So close to being done with these.  I’m not liking them much anymore.

One more to go.

And, as a bonus, the very first photo I have of the project that eventually became Molting Grackles:

This is every image I could get out of the 8″ x 8″ test swatch I had of this small grackle fabric.  The larger squares are 2″ and the smaller are 1″.  I thought I’d make a mug rug or something.  Contrast the photos of the layout in this post.

Looking at it now, I could have just spread the found small squares out at the bottom to make them an even width with the top, cut papers the right size to fill in the background and used a very dark blue and bound it in same and DONE, cute little mug rug.

But no.  I had to get more grackle fabric and on and on.  I am the master of scope creep.  I’m making good progress, though, so I’m happy.

I love those little flowers in the cornerstones.  The bottom one could have been fussy-cut better, but I’m not changing it.  I think.  I must have forgotten I was putting them on point.  And the back:

Those are snowflakes in the cornerstones.  No, I don’t care.

I have to say that the dark blue crosshatch fabric is growing on me.  I got a LOT of it (from my sewing relative, I think) and it just looked old-timey and depressing to me, but now I see a lot of possibilities in it and I think I’ll be sad when it’s all gone.  I plan to use whatever’s left over of it in my Stash Bee in RSC colors blocks–the January Hive 8 Cross Roads Block, in particular.

I said I wasn’t going to share the backs anymore, but I took a picture of the back, so you get to see it, too.

Let’s talk about Grackle Party.  I’ve shared some individual blocks, but not my design for it.  Well, design hope, since only the design of the center is really set in stone now.  I did talk a little about how it started in this post, basically as a reintroduction to sewing after having my fourth child.  Grackle Party is going to be a wall-hanging, though how large it’ll be is still uncertain.

I was looking through some pictures from before my move and hope they’ll help illustrate.

I went with the center square design and cut more mitered frames in the same size and bigger ones to go around it.  I figured only the center square would have a complicated pieced center, since I really didn’t want to bother with more and it was a good focal point.  The fabric from Spoonflower also came in a larger print size, which was perfect for the insides of these squares.

Then I decided that having double mitered frames would look weird and would be too annoying to EPP, so I alternated the mitered frames with straight frames with cornerstones.  Below you can see an example of each of the two blocks.

On the left is the mitered frame inside.  On the right, the mitered frame is outside.  The small block above them with the big frame might go into the border.  I thought I’d put the bigger framed blocks on point with scrappy neutrals between and then border it with the smaller framed squares, floating in the background.  At the bottom, you can see that I was toying with the idea of adding a colored bit in the center of the neutral areas.  I’ll come back to that in a future post.

The math to make it all fit was annoying, and I didn’t really like the border idea.  So, I stopped thinking about the border at this point and put all of those parts away and focused on the center (essentially square-in-a-square) nine blocks.

You’ve been seeing those blocks as I finish them, and I have more to show you in the coming weeks, especially if I can find more of the planning pictures form before the move.

Third grackle in its two frames for Grackle Party.  Front:

And back:

You don’t need to see the backs of these anymore.  They’re all quite boring, but if you have any questions about the backs, ask and I’ll answer.

No, it’s not flat.  I’m hoping it relaxes when I have a chance to press it, then more when the papers are out.  I was about 1/8″ shy on both sides of one of the brown mitered corners, which was enough to make it cup up.  I’m finding that I’m not a fan of pointy triangles.

I fixed the dark thread on the orange frame of this grackle, the second completed for Grackle Party.  I’m much happier with it now.

Here’s the back.

Two down, a bunch to go.

I can’t believe I actually blogged about this project before I stopped posting for months.  Well, here’s the center square (not on point yet) of the project now known as Grackle Party all sewn together, EPP-style.

It’s about 5″ square and not quite flat in real life.  I’d rage-quit on it after sewing the reed at the bottom on wrong, but I fixed it at the sit-and-sew at my local quilt shop (new “local”), and here it is.  And here’s the back:

I actually took this out to work on as a break from another (much larger) EPP project I started a couple of months ago, which I definitely have not blogged about.  But I do have pictures, so someday.

I’m done making promises about posting more frequently/ever.  I just need to do it for myself as a record of what I’m doing.  And maybe other people will enjoy reading it.  We’ll cross that bridge when we’re near water.