Out of my comfort zone

I first saw this on Dana's blog. She first saw it on Amy's blog. Amy said not to get too hung up on the fabric. She said if you like it, you should use it. I love Amy's quilts. Both of them. I love Dana's. I do not love mine. I like each piece of fabric I used. Just not sure I like them together. I'm normally a very ordered, planned, two-to-three color quilter. This quilt is crazy to me. I tried to group the colors together. My husband does not like it at all.

My 15-year-old daughter LOVES it. So I guess it can be hers. I finished the top several months ago, but I needed some distance from it. It went together quickly, but I just needed to not look at it for a while.

Maybe from this distance -- yep, it's a little better. And maybe once I get it quilted, I will like it more. In the meantime, I need to decide what to put on the back! I guess with a quilt like this, anything goes!

Sometimes the math goes rogue.

This was supposed to be a baby quilt, people. Each block was supposed to be 12 inches finished. In planning the center pinwheel, it made it to be 8 inches. It should have been 4. So now the blocks are 23 inches. Rogue math. What are ya gonna do? And I really wanted them on point. Well, actually, I don't want the blocks on point, but I wanted the pinwheels themselves to be on point. Why, oh, why did I add the triangles to each corner then?

I am a math whiz. Seriously. I don't mean that sarcastically. Math was one of my best subjects in school. What happened here, then? I. Do. Not. Know. Sometimes the math goes rogue. That's all I can come up with.

So now what? Too much white? Colored sashing between each block? Pull off the corners and return the blocks to their 8 inch state? Brightly colored border? Anyone? Bueller? Seriously, give me your opinion. They're just sitting here waiting for someone to make a decision. That someone could be you.

Dye-ing, not dying.

My oldest daughter has plans for a black and jewel tone quilt but couldn't find exactly what she was looking for in my stash, so we decided to dye some bleached muslin (which I buy by the bolt). I don't have a picture of that yet, but I figured while she was dying things (girls' camp shirt needed some tie-dying too), I would throw in some different fabrics just to see how they'd turn out. Oh, yeah, and some diapers for burp cloths. I love those.

I have these in a before and after setup. You can see that in most there is not much difference between the before and after. I think that was due in part to the fact that the dye was running out. I should have gotten the big bottle instead of the little packet. Live and learn.

That top one looks pink in this pic, but in real life it's a decent lavender. Probably the second best result.

Overall I think I mostly just got a muddied look. Again, I think that was in part due to not enough dye. I was just throwing things in at the end to see what would happen. Some of them I WILL use. I have been thinking of a purple, black, and white quilt. Some of these just don't qualify as purple. I just used RIT dye. I saw that iDye stuff at Joann's the last time I was there, so I might try that one of these times, see if I get better results. So, overall, not a failure, because I learned something, but certainly not quite what I was going for. I'll probably try more as we dye my daughter's other fabrics. The whites obviously take it the best. We'll see. Have you ever tried dying or altering the color in your fabric?