27,216 Individual pieces or 9,072 blocks of Chaos

Posted on April 3, 2021 by Beth Markel

My current project, ‘Chaos’ is taking up quite a bit of time. The original plan was use my scraps and strips from other projects, make something busy, make it fairly small, but visually challenging. This original idea has morphed into something large, insanely busy, and wildly challenging to look at – meaning there’s no place to rest your eye. Some people love this kind of work – some people absolutely hate it because, again, no place to rest your eye.

The hardest part now is to just keep going when all the blocks begin to look the same. This week’s blocks, which seem to be legion, are similar to my original blocks back in October when this started, but in using up scraps, have a slightly different character:

Working with a finished block that is 3/4″ square is challenging, in that each block has to stand on it’s own. This isn’t like a large block, 12″x12″ or 16″x16″ which usually has just a little wiggle room when piecing as part of a larger top. When working this small, each block has to be precise. Period. To that end, I’ve started to think about each block like it’s a little work of art which could stand on it’s own merit.

Each block should be dynamic, interesting, have different scale than it’s neighbor, as well as having balance in color.

I have decided the finished piece will be (7) 9″x9″ rows wide by 9 columns down. It will be 27,216 pieces, or 9,072 blocks.

Almost there!

OK, that may be a bit optimistic, but in quilting, as in most important or meaningful goals in life, you have to keep working at it. Life is a journey, not a destination – enjoy it!

Cheers,

Beth

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