Fun with scraps - Part Three

The Confetti top is done! Size with borders is about 27x37".

I'm a bit disappointed in this photo, which was taken early morning and needed major adjustment to brightness and contrast; the colors are still not right. Took some with the flash, too, but the color in those was so yellow they were useless.

But... I love, love, love how the border turned out! It looks like an ornate picture frame, and I like how it sets off the "modern" randomness and straight lines of the confetti center. I was able to cut between the rows of flowers on the print, and have just enough room on each strip for seam allowance without stitching into any of the major motifs. The binding (when this is backed and quilted) will be the same as the inner border, which is a bit closer to a sage green than it appears here.

This one is now called "Confetti #1", because there will be others. I had a lot of fun playing with this, and my brain is now humming with some variations I'd like to try.

Next time I will set aside at least 12-18" of a background strip to have on hand for making layout adjustments as the interior seams all get sewn together. All those 1/4" seams mean a lot of shrinkage, and some things that looked well apart from each other ended up a bit too close. If I'd had even a short strip of the aqua on hand I could have tweaked things a bit better.

I'm wrestling with what to use for a backing fabric. I do have enough of the border fabric for a back. But I'm feeling greedy and selfish. While I was cutting the border I kept thinking how lovely the print would be as a skirt. A skirt for me, me, me. If I use it to back Confetti #1, will there be enough left to play dress-up with?

Two options: 1) use something else (I have a plan B fabric in mind already); and/or 2) go ahead and make a skirt and then see how much I've got left. I kindof thought I would take a break from making skirts, seeing as how I've got so many of them at this point. But maybe I've got one more to go.

Part of me thinks this print is so awesome as a border fabric that I ought to hoard what I've got for future projects. Whenever I feel the impulse to hoard a fabric I try to take a deep breath and remind myself that the whole purpose behind buying it was to make something out of it, and that there will always be more great fabric available. Always. Any minute now I could fall hopelessly in love with a new print. If when that happens, wouldn't it be nice if I'd made some room for it by using what I've already got?

No hurry, though. I'm not going to quilt this until my 120-day pattern and fabric embargo is over (only 5 weeks to go!) and I've saved up enough for the extension-table-thingie-for-machine-quilting for my Babylock and a couple other small toys on the list.

In the meantime, a horrifying number of "active" projects are lurking in the sewing room, and I ought to put some attention to finishing them before they've sat neglected for long enough to be called UFOs.