Return to Sanity

Okay, I absolutely couldn't stand that lime green block. Honestly, I woke up in a cold sweat at 5:30 this morning (nothing to do with the "change" - I don't get power surges) and couldn't get back to sleep. Not only do I hate the lime green in that magnitude, if you look at it closely, you can see that the green has "lines" in it and the quarters don't go in the same direction.


Just hideous. How could anyone live with themselves to leave something like that laying around? When you start thinking which child you want to leave it to when you die you realize there are some things you just need to get rid of. Sometimes you have to take things to that level to face the truth, particularly if you are in an artsy mood when you turn yourself loose on the sewing machine.

My initial thought was that I would just do another one. My next thought was - duh - that it would be pretty simple to just take off the lime green triangles and replace them with something sane and demure. Wow - how often does it happen that you realize something isn't going to work and it is actually easy to fix? For me, usually by the time I realize I've put something ghastly into a block I've added upteen different pieces to it and it is easier to start over than rip.

But not this time.

And guess what? Remember how close to the edge I got on the points with the original lime green monstrosity?


It dawned on me that if I trim the PURPLE triangles a quarter inch and add larger triangles and a longer white piece to the outside center (the part that looks like a train wreck, er, train track), I could alter the pattern to get those blasted points further away from the edge.

Like THIS:


Some quilters like to live dangerously by putting points right up to the quarter inch mark. I'm no thrill seeker, personally. I hate roller coasters and high places and the idea of putting a point right up to the edge doesn't excite me - it irritates me that anyone would do something so risky. I am not sure I should give credit to the designer since I changed it, but if you look at yesterday's post, I gave credit to the designer. It is really a nice design - the changes are simply to adjust for my own comfort level and lowly skill.

So I still like the fussy cut in the center. I don't do a lot of fussy cutting since I typically paper piece and my attempts usually end up cockeyed.


But not this time!

The colors are still whacked but I'll just pretend I am "stretching" as an arteest.
Here I am, playing with my camera, again:


More artistic stretching.

So let us review our quilting journey.

From this:


To this:


















Seriously, I feel much better.