Foothills Quilt Along Part 2

I had a little chuckle yesterday when I read Tammy’s reaction to me “chucking” my first attempts at the Foothills blocks, mostly because I didn’t really throw them (out or at anyone) but I pictured myself doing just that and laughed out loud. Just to refresh your memory, these are the blocks I’m speaking of:

my first attempt at the foothills blocks

My big mistake when putting these first blocks together was not looking at the original quilt photograph and, therefore, I turned the large half square triangles the wrong way, creating more of a churn dash effect than an hourglass effect. I certainly could have just continued on making the blocks in my own sort-of-original way and did consider doing that but my love affair with the original quilt won me over and so I started back at the beginning, as you saw in yesterday’s post.

Funny thing is, those four odd blocks kept calling to me from the corner where they landed. “Save me! Save me! Do not forsake me”, they whispered forlornly. “Please do not abandon us!”, they cried, and to their rescue, out came the super hero seam ripper.

First block to fix

A simple re-do

Unfortunately every seam had to be ripped out in order to turn those half square triangles the correct way and when I set the pieces into place preparing to sew them back together, I got this crazy brainwave idea to vamp up the ripped apart block and make it even better. I decided that I wanted the blocks to be a little softer in value and much scrappier than before. Since each block required complete deconstruction it gave me the opportunity to make drastic changes. I took the three separate sections, half square triangles, flying geese, and the center bar with small hourglass, and used each as the starting point for an entirely new block.

Three new blocks from the first 'mistake'

Can you spot the original components in each of the new blocks? As you can see, I’ve toned down the value and introduced a wider variety of prints. I’m so much happier with the fresher look.

Next block

Sliced and diced

Taken one step further

The second block was taken one step further when I decided that the two fabrics in the half square triangles were both too dark.

Second set of new blocks

By the time I had finished re-making this second set of updated blocks I was totally smitten! This was exactly what I was going for in the first place! I am continuing on with reconstructing each block plus creating brand new ones too. This is how it looks so far…

I am so in love!

Sometimes all it takes is a silly mistake to lead you down the path to a wonderful new discovery (and another work in progress)

until next time,

carol xox

p.s. Sorry for the photo heavy post this time. It probably took forever to load but I just had to share the entire process with you.