Quilting progress - This is a Double Nine Patch

Please remember, all quilt blogging and photos are now at: www.truenorthquilter.blogspot.com

Ok, I know. I need to take a photo or two of the dog quilt, but for the time being here is the cat quilt I have been working on off and on.

This is where it begins - choosing colors and the pattern, of course. I always seem to go back to primaries, although I have a hard time making myself stick with a limited palette.

That is to say, I do love a scrappy-looking quilt, so I used at least 3 to 5 calico's and prints of blue, red, green, yellow and orange with this quilt. Then, I began to realize it really needed the punch of purple, so I added a huge assortment of prints from the deep purple end of the spectrum. I punctuated it with solid, inky black and multiple faded or very petite white-on-black prints.

I then begin to assemble the patches on the wall and step back to look at the balance. As I stitch the 1.5" cut pieces (and the 3.5" larger nine patch pieces) into blocks, I begin to fill in with row ends and corners so that I can reward myself with a vision of what the end result will be. The trick is making certain to assemble these in the correct position as I lay them out. I do sometimes get distracted and end up sewing something out of order - or in this picture, forgetting one of the cut pieces in the layout. Can you see the omission?

Once enough blocks can be sewn into rows, I begin the real assembly process, and it starts to get exciting.

I ended up having to turn the quilt upside down to be able to work on it more easily. The little dots are pins keeping the blocks and rows in place against the material farm behind it. Yes, America, that is my stash.

The addition of two interior borders (a 3/4" black border for separation from the color blocks, and the multi-striped jungle grass) is always the most nail-biting time for me. Why? I am always trepidacious to commit to cutting borders...afraid I will choose the wrong width and doom the poor quilt to an odd look. I don't want the border(s) to overwhelm the rest of the work. I want the border to finish the look of the whole piece, and enhance the interior where the bulk of the piecing was done. It should be a beautiful frame, and I am always fearful of over-, or under-doing it. But as a matter of pride, I would like to point out that I once again mitered the corners for each of the three borders.Before the final black border was added to finish off the top, I worried over how wide to make each one. I am too much a perfectionist - but I am learning to cope with this aspect of myself.

As I neared this point, I began to ponder the quilting style/motif I would use, and came up with the idea of FISH. Maybe I will add a bird or two here and there...but it will be simple and fast in the multi-colored nine patch blocks using grid (ditch - maybe) quilting, with the more elaborate critter motifs along the borders and solid black areas. We shall see.

For now, I need to get it stretched and pinned so that I can start quilting it.

Thanks for looking in.