a lack of confidence

I spent 2.5 hours in a quilt shop yesterday.
Normally, I'm in and out in about 30 minutes-- I make decisions pretty quickly. But yesterday, I needed to pick out fabric for the Carolyn quilt. I decided on an easy pinwheel pattern from Material Obsession called Cowboy Baby. Since the quilt in the book was tiny, about 40" x 48", and I have limited time, I decided to make my blocks twice as large (you know how I love the big blocks).
But I had the hardest time picking out the fabric. My eyes always go immediately towards stripes, dots, brights, solids and contemporary prints. I knew that those wouldn't do for a lodge-inspired quilt living in the Adirondacks. This is probably the first time ever that I've been continuously second-guessing my choices. I had a lot of help from the women at the shop, which was great (though one thought I was nuts for not putting dark binding on every quilt I make, but that's another story).
Since the quilt is surrounded by a large border, I had help picking out the print used as the border in this pattern as my inspiration.


I haven't bought the border yet because I want to cut it parallel to the selvedge as opposed to the way it's shown in the picture, and I need to know the length first. It's actually pretty cute, with half moons and red flowers on a dark blue background. Most of the fabric I picked for the middle of the quilt is from the same line, American Primer:
I'm not in love with this, though I did like it much more next to the border. Maybe I just need to wait and see.

nothing but scraps

Here is what I've been up to lately-- more quilting for men. These are my blocks for the "Nothing but Scraps" challenge. Everyone has a different idea of what constitutes a scrap vs. stash. I say it's a scrap if it's smaller than a fat quarter, and something that has previously been cut by me. I have a hard time throwing away any piece of fabric, no matter how tiny or odd the shape may be, and I have all of these scraps loosely arranged by colour, in those three-drawer plastic rolling containers. It works well for me, especially because they fit under my sewing machine and cutting tables. Even the white for this quilt came from my scrap collection. Here are my 15 blocks. I did some free piecing and then trimmed the blocks to 12.5" square, then added 2.5" white borders. I'm not crazy about long pieces of sashing, and so this is my way around that (this time).Here are some of the blocks laid out on my living room floor, not yet sewn together. I'm not sure what I'll use for the backing. If I'm to stay true to the Nothing but Scraps spirit, I'd sew together my batting scraps for the middle and some of my bigger pieces for the back. We'll see. My 84-year-old grandfather recently fell on the ice and broke a few ribs, so he's recovering at an assisted-living facility (which he hates, naturally). I'm going to surprise him with this quilt. I figured it's bright and colourful, and will hopefully raise his spirits, at least a little bit. My family and culture really doesn't have any sort of a quilting tradition, which is good for me because that means that my family continues to be amused/amazed.

Update: Max got his quilt in the mail, and he was impressed. He called the cheater print a "macho border". He's anxious to use it on his couch-- before, he said, he'd get cold and put on a hooded sweatshirt and smush his feet under his basset hound. The quilt is a much better option.