Tic Tac Toe

The last time I posted about my quilt for the MQG Robert Kaufman Kona Solids Challenge, I was a bit underwhelmed with my project.  I was regretting the choice I had made for the 1/2 yard of fabric I was allowed to introduce, and was trying to problem solve.  Well, after lots of great comments both here and on some of my Flickr images, I started to actually love the subtlety of the colour scheme…but it still needed something.

I couldn’t add another fabric, and I was out of charm squares, but I DID have a pile of mini HSTs left over from making the original blocks.  (I learned early in my foray into quilting that it takes very little time to sew an extra seam when sewing triangles to something, and the result is a pile of HSTs ready for a future project.)

I was playing around with them when inspiration struck, so I sewed them together to create little diamonds that matched the colour arrangements of the original blocks.

I then added these diamonds to the centre of the corresponding blocks, but set them so that the fabric in the diamond would be opposite the same fabric in the larger design.

Finally, I quilted the whole thing fairly simply, using a diagonal criss-cross to reinforce the main motif.

And then it sat in my WIP pile, just waiting for the binding, for two months.  At the August meeting for the Toronto Modern Quilt Guild, Kaye ribbed me a bit for not having finished it yet and she was right.  I mean, what was I waiting for?!  So I finally added the binding last week, and I have to say that I’m pleasantly surprised by how much I like the finished product.  I went through so much doubting in the process of this challenge, but I also learned quite a bit. Being forced to work within the boundaries of the challenge, and with fabrics that I wouldn’t have chosen (the “dusty” palette just isn’t for me), led me to a solution that I would not have found had I just added a second fabric.

The current challenge is to use fabrics from one palette of Jay McCarroll’s “Habitat” collection, and while I happen to love the line, I know that lots of people don’t, so I’d love to hear about how other people approach these challenges, especially when they’re less than enthused about the base materials.