Insanity

I often will go online and look at quilt ideas and will jot down names or websites of quilts I see that I like. One day, I came across a quilt called "Storm at Sea". It is a very versatile design. Depending on the ways you lay the colors out, you can make all kinds of cool quilts - the options are quite numerous. (If you are bored, google "storm at sea quilt" and you will see several images. The most common color used in it is blue though. I have wanted to make a quilt of blues and greens for awhile, and when I found this design, I really wanted to do it. This is one of the photos I saw of a finished quilt:

What I did not know, however, is how complicated this quilt is. Cutting the shapes just right and sewing them just right is very tricky.  The diamond shapes are especially tricky - if you don't measure just right, it will throw off your whole quilt. So, I looked at patterns and templates, and even got a book on ways to make it easier, but I just couldn't bring myself to try it. I even bought material, but it overwhelmed me.

Then, I discovered a fun little toy that will cut shapes for you from material. It is like a die cutter that you may have seen for paper, but it cuts material - 4-6 layers at a time. And, they had the shapes I needed to complete the quilt. Jeff kindly got it for me for Christmas. I cut tons of shapes. I am amazed at how many small pieces of material are stacked in my craft room. But, they were fairly easy to cut, and they are all exactly the right size. 

Then, I decided to attempt to put together one block. Now I am sure there are probably ways to do this that involve less shapes, but to get them all to line up, I had to choose certain dies to get them cut just right. If a square wasn't available, four triangles would do, etc.  The single quilt block that I made required 79 pieces of material. That is why this post it titled "insanity".  I put together the block - it took a little while, but not as long as you would think for 79 pieces. And now I can officially say I completed one of 48 blocks for the quilt.  Only 47 more to go :).  I am excited though. I am sure this will take me a very long time to complete, but that is okay. I will work a little at a time until it is finished. No rush. I have a couple of other quilts I am working on anyway, so I will just do a little here and a little there and someday I will have a finished quilt. This is what my first block looks like. I love batiks, so I am using mostly that for the quilt.