It’s been a week of trial and error, as I struggle to make the first round of blocks suggested by Brenda of Songbird Designs: Hourglass, aka Quarter square triangles. I had come up with a plan for my Costa Rican inspired design and pulled suitable fabrics from my stash.
For this round, I chose green, yellow and pink fabrics. My objective was to have groups of blocks on either side of the center panel. The first attempt did not please me.
The border just didn’t look like a Costa Rican rain forest. My second attempt used more of the green with the blocks arranged to resemble the ginger flowers of the center block.
This looks a little better, but the scale was way off. The shape dwarfed my poor bird, which is the focus of this row. At that point, I dropped my rotary cutter and gave up for the day.
After a good night’s sleep, I had a new plan: Make the blocks smaller, placing the flowery colored fabrics in a more random way. That might suggest the lushness of the rain forest in an abstract manner. And if I cut the blocks to finish out at 2 and 1/2 inches, four of them stacked would fit the 10 inch length of my center block. Eureka!
Next came ripping apart, cutting down and sewing a total of 24 hourglasses. I added some pale blue fabric to represent the sky and separated the flower colors into discrete patches.
And here they are in the final layout.
To see what the other SAHRR participants are doing, visit our hosts and take a look at their interpretations of this round.
| January 14 | Everyone shares their center blocks | Gail @ Quilting Gail |
| January 21 | Round 1 | Brenda @ Songbird Designs |
| January 28 | Round 2 | Kathleen @ Kathleen McMusing |
| February 4 | Round 3 | Emily @ The Darling Dogwood |
| February 11 | Round 4 | Wendy @ Pieceful Thoughts |
| February 18 | Round 5 | Gail @ Quilting Gail |
| February 25 | Round 6 | Anja @ Anja Quilts |
You can find the link to see the rest of the participants’ quilts on Brenda’s post.
Daily Fiber 
Sometimes you just have to walk away and come back later! I like your first round – it looks good!
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Thanks.
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That was an interesting development, very unexpected. I’m curious to see what the next round brings.
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I agree. I’m still holding back – haven’t sewn the new blocks to the painting yet.
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Very nice first round. Your colors are beautiful.
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thank you.
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Oh wow that is going to look wonderful around your center square!
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Thanks.
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The colors are perfect and looks great.
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Laura, while I think your first hour glass pieces looked nice, I really love your second iteration! They remind me a bit of stained glass. What a creative group you all are!
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I like the second ones the best. Unfortunately, the scale didn’t work. But I may re-visit this idea.
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I think you’ve come up with the perfect solution 🙂
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I like the way the right side facing viewer in final layout melds the green triangle with the green background in the main panel (which is beautiful).
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Thank you for walking us through the process and your thinking. I think that keeping your vision front and center seemed to propel you (after a night’s sleep) to the final solution. These colors are so luscious — everything is looking great!
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THanks.
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This is lovely! It’s amazing how walking away and sleeping on it will bring out the inspiration. I love the colors and am excited to see what you do next! (Emily @ TheDarlingDogwood)
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Thanks Emily.
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