Making Lemonade

A while back (like 10 years) I saw a beautiful quilt hanging in Mom's Crafts and Fabrics in Delta, Utah. I don't recall who made it but they did a wonderful job on it. The quilt was stunning! It was simple, half square triangles in rich colors with a simple all over quilting design. Nothing complicated, yet it captured my attention.

I have on a couple of different occasions tried to do something similar. Every time I ended up going in a different direction because I couldn't get the look I wanted. I finally decided that the reason I liked that quilt so much was the colors. It was made from rich Christmas colors, Reds, Greens and Golds. The fabric choices were spot on. They went together flawlessly.

Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago. I found a great deal online. Christmas Turnovers for $4.00. I thought I will get those and make that quilt. I won't even have to cut the fabric. So I ordered them. They are Christmas Pure and Simple from Benartex. Since they are comprised of 80 - 6 inch half square triangles I ordered four them. The site I looked at them on did not show all the different fabrics in the collection but Hey they are Christmas fabrics so I should be good, Right? Wrong!

While they are Christmas fabrics the colorways don't all speak Christmas to me. There are a lot of very light colors in this collection. While the darker shades are what I expected, the light shades just don't do it for me. I don't really call neon green, powder blue and grey Christmas colors.

I separated one turnover into different values. I made a pile of dark, a pile of medium and a pile of lights

 I spent most of the week trying to make the layout work. I just couldn't get the results I wanted with this collection the lights are too far off for the design I wanted. There was too much of a difference in values. Plus these aren't the rich colors that made the inspiration quilt so stunning. So now I have 4 sets of these half square triangles to make use of.  What to do with them?

I thought about just using the dark and medium value pieces but that leaves about a third of the fabric to sit in the scrap bin. I find that kind of wasteful and contrary to the origins of quilt making.

I have some Christmas panels that are of the Nativity Scene. I thought about using them to border those. Then I rethought it. The panels are all rich tones and the lights would again be left in the scrap bin. I have fabric that suits those panels better.

So I decided to make lemonade. I am going to try my hand at the disappearing block technique. Basically I am going to sew the triangles into square blocks. Then cut the blocks apart and rearrange the order and sew them back into a block. This should be an interesting experiment. It will not be the quick project that I thought it would be, but it will be a learning experience. I will have to keep everyone abreast of how it is going.

Next time things are not working out the way you wanted, how will you make lemonade?