When You Think the Top is Finished ... But It Isn't

 Over the past couple year I've rummaged the stash and scrap bins, hunted down, scrounged, and was gifted some  fabric scraps of black on white, white on black, and as it turns out more than a few with added colors.  All to make a long envisioned black and white triangle quilt using my 60 degree triangle ruler.  

I started cutting the 8" triangles as a reward for working on the quilting of Ruby each afternoon, and by the time she was completed there were enough triangles cut to begin laying them out on the design wall.  My envisioned quilt was to be around 72 inches square, requiring 16 triangles for each horizontal row, and 10 vertical rows.  The design wall is 48 inches wide by about 80 inches high.  Which of course required designing and piecing in three long diagonal sections.   After I had everything stitched together I laid it out on the guest bed.

Oops. You can probably already see the problem, the quilt is wider than it is long.  Apparently in creating the sections I ended up making it 18 triangles wide.   In the scheme of things it ended up to be a fortunate mistake as there were plenty of extra triangles left and it was easy enough to add an extra row to the bottom of the quilt and call it good.  It now measures somewhere around 83x83 inches.  Still deciding whether I'll add a narrow border before machine quilting later this year. At this point the outer edges are stabilized by stitching 1/8 inch from the edges, many of which are on bias.  

I really enjoy working with these large triangles, easy piecing and a fun way to use scraps of  large scale focal, "whatever can I do with this" fabrics. 

 Matching the seams is easy if the seams are pressed open and the little triangle dog ears are left in place to match up. 

I think this quilt will go to one of the grandkids eventually, and there are enough leftover pieces to cut more triangles for a throw size donation quilt or two.

In the garden, the near constant rain over the past two weeks has ruined some of the crops, too late for replanting some of them, the ground is saturated, and the weeds are flourishing.  The blueberries are just beginning to ripen and we're hoping for a couple sunny weeks with much lower humidity so they don't mildew before they ripen completely.  Not too many flowers blooming right now but there are a few lilies

and a little purple poppy - thanks Barbara!

Til next time, happy stitching.