Alternative Course

A few months ago, I brought my redwork and toile to work. I just couldn't get the colors to jive together to make the type of quilt that I wanted. With much conversation amongst fellow quilters, there appeared to be a path that I could take but, alas, I was not in love with the fabric combinations. The reds all went back into the cabinet.

Lately, I've been inspired by various patchwork I've been seeing in blogs (particularly other projects here) I resurrected the reds and found a combination that I did love.

Once again, fate kicked me in the shins as I realized that I didn't have enough fabric to carry out the color scheme. Deciding that I would be thrifty and would not purchase any more material (I bought these years ago, the search would have gone on and on, and it wasn't the original quilt that I wanted - it was an alternative), I decided I could only work with what I had.

So, here's one of the alternative squares - a type of 9-patch if you will.

And, here's the final layout. It's not perfect, but I do love it and it sure is scrappy. I think to make it perfect, I would get rid of one of the red squares in the upper left, make it more diagonal. But, I am all out of fabric so it'll have to stay like this for layout. I "could" make just a toile square in the lower right corner. What do you think?

Apart from sewing with red, I've been entranced with watercolors. I have no idea what I'm doing but here's one result:

And, as always, my support crew is never too far from the sewing room.