Design Wall Monday::Frustration

Somehow another whole week has slipped by without a blog post.  I really appreciate Judy L.' s hosting this weekly event, otherwise my posting might be even more sporadic than it already is.  As always, you can check out what lots of other people are working on this week by clicking on this link.

There is very little on my design wall this week, except frustration.  Last spring I fell in love with a certain commercial quilt pattern and I bought what I thought was a generous amount of fabric with which to make the quilt.  Unfortunately, yesterday, MONTHS later, when I finally got the stuff out and began cutting (in preparation for a quilting retreat I'm going to this coming weekend) I found that I didn't buy enough. Grrrrrrr!  I was able to fill in some with stash fabric, but one of the fabrics that I bought, that I truly loved...just not enough.  So, to make the quilt, and I do intend to at least get a start on the quilt this weekend, I'm going to have to buy something else because I'm pretty sure that there won't be any left at the LQS. I'll just have to swing by the shop early Saturday morning and check out what I can use.  Ordinarily I wouldn't mind. I mean, buying fabric is fun, but I would rather not have to spend a chunk of my retreat time hunting down fabric. And, I would like to add, none of this is the fault of the pattern--just my hurried reading of it in the quilt shop.

I've also been working on quilting my challenge quilt for the guild.

The challenge was to use this pattern to depict our favorite place.  Mine is Maine, where we spent our vacation this year.  Can you "feel" the water and the sand and the dark woods and the rocks and the sky?  The picture isn't great, I know; for some reason, my camera has a hard time with these greeny blues.

I tried...and tried...and tried to free motion quilt this, but after my fourth attempt still didn't look good to me, I gave up, picked all the stitches out and started hand quilting. It's only 22 in. x 22 in., but still I would have liked to been able to machine quilt this. 

BTW, the block is based on this.

Above is a detail of one of the corners.  I think I unvented my own block, in Elizabeth Zimmerman's words.  I was attempting some sort of pinwheel-flying geese combination here, but it turned out quite differently than I intended. All in all, I like it.