Step 7 completed!!

The end is nigh!

Last night I completed Step 7 of Bonnie's Orca Mystery quilt.  You know all those black and neutral triangle groups I sewed in Step 6?   They are now all joined up to something else.  Two of them were sewn onto the red string triangles to make a flying geese block and one onto a larger neutral triangle.  No hint was given as to where they will be going in the quilt.

But this is the last of the major sewing exercises.

Not many large blocks, but as you can see from this photo there is actually only 5 different types of blocks that will make up this quilt.  Albeit piles of the things. 

-28  6" Ohio blocks with neutral backgrounds

-28  6" Ohio blocks with black backgrounds.

-128 red string triangles with black wings sewn into a flying geese block..

-100 neutral triangles sewn onto black wings.

-72  3.5" inch blue string blocks

That is one huge lot of cutting and sewing.  By the way I have already used 1 and 1/2 reels of 500m of thread (and I haven't sewn the blocks together yet, or put on a border!!!

This morning (while it is very hot in my part of Aus (34C - 92F) I decided to print off Part 8 and to place these blocks on my design wall - in Bonnie's order of course.  All pieces are sewn in rows - no more blocks are put together, BUT it looks fantastic!  A bit red, but there is so much movement and I can already see different patterns emerging.  AND I like my choice of using blue in the middle of the neutral Ohio stars instead of red!   One problem I'm having though - it is too big for my wall!

Sorry, I'm not going to show you until it's completed.  Have fun guessing what you think it might look like!!

Don't forget to come back and see it completed.

...Joy

Mystery Steps 5 & 6

Step 5 - Remember the 350 half-square triangles in Step 3 that were sewn into little aquares- well they come into play with Step 5.  I had to cut another 700 (yes 700) more black 1/2 square triangles and these are to be placed either side of those little blocks.  When joined they make these black and neutral slightly larger triangles:

Still no idea how these are going to be used (I hope I'm not adding any more little ones to them!!!) 

Step 6 - More fabric cutting - this time squares - 2-1/2" - 112 black and 112 neutral and for the red 56.  When I came to cut the red I realised I was running short and might not be able to get 56 out of what I had left unless I used 'red-looking' fabric, but I thought this would not work as some of those fabrics were slightly on the orange side.  Had a look at the blues used in the string squares earlier and had some of those, enough to do half. 

Reading the second page of this step I discovered that we would be joining these with the hour-glass blocks to make Ohio Stars - half with neutral backgrounds and half with black backgrounds.  I played with the blue and red squares and some of the hour-glass blocks and decided that the blue could go in the neutral blocks and the red in the black.  Here you see one of the neutral ones finished with a red one about to be sewn.  I'm happy with this.  I think it works.

At long last, starting to see some blocks coming together.....

On to Step 7 and 8 over the weekend - well maybe Sunday - have my Guild meeting tomorrow (Saturday).