summer sunnies

one of the summery wips i'm itching to complete is this "sunny yellow crossroads" project. i've been working on a few others, but this has been hovering in the back of my mind, waiting its turn. i cut some low-volume leftovers into pieces for a block, so i got the project box out to put them away. that's all it took. i was curious how far i'd gotten and if i'd gathered enough other fabrics to complete the top.

the box contained 12 complete of the 28 needed blocks sets  and two sets of low-volume pieces cut.

then i pulled down the basket where i've been chucking all the cuts of yellow and low-volume fabrics i might want to use for this quilt. it was literally overflowing with fabric. so much yellow! sadly, way too much yellow. i could easily do another yellow geese quilt or some such thing with all this yellow.

i selected my 16 favorite prints to use and then paired them with low-volumes to make the rest of the block sets. i had one or two already cut from scraps, but needed to complete the set with more scraps. so i went digging through my scrap drawers and baskets searching for a few more scraps of the needed fabrics. instead, i found four other sets of yellow fabrics already cut. oh no! more culling of all the yellows i'd already selected. 

i tried to keep a balance of monochromatic prints and those with some touches of other colors already in the blocks i made first. i also selected which stayed based on keeping a range and balance of the yellow shades. it was a little tough!

eventually, i got my choices narrowed down and settled in to cutting and piecing. i made sets 13, 14, and 15 while d5 and i were having a sewing-and-listening session (we're on to "the emperor's ostrich" by julie berry). she's back to working on the 16-patch blocks for "pinky stinky edna," which i should be able to piece the top for pretty soon.

the next set of 16, 17, and 18 got made the next day. there are some really old pieces from my earliest quilting days in these blocks and one or two brand new ones. because i'm such a fabric nerd, i'm going to talk about them.

the butterfly print is from sandi henderson's "meadowsweet" collection, one of my all-time favorite collections. it's more than a decade old and has been used in a couple of my quilts over the years. it doesn't always work up nicely in large cuts of the fabric because it tends to not be printed perfectly straight. but it works well in this block, which makes me happy.

 the bees are from a newer heather bailey collection called "local honey." i'm working a number of bee prints into this quilt and really like this one. i had this rather odd netting print, low-volume fabric already cut for a block set, but had no idea what to pair it with. it's really rather strange. i think it works nicely with the bees, thank goodness.

this mismatched set breaks some rules and gave me quite a headache figuring out. the sprigged yellow fabric in the "road" pieces is a momo print from the "it's a hoot" collection, a last leftover from nearly the first quilt i ever made. i searched high and low for another morsel of that fabric and couldn't find a bit. i really wanted to use it in this quilt, so i kept looking. i noticed i still have two jelly rolls of the fabric line (??? i already used one, why did i buy that many?), but didn't want to take out the best fabric from the roll (that i have no plans for). but as i couldn't find any scraps anywhere else, i finally pulled the strip of this print out of one jelly roll.

but that strip isn't wide enough to make the background pieces for the block, so i paired the low-volume i used for the sprigged momo print with some pieces of heather ross's "far, far, away 3" moon print to make a set. i already had those moon pieces cut and pairing it as the other half of the momo set meant i didn't have to cut any more of it from what i have left. good enough!

most of my yellow prints for this project are very yellow, with yellow backgrounds, i have a handful like these two prints that are low-volumes with large spots of yellow. it mixes things up a bit, breaks up the hard-and-fast rules i made for the quilt.

another thought to note about cutting for crossroads blocks - if cutting a directional print from yardage, cut the strip the to the wider measurement so the print runs the correct direction. thinking to save a 1" smidge of fabric by going with the shorter cut first, i ended up with a few pieces that are not facing the way i'd like, such as the moon print. that one isn't too bad, but some others would be much more noticeable (to people like me who notice these things). it's something i noted and implemented with later cuttings.

last pair to share for now - one that's gold and bold and a softer, buttery yellow. i especially like the combination of the the sun print juxtaposed to the raindrops low-volume print in the set on the left. that's 19 & 20 of 28 complete. only 8 more to go!