Block Three: Excursions In The Night

It occurs to me I should preface the next block with random thoughts.

If you look at the master diagram to the upper left you will notice we have completed Blocks One and Two.

I told you I was going to mix things up a bit now and then. We did the second in row 1 first because it was a way to test the waters. We dd the first one in row 1 next to kick it up a notch,

I am making the fourth block our third because... well LOOK at the third one in the row and YOU TELL ME if you want to tackle it just yet!

Our NEW Block No. Three (the fourth in that row) is made exactly the same as No. One (HSTs) and to be honest I wondered at that time, "Why would Leslie do this?"

I didn't even like the layout of the squares but I made one as shown. But me being me, I went with a 3 color design, instead of the two you see on the master.


Still didn't like it. (note to self: place that block FAR away from the Block One!)

So, with 5 more of them to go, I thought I'd turn them around and see what all I could do with 16 HSTs.

Here is the Blue and Gold.


Okay that's better, to me.

First Brights:

Oohhhh I LIKE that spin! Too bad the multicolored on is so sketchy

And the 2nd Brights:


mmmmm not a big fan of this.
Orientals: let;s go back to that spinning....



Red.White and Blues: (And back to the same layout as Blue/Gold.)



The more I thought beyond what was placed in front of me, the more fun it has become for me. I suppose this, too, is or should be a part of our daily "challenge" in life itself. If we face something we don't like, why not "turn" it into a positive?

I have never been one to take a pattern and say to myself, "right, I like everything about this pattern SO MUCH that I MUST make it like the one I see." I dink around with borders usually. I don't enjoy slapping the same ol' same ol' inner border/outer border on every quilt.

With this turtle quilt I had so much of the batik fabric left over I cut them into squares for a second splashier border. (I also had my turtles flying to the right, not the left like the pattern sample)



The one below is called Hopscotch Two and when I started to cut the block pieces, I saw straight away I had to mess around with changes. To begin with, the pattern calls for fat quarters cut into 2- 9 1/2" squares. But that left me with a huge chunk of fabric and one smallish quilt. If I cut the squares 9", I could get 4 instead of 2. (not to mention one heck of a lot larger throw quilt)

That STILL left me with a 2-3 1/2" strip from each color and that leftover is what I used to make a more interesting, edgier border. I had to buy one more fat quarter and the dark blue fabric but still, I would much rather buy a little more than end up with a bag of scraps. After all, it was all this "trash stash" that lead me to this current challenge.



So to answer my question as to why would Leslie do this? I'm gonna go with.....she added another level of challenge. See what you see and look again, why dontcha?

So using the HST way of piecing, off you go!