Orange and Cherry Jubilee

I got to spend a day at the sewing machine and managed to finish Step 5 of the Orange Crush. It was a big step and took most of the day! But my blocks are all made, the half blocks are made, the corner blocks are made and Step 6 will be putting them all together. If I want to make the pieced border there is still fabric that needs to be cut and pieced but I'll worry about that later.

Very interesting about how fabrics change the "flavor" of a quilt. Bonnie had made some suggestions about color schemes when she presented this mystery; orange, red, black and blue were her choices. The orange in Orange Crush sounded refreshing to me and for some reason I wanted pink in there too. I bought the pink and the orange fabric while I was in the States. Once back in Japan I put the pink together with a tropical blue (still going for refreshing) and made my spinning stars. Yesterday was the first time to work with the orange but I still hadn't decided what to do for my final color. Purple? Green? Yellow? Nothing vibrant enough in my drawers but I came across a piece of this cherry fabric. Do I want cherries? Do I like cherries? Someone had given me this fabric and though the color was pretty I couldn't see me ever using it in any of my quilts (I tend towards somber) so there it has sat for a few years. Well, vibrant it is and with all that orange and pink the Orange Crush was a lot more playful than anything I've ever made before.

Gulp. Use the cherries. My blocks are finished and I'm not sure what to think. From a distance the colors are beautiful... Up close? Cherries. I'm thinking if I change the name to Orange and Cherry Jubilee that this might grow on me.

You know, if nothing else, blogging has gotten me out of my rut of similar looking quilts. Because of Roberta I made a fantasy village quilt. Because of Tonya, I've fallen in love and delight in making Wonky quilts. Because of Colleen and Anne my contributions to the bazaar quilts are fun and cheery. Because of Bonnie I've got this vibrant Jubilee growing before me.

Back to the problem of having nowhere to spread this out. I've moved the furniture and stacked tables on top of each other just to get this laid out this much. I must have a masochistic thread in me that I keep making large bed sized quilts when there is no place to spread out and see how they will come together, and in a few months I'll be trying to figure out how to quilt this thing. I already have two bed-sized flimsies with no quilting end in sight, and another one stashed in a box somewhere... I think I'll go back to making luggage tags and other small things for awhile.