Never Enough

My quilt bee is having a challenge, due in September. We all must make a quilt using the Quick Curve Ruler. We can choose any fabric, pattern, or size. Some over-achievers have already finished a quilt– or two. I thought I’d keep it simple, using just four fabrics that I purchased a few years ago, with no particular project in mind.

There are lots of ways to arrange the blocks. I tried different patterns and finely decided I liked this design best. I wanted the rows on opposite sides to end with the same color arcs. It must be some crazy math thing, but no matter what I tried, I could not make the color arrangement symmetrical. I had lots more green and blue but was totally out of the flower fabric.

I pieced together my remaining scraps.

Can I really use this one? It’s pretty ridiculous.

I managed to eek out three more flower arcs.

ARE YOU KIDDING ME? Lower left corner– I still need one more lousy flower arc and I do not have even a splinter of the fabric. I know quilters– some of my best friends even– that can take a pattern, buy the fabric required, sew the quilt and have just the right amount of fabric. I am not one of those quilters. I never have enough of some critical fabric. I even buy more than the pattern says and I don’t have enough.

What to do?

1. Select appropriate curse words and let fly. Done.

2. Use a blue or green arc, letting future quilt historians say, yeah, she ran out of fabric. No.

3. Get on the Internet and search for the flower fabric. No. I want this done now.

4. Root through my extensive stash for 2 hours to find fabrics to mix in. Three of anything looks intentional, right? Can’t find a thing that works. Nothing.

5. Race to the fabric store and buy something compatible. Too late today.

6. Give up and go find a big bag of potato chips. Excellent accompaniment for wine.

Working my way through the barbecue chips, I decided I’d quit procrastinating and quilt the tires on my bike quilt. To heck with those arcs. I grabbed the scraps from that project to piece a sample to test out some threads and look what I found. A few more schnibbles of the flower fabric!

Woohoo! Back in the saddle and ridin’ hard! I had enough fabric to piece 2 more arcs– I threw out the one cobbled together with three slivers.

I have symmetry! I just need to decide on green or blue arcs on the sides and which color binding looks best. Well….it’s gonna be blue binding. I don’t have enough of the green fabric….