many of the fabrics remind me of fabrics from the 1970's, a time that I remember but don't feel the need to relive the styles. Ed referred to it as a "hot mess," and I couldn't disagree with him. 

Despite all that, it was a fun day with an interesting challenge in trying to make all those crazy fabrics work together. I'm not sure I succeeded, but I enjoyed the process. When the blocks get joined together, they will make a small quilt that measures 40" x 48".

Check out what other quilters are working on this week at Design Wall Monday at Small Quilts and Doll Quilts and Monday Making at Love Laugh Quilt.

Happy quilting everyone!

Julie in GA