Pastel Coins - an Update

 

This "happy" now lives in my studio.

Her arrival involves a story that includes

a leaking water heater and its replacement

and the related discovery that squirrels 

have been living in our attic.

It also involves going through 

the last few attic-stored-boxes of "kid" stuff

that now no longer reside in the attic.

Most of it had to go into the trash.

The surviving penguins have been 

relocated to eldest son's home.

(he collected them for years)

The box of younger son's vintage Fisher Price toys 

sent me directly to eBay to check values. 

(we are not selling them despite the listing prices)

In the course of searching for 

the marina,  the nursery school,

the swimming pool/umbrella/deck chairs,

the RV camper/rowboat, and the houseboat, 

I found the FP sewing machine and chair.

Sold!

Now - about the pastel coins project.

Over the last couple of weeks,

one plate-full of pre-sorted coin cuts at a time,

I've been stitching coins together.

The resulting segments 

range from 14" to 20" in length.

 I still need to press the seams open

on this final group.

With all 32 segments pieced,

it is finally time to play with layout ideas.

 When I started this adventure,

I took all of the strings and clean cuts

in the low volume box 

and trimmed them to +/- 7-inch lengths.

I had no idea how many

linear inches of coins would result.

A few quick calculations at this point indicate 

that if I can trim all segments to 6.5" widths

and sew my columns without sashing,

I'll come up one column shy of a top 48" x 60"

So close . . .

Back to the scrap stash 

to see what I had to work with.

[insert pause for pondering]

After thinking about it, 

I decided NOT to add the still-needed inches

by piecing new coins to the top/bottom of each segment.

Why?

Some of my favorite images of coins quilts 

made by others are those with inserts 

that contrast in color and/or direction.

CLICK HERE for an example.

With my own opportunity at hand,

I used my 4-inch-finished triangle-in-a-square die 

(the one I used to make Windblown last fall)

to cut up  the very last scraps from

two of my longest-stashed batiks 

along with 7 WOF strips of a grayed neutral.

I like where this is going!

Quiltdivajulie

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"Good instincts usually tell you what to do before your head has figured it out."   (Michael Burke)