Sewing Down the Alphabet

Explosions all around

Having finished (for the time being) Dots and Dashes, and putting Eventide in timeout, it was time to put some thought into Exploding Pineapple.

This is not your traditional paper-pieced pineapple.  It starts with two equal squares, stitched RST on all four sides.  The top square is then cut on the diagonal up to the corner stitching and the resulting quarter-square triangles are pressed to the outside.  It's a very imprecise process, no worry about points, and a fun way to use up scraps.  But I have found that I still need a sense of order in my process, which is apparently why these blocks have languished in a box for several years.

If  I just grabbed a square, any square, from the pile, I might end up with mush like this.

I thought adding some solids would help the pineapple look.

Still not doing it for me.  Thinking it might be a "value thing," I tried this light/dark/light combo ...

Much better, but in the end I realized it's taking too much thought and I'm not having fun.  So the existing blocks will go into a baby quilt when the sashing I ordered yesterday arrives.

Moving on to F, there is only one box, labeled Flying Geese.  I had picked up a collection of oddly colored FQs at a modern guild "yard sale"  -- kind of snot yellow-green paired with a brown-gray.

But look at the name of this design!  I thought they would make interesting flying geese.  Then I found this pattern ...

I'm not thrilled with where I am going with this, though.  I think the goose, made with stash fabric, is too dark so it's going into timeout while I contemplate my options.

The end result of working on all these projects lately is I haven't taken time to clean up after myself and the cutting/working/ironing stations look like there's been an explosion in my studio!

Cutting counter

Work station

While I cleaned up today, I was thinking about how I will tackle the Gs, both projects I want to see to completion.

Stay tuned, and stay well!