Embracing "imperfection"

After so much success with my pillow auction to support the Red Cross after the devastating fires in Fort McMurray, I decided I wanted to do another in support of a local charity. I finished one pillow, then started in on three more tops.

I saw a neat block while scrolling through Instagram that inspired two pillows. It's based on a pattern that's part of a BOM hosted by the Portland Modern Quilt Guild.

I love how these dark prints look for the background. It really makes the colours shine.

And this dark grey background is good too, especially for the very colourful fabrics I picked for the star. How awesome is that psychedelic kitty fabric by Tula?

Oh boy was I happy with how these two pillow tops turned out, especially on the heels of the great disappointment from another. Cue what I am calling "imperfectly perfect" ...

When I came up with the idea for rainbow of Alison Glass fabric in half-rectangle triangles, I was so excited. It took forever to cut out all the fabric (after figuring out the math with some muslin prototypes), sew and then trim the HRT. But as soon as I started sewing them together, I realized HRT were not as straight-forward as HST. Points on one side were cut off, and the points on the top were floating. I was crushed. All that time, all that precious fabric wasted! I thought I can't auction this technically imperfect quilt, and I didn't even want to share it. My perfectionist side was aghast.

But then I let it sit for a couple days, mostly to ignore the disaster. Yes, I could "fix" the problem by trimming a bit off the ends of each block. Instead, I decided to embrace the imperfection. While it is technically wrong, it doesn't really take away from the overall effect of the pillow. It's still a lovely rainbow in gorgeous fabric. And I will proudly include it in my auction, although for full disclosure I will point out the issue so the eventual owner is not disappointed.

All in all, it was a good lesson in not getting too caught up in perfection.

Finally catching up

Blossom Heart Quilt's modern HST sampler sew-along ended in December, but my last few blocks kinda fell by the wayside. Where does the time go?

Here's block 21 - Diamond Twirl.

Block 22 - Shattered. I had some fun with the prints when making this one.

Block 23 - Bejewelled. It was challenging at times, especially with the more complicated blocks, to stick to just Alison Glass' indigo handcrafted line, but I think it's going to look so striking all together.

Block 24 - Nip Tuck. Ooh this was a bit of a beast! So many teeny HST! I like the flying geese in the two prints peeking in.

And with that, all the blocks are done! I know how I want to put them together, I just need to get some sashing fabric and get to it!

Two by two

Here we go again with blocks made in sets of two! These first two raspberry kiss blocks were made for a very nice fellow Canuck who asked me if I'd be interested in a side swap since postage costs for a block swap hosted in the States kept us out. All she asked for were pink centres. As you can see, I delivered and more!

This one got an extra dose of pink in the low-volume prints.

For the March blocks in my own bee, I picked orange. How I love both of these fun Cotton + Steel prints I picked for the background. Those scary-silly tigers are too cute!

Maybe I was inspired to pick orange with the March edition of my guild's block lottery. Orange and pink is a fabulous combination! This one includes two of my favourite Carolyn Friedlander and Tula Pink prints.

Sadly I didn't win the blocks, but I'm totally happy for the person who did. She happened to be wearing orange and pink at the previous meeting when the next block and colours were announced. She was so excited!!