Octagon Shimmer - a new quilt start

About 10 days ago I was browsing through the blogs I follow when I saw a fabulous baby version of the Octagon Shimmer quilt pattern made by Erica at Kitchen Table Quilting. I really loved it, and I couldn't get it out of my head and a day or two later it was clear to me that I just *had* to make a version myself. I really love that compelling feeling where you just absolutely have to get started on a quilt; to be honest, it has been a long long time since I felt that way about sewing anything.

I immediately got cutting out my pattern pieces and auditioning fabrics. The original pattern has quite a dark colour palette and although initially plum, aqua and grey were floating around in my head as a potential palette, being a favourite combo of mine, when I pulled my fabrics, they just didn't sing to me. I put them aside and started pulling out my pinks and oranges - and then my heart did start to flutter. I added in the aquas I had already pulled and the greys, and I knew it was right.

I started piecing it almost straight away. My sewing time these days is really limited between work, the kids activities and my own swimming - if I get an hour an evening a couple of evenings a week and some time at the weekends I'm doing very well. But, as always when a project catches your imagination, I found myself carving out little windows of time at the machine and this morning found myself with 16 completed half square triangle blocks. I put them down on the floor to have a look and I'm happy with how its coming together. I love that washed out look to it with the contrast between the softness of the low volumes and the saturated prints.

In the pattern, Jennifer Sampou recomends not completing the triangles fully, and auditioning them to figure out what needs to go where, and I can understand why from putting these blocks together. That doesn't suit my style of working terribly well, and ideally I would have a design wall to be able to work off to guide my construction to suit me better but I don't and I think I might need to take her advice for the next few blocks. I don't know how many blocks I'm going to make - I might go to the full size of the pattern but for the moment I'm enjoying making it up as I go along, I will know when I have reached the point that I feel I'm done - hopefully soon (but not too soon!).



In other news, don't forget to pop back tomorrow when signups will be opening for Round 2 of the Big Stitch Swap...