The Tale of Trouvaille - a Squirrel Story

Back in January I decided to make an all-pink quilt using fabrics in the stash - squirrel alert.

My initial plan was to use the Happy Strips pattern by Quilty Love like I used for Brumous.

A few weeks later, that plan changed to making another Maggie Pearl quilt (same design as I used for RUTH - which was donated as a top to Many Hands Many Hearts to become a comfort quilt).

And in mid-June Lynne decided to use green scraps and make another Deco quilt from the book Colorful Quilts for Fabric Lovers - see her post HERE.

Well - THAT got the squirrels in my studio all excited.  

The photo above shows my array of pink strips ready to be sub cut into rectangles to make a Deco quilt of my own.  

(Later on I pulled out the dark pink with black dots and substituted another fabric in its place - ditto for the strip with blue polka dots)

Thursday evening, after all of the segments were cut and prepped, I sorted them into groups of three and then stacks of ten blocks.  My layout will be 9 blocks wide by 12 blocks long - 56" x 72" ish.

It doesn't show well in the photos, but my accent square's fabric has just a touch of iridescence and dimensionality.  That fabric has been in the stash and I've resisted using it because so I don't run out - silly me.  There's always more fabric!

Why did I choose that fabric for my accent squares?

The photo above might help explain my reasoning.  The panel will be part of Trouvaille's pieced backing.

(Oh - and I forgot to add that Trouvaille is a French noun meaning something lovely discovered by chance)

As of Friday evening, here are the first five rows of pressed blocks on the design wall.

By Saturday noon-time, the rest of the blocks were sewn together and ready to be pressed.

Like so many other places, it is V-E-R-Y H-O-T here (heat indexes predicted to easily top 100 several days this week) so I need to use the iron early in the morning and not late in the day.

* * *

The squirrels and I are very happy about this design change.  The previously stalled project is now moving forward quickly and should become a top soon. 

I've even had a Eureka kind of idea for the backing - stay tuned for that.

(That's an older photo of Flash and Mischief - you can read more about my studio squirrels and the Ad Hoc Squirrel Club using the links below and in the blog's sidebar)

Quiltdivajulie

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"You are trying to understand madness with logic.  This is not unlike searching for darkness with a torch."

Mad Hatter from Alice in Wonderland