It's Not Where You Start, It's Where You Finish

That line from the Broadway show "Seesaw" is my quilting motto.  I can probably count on one hand the quilts I started with one idea and finished with the same plan.

For instance:

I was giving a demonstration for the Modern Athens Quilt Guild; the above quilt was one example of a disappearing nine patch.  It served it's purpose but when I pulled it out a while later I was struck with pure boredom.  Maybe it would get cute cuter when I quilted it, but I doubted it.

So, I took the squares apart and added some red polka dot and bright yellow strips. 

This baby was waking up!.

Now for the back.  What could I do with this pile of leftovers?

What do babies play with?  Blocks.  At first I tried the rows of blocks with fabric between them.  The blocks didn't look stacked.  Luckily I decided this before I sewed all the blocks together.

I used a crosshatch pattern for quilting.  I chose some leftover yellow and red bias binding from two other quilt projects that matched perfectly to finish it off.

 Now I can imagine a baby spending many happy hours playing on this quilt pointing out the bears, bunnies and trains.





My next challenge is to use yet another set of disappearing nine patch blocks from this same demonstration--a smaller version.  First, I need to take them apart.