Pretty ugly quilt

I’m not really sure I like this quilt… Maybe it’s because I have been struggling so much with it lately. I started it to try out the Mumbo Gumbo pattern from Pie in the Sky. The idea was to really get at my stash and use some of those old pieces of fabric that have been there for ever and that I never seem to be able to find a place for in other quilts.

I started it in January when a group of us went on a weekend retreat to sew and have fun. I brought lots and lots of strips of blue fabric (and a few accent colours) – which is by far the largest group in my stash. Somehow I always end up buying new fabric when I need blue, because I can’t find anything to go with whatever I’m making, so my stash keeps growing. The idea was to shrink the stash and leave room for new fabric, but you know the way it goes, right? The fabric you cut for a scrap quilt seems to multiply and you end up with more than what you started with …
Anyway, I finished the top last week and decided to back it with polar fleece to make it into a soft and comfy quilt. The problem was that the fleece was alive! No matter what I did when trying to baste it, it wouldn’t keep still. I kept trying to pin it into submission, but it was a struggle – remind me to never do this alone ever again!!! I persevered, and eventually I managed to get it basted, and ready to be quilted. It’s a riot of blue fabric, and I’m not really sure I like it yet – it looks good at a distance, but I may have been too close to it lately to really appreciate it … I think I will quilt it with dark blue thread to unite all the shades of blue, and hopefully the end result won’t be too bad…

In between my sessions of struggling with this thing, I have been making more stack-and-slash blocks, and they are really addictive! Here’s another glimpse. I’ll try to get in another photo session tomorrow when the light is better. They are all so different; it’s hard to believe they are from the same fabric. Oh what fun!