What's On My Design Wall Monday

I pulled out the box with these pieces two weeks ago when I was looking for some hand sewing to work on that WASN'T itsy bitsy diamonds. The blocks have been sewn together for ages, but I needed to set them together and had been putting it off for one reason or another. In fact, I'd put it off for so long I had nearly forgotten about them and the project box had become buried under many other UFO boxes in my sewing room.

I'm a little further along than this picture shows. I took advantage of brighter skies on Saturday to get a picture of two of the strips together. I love the secondary pattern that is emerging there. Yesterday I worked on the third strip in between some other things. Each block is about 16 inches, and I have a total of 12.

My plan is to sew a four inch plain border around the 12 block set and then to sew a pieced border of the same half square triangle units in a zigzag pattern around that.


This is a long-term project that I am making entirely from scraps. Yesterday I cut some more pieces for the pieced border, but I've only got about a quarter of what I need cut out. For a while there I was being really good and cutting a 5-inch strip from any likely fabric I brought into the house to make the dark triangles and squares. When the project box got buried I fell off the wagon and so I've been going through the scrap baskets looking for pieces large enough. There are plenty, believe me.

Sewing these block units together has been really satisfying this week. Not too fussy, not too demanding--something I can pick up and put down when other things come up. I doubt I'll get the whole border sewn together right away, but I'll keep plugging along.

You can check out Judy L.'s blog Patchwork Times to see what everybody else has up on their design wall this week.