I'm still working on the borders for my red and green split nine patch, but I realised I hadn't shown you my Blue Chains top which I finished a while ago.

I really love how this turned out, just like the original antique one. It used up heaps of blue and shirting pieces and the blocks were so easy to put together I never got sick of them.

I like having both dark and lighter blues in the top, it adds movement and interest, but I've been wondering about a real two colour quilt, just one blue fabric and one white. I'm not ready to tackle it yet, but I'm definitely thinking about the idea.

I haven't decided how I'll quilt this, but I can see a nice old fashioned cable in that shirting border for a start.

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 The blocks are finally set together and I can think about the next project to go on with here. I'm also wondering if this top needs a border; I have a pretty red floral which would be nice.

Another alternative would be a scrappy green border.

 I went through my cut pieces and pulled out those measuring 3 1/2" in one direction.  I could sew these randomly together and if I made each segment measure 6 or 12" finished it would be very easy to make it the exact length I need. It would be nice to get these pieces out of the stash, but the overall effect might be too 'heavy'. I'll obviously have to experiment some more and see which idea wins out.

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I've had an insanely busy week and haven't had much time to sew unfortunately. A trip to Adelaide, a 5 year old's birthday party, helping out a friend with a new business venture and yesterday a car boot sale that got rid of heaps of stuff but left us fairly shattered afterwards. Today will be equally as busy, and then tomorrow it's work again,,, and three customer quilts to do before Friday.

I took the time to play with layouts, even though I knew I wanted to do the zigzag setting. Sometimes it's nice to have a play around with actual blocks, instead of drawing things on graph paper or on the computer.

Straight furrows was fairly boring, and I didn't bother with putting more blocks on the wall.

Barn raising with a light centre...

or a dark centre.

Nice, but I still liked the zigzag better, so I started setting the blocks together.

I'm sewing them in groups of four then joining them into rows, and I've got about half done this way. If I get some down time this afternoon I'm going to try and have this in two large pieces, and then it will be only one long seam and I can call it done. I'm still not sure about a border, but the main thing will be to free up the design wall and move on to another project.

Speaking of my design wall, it's a very large board on wheels, that was used at our local gallery for years for displaying smaller works of art. There were two of them and I always said that I wanted to buy them if they ever came up for sale. It pays to speak your mind, because they were offered to me for $40 apiece, a bargain in my eyes. I had to take the base off to even get one in the doorway of my tiny cottage, and I now have this huge wall on wheels in my lounge room, but I love it. The other is in storage for when Keryn needs it....

It's so high I need this little chair to stand on when I arrange blocks at the top.

This was a kindergarten chair that's at least fifty years old, and it makes the best stepstool ever. I wish I had one for every room, and as it cost a dollar I could have afforded them, but there was only one. At the boot sale yesterday there was lots of wondering why we ever bought some of the junk we did, but there are other bargains that you never regret. I wouldn't part with either of these, and I use them every single day.

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I was nearly at the bottom of the box of red HST when I realised that the last layers were made up of these fellows. All the same red print, and a white homespun. Arghh! I just can't sew whole blocks using three identical HST, not when the rest of the top is so scrappy. I wish I'd remembered there were so many of these (about 70 of them ) and then I might have been able to scatter them throughout the other blocks.

Oh well, back to the red scraps, cut cut cut......

a bit of sewing, and I had the last 26 blocks all ready to go. I should be able to finish these tonight, and then I can think about how to set them.

I'm making 120 blocks, but part of me is thinking that's not very large, and I do have more green scraps so I could keep going.. It all depends on whether I have a border or not. Decisions, decisions.

I put the blocks I've finished on the design wall in this configuration, which is how the quilt in Bonnie's post was made.Now I can't decide which I like better, these zigzags or the block in my previous  post..

Instead of stewing about it I'm going to sew the last blocks together and then play around with various settings.  A Barn Raising might be nice too. Or I could make two smaller tops.

Stay tuned.

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