ANOTHER Blue and White Quilt

When I first threw myself into quilting back in the late 80's I LOVED blue quilts. This is one of those old projects from the early 90's that never got finished. Like other projects way back I had sewn badly, made mistakes, ripped, re-sewn, ripped, re-sewn...etc.

It was a class I took called "Nine Patch Variation" by Linda Dixon in Idaho. The class was set up so that you came with a whole ton of your strips of 5 fabrics, and then everyone in the class exchanged equal amounts of strips so that everyone went home with a wide variety of blues.

It's no fun when you get to the point that you don't enjoy it anymore. This is one of those UFO projects that I thought I would give to the Textile Center Garage Sale, but I didn't want to let it go. What was I thinking? It's 2 different sizes of 9 patches, 3" and 2-1/4" with rectangles in between that set them all together. I cut everything terribly, sewed the 9 patches awfully, and then at some point in time attempted to sew some of it together, with puckers, no points matching, etc.

Then at some other point in time I ripped that section out and was left with hundreds of wrinkly miss-shapen 9 patches; the edges are getting raggy, and the white rectangles aren't so rectangle anymore. I put it all away for another day.

Now it's 'another day'. I can't stand to just try to sew it together without straightening out the blocks, 9 patches and white rectangles. I'm wayyyy to anal to let that go. Removing all the threads from ripping, ironing them straighter, and heavily starching them so they don't go askew again. It's taking time.

Then the other problem is I have enough 9 patches to do about any size, including 2 double bed size coverlets...but I don't have enough of the white. Twenty year old white fabric isn't really white anymore, and it's going to be obvious if I add another white. I could do 2 double bed size, use the white on one, and use a new white on the other. Or I could just have 2 different whites in one huge quilt. I've separated the blocks to do 2 quilts but I'm not at the point of no return if I should change my mind.

I sewed a small stack to their white rectangles just to see how it's gonna go. I'll be ironing for days...