Stained QAL started!

It's been a lovely, relaxing weekend here in Cork. Hitting 2 major work deadlines on Friday, and getting my Solids Swap items finished on Friday night meant that I had a huge sense of mental relaxation all weekend. With nothing major planned, the weekend involved a lot of lounging around in my pjs, having fun with the kids, falling asleep on the sofa in the afternoon, reading the newspapers, cooking proper roast dinners, baking and - of course - a little bit of quilting. Oh yes - and a lovely night out with the girls involving lots of chat over some Pinot Grigio. Sounds great doesn't it? That's because it was.

Finally, weeks after I should have, I finally managed to cut my pieces today for Sarah's Stained QAL. The cutting was pretty complicated for this one, and Sarah did a super guide for it. I am using a FE bundle of Little Apples fabric, as this is a quilt for a new baby girl, and my friend who asked me to make it is about as allergic to pastel pink for girls as I am.

I decided, after spending some time looking at the instructions, that I wasn't going to worry about the direction of the fabric. Quilts get used in all sorts of different ways and can be looked at from lots of angles. I  don't really like them to be all in the one direction, so I just jumped in with the cutting. I also knew that the cutting wasn't going to be terribly economical on this one, as this fabric is crying out for fussy cutting on a lot of the designs, so if I did the directional cutting, it would have used a mountain of fabric!

I took Sarah's advice and piled all my bits into some zip lock bags, ending up with a very satisfying little pile. I went through a whole notebook of post-its, labelling each piece!   It took quite a while, but I managed to keep myself and the kids entertained with lots of loud music and a bag full of playdough (them, not me!)  By the end of it my whole kitchen floor and all their clothes were covered in little bits of playdough (the price you pay for some quiet time!) but its done now, apart from the sashing.

Then I went off to do some trial layouts and see what I thought.

Love :-)

These blocks are going to be great. I think, when I am piecing them, I will probably mix and match around the pieces between the block (there are 3-5 of each block type) to get a better colour distribution in some of the blocks, but that will be easy. I also have plenty of fabric left so if I'm not happy with the balance I can cut some extra to correct it.

The last decision I need to make is the sashing colour. White and Ash are out, as they are already in use in the feature fabrics. I had a look at the other colours appearing in the prints and we're talking a pale pink, or a bright yellow. Neither of which I would be terribly keen on. But as I played around with the blocks this afternoon, I thought that some Kona Coal would work nicely. What do you think? Too dark for a baby girl? Do you have any other suggestions? I'd love to hear them.

After all that cutting, I felt like some chocolate. So we ransacked the cupboards and found the ingredients for brownies. Always a hit in this house, and a guaranteed half hour of fun measuring and stirring and - most importantly - licking the spoon. The kids were in heaven. They are cooling now and I will be taking myself off to test them shortly.

I'll leave you with the soundtrack to the weekend - this song has been playing on the iPod and has been sung constantly by the kids for the last few days (with air guitar action by D!) As they told me - its rocking!