Lots of Kites

Good grief, I have become obsessed with this quilt.  I'm working on it every spare moment I have, even in the morning before work.  The more I work on it, the more excited I get over it.  I love projects like this.

I started this last week along with the triangle string quilt (that is now on hold).  I sewed together all the little pieces I had in my scrap bag.  I ended up with three large multi-colored blocks and a few long, thin pieces.  These blocks looked so nice that I nearly quilted them as they were.  But I stuck to my plan and cut them into 35 kites.  Only a few small pieces made it back into the bag for my next scrappy project.

Big scrap blocks

I was going to set the kites in rows sashed with white or black.  However, the kites had a lot of white, beige and black.  I pulled out some greys, blue and a couple of pale greens before finding the yellow.  Once I threw the pieces on it, it was the obvious choice.  The kites needed sashing that clearly broke them apart or they'd look just like the blocks I so carefully cut apart.

Rows seemed too boring.  After playing around with the pieces, I ended up with this design.  It repeats on a slight angle, so it's not square.  Looks neat; is a challenge to work with.  I didn't want to cut off any of my patchwork kites, so I decided to edge the design with the light green material.  Something that would fade away.  The idea is to cut the outer edge off square, then add a clean green border.  We'll see how that looks when I get to that point, I'm now thinking it may need a narrow border of yellow, first.

Boring rows

Piecing started with a lot of ripping.  Oy.  I thought I could skip doing partial seams but after I put together a few blocks, I realized that was impossible.  I also started with 3/4" yellow shashing but feared it would drown the kites.  I ripped apart the blocks I had sewn together, recut the yellow for 1/2" sashes, and started again. 

I worked out a routine after piecing together a dozen or so blocks.  Partial seams haven't been bad.  It's a slow process.  I'm afraid if I work on a bunch of pieces at once, I'll lose track of where they go.  Ugh - then there'd be more ripping!  Instead I'm stitching together a few pieces at a time and add them to the whole.  I'm so glad I took a photo of the layout when I started - I've had to refer to it several times to line things up correctly.

I'm about halfway done piecing the top.  I'm hoping to finish it in a couple of days.  I had earmarked this piece to be donated or sold, but I think I need to keep it.  Maybe a wall hanging or a table cloth.  I'll see how big it gets once I add borders!