Sashing and Gnashing

Good morning, my friends. When I wrote yesterday's post, I completely forgot it was the day a new prompt would be announced for the Project Quilting challenge. Late morning, after I'd done as much quilting as I'd planned for the day, I checked my email, and there it was. The challenge this time around is "Ombre." 

Well that threw me. I spent a good part of my afternoon sewing time gnashing my teeth about what I could do for this. My initial reaction was to skip this one, but then I get a bad case of the FOMO (Fear of Missing Out), and I hate that. So I persevered and came up with something. I'll tell you about that in a minute, but first, let me tell you about the quilting.

The cornerstones will all have this little stylized heart motif. Pretty easy.

In the sashings, I'm doing this ribbon motif around all four sides. For now, I'm only working on the horizontal sashings. Eventually, I'll turn the quilt sideways and do the vertical sashings.

There are five rows of horizontal sashings and cornerstones. I finished three of five yesterday. I'll finish the remaining two today, and then I'll get a start on the vertical sashings. I have a daily plan for finishing this off. If I can stick to it each day, the quilt will be ready for binding no later than Friday.

Okay, and that was where the day went off the rails. So. "Ombre." What does that even mean? Well, the email announcing the prompt was very helpful. First, it defined "ombre" as describing the color shift in value or hue between two points. Usually, that looks like a smooth range between two colors, or a gradient of one color from light to dark. For this project, we can choose to do a shift of color across our project, through a block, or simply by using an ombre fabric to make anything we want. And I have some ombre fabrics, but I wanted to do something more in the "shift of color" vein. 

There was also a link to some patterns from Hunter Design Studio written to emphasize ombre patterns. When I saw those examples, I was reminded of the mini "Blue Blazes" quilt I made recently (still unfinished).

And so I went back to the book to look for inspiration there.

In the end, I decided to make another quilt like the one above, only from different fabrics in different colors. Also, I'm making the next size up. Since I only have a week to finish my quilt, I wanted to do something a little less fiddly than the earlier mini. It took me several hours to make my decision, and so there wasn't much sewing. I spent the rest of the afternoon choosing fabrics and cutting strip sets.

I was in the process of cross-cutting the strip sets when I needed to stop for the day.

It was cold yesterday. It was even too cold for the kitties. This is about all we saw of Sadie yesterday, and it's kind of hard to tell which end of the cat is which here.

The only other sewing I did yesterday was to take the Catmint piece right to the edge of a finish. Just those circle flowers are left, and so I should easily finish it this morning.

If there's enough time, I'll get to work stitching the names and places for the next to Shop Hop blocks.

It's going to be a mostly sewing day today, but I'm also going to try a new Blueberry Bran Bread from King Arthur Flour. I saved the recipe a while back. (It has since been removed from the website.) It called for a product called "Jammy Bits," available for sale on the King Arthur website. A one pound bag of the Jammy Bits goes for $18.95 on their website, and that kind of cooled my enthusiasm for the recipe. If I'm going to spend that kind of money on a baking ingredient, I'd at least like to try it first.

So, I inquired of my friend The Google who informed me that I could make my own jammy bits if I was so inclined, and it even showed me how to do it.

So I was all set to do that. I even bought some jam. But then I saw a coupon code for $10 off and free shipping on any item, and so I went ahead and bought them.  Yay! And all of that to say that I'm now armed with jammy bits, and bread-baking is happening today. It's a yeasted bread, and so it will take several hours before it comes from the oven. Mmm, mmm, mmm. I do loves me some home-baked goods. Let's just hope these goods are good.

Okay, so slow-stitching is next. I'm telling myself I'll get in a walk on the treadmill today, but the jury is still out on whether I really mean it.