"Diamonds in the Rough" upcycled blues top #15 finished

Finally!

I DID finally finish this one. For some reason it didn't excite me to work on it, but to be honest, I've had these charity quilts hanging over my head in January and have been pretty much focusing on those. 

I made up 256 of these from my various blues - the basic layout of these was this - I used slightly more darks and medium blues than lights.

Plus I didn't find these blocks all that exciting to make. 

This block was one of the very first blocks I ever saw on the internet once I started looking up quilting things.  A few years ago I made a similar but different 9 patch with three HST running down the middle of it, but this one is just a bit different from that.

Originally I had planned to make a completely different layout as I had seen another quilt with it. But when it came right down to it, I didn't want to make that layout - (a chevron) as I wasn't positive the contrast was sufficient to make it stand out for the best effect.

So, I went with this.

Close Ups

Here are a couple of closeups. I will admit to a few (a lot) of unsure moments with some of the fabric - "Is it dark?" "Is it light?" when I was facing medium fabrics.  I will freely admit to some poor fabric placements.

I see where some of my navy background fabrics with white flowers where the square was mostly white, I still stuck it in with the darks - mostly because I thought it would stick out too much in the lights.  So, it kind of dilutes the effect in places.

However, overall, it works just fine. In fact, this one got a nod of approval from my husband. He likes "symmetrical quilts" - nothing a bit artsy at all for him. This particular block could be placed in quite a few different arrangements. 

Result

So what do I think in the end?

I love it!  I was a bit surprised with the look of final quilt top. As I looked at the individual blocks, I was beginning to have serious doubts about how this one was going to turn out.

But...it's okay. It really is!

This one is the last one left of my original 17 planned tops - well, not counting the crumbs one (number 16) that I am currently working on on the weekends. I hope to get that one done before too much longer, though it will be a couple of weeks at least - as I need to make 18 rather large crumb blocks.

I decided to go ahead and cut into strips some more of those leftover fabrics - ones that I am really quite tired of. I worked up another plan and am working on it. Since the strips are 2.5" cut, I'm hoping it will go together rather quickly. We'll see.

Pattern

The pattern is here.

Huh?

If you happen to be new to my blog and aren't at all sure of what I'm talking about - this particular series (upcycled blues) came about because I was trying to make my blues upcycled fabrics more in line with all the other colors I have - and that is, down to only 2 boxes, from a total of 6 boxes of blue fabrics.  I thought that 6 was just too many - I was overloaded with blues. Naturally I didn't want to toss them - after all I had bought these things - or people had given them to me - and I wanted to use them. That is part of the challenge - making something "nice" out of things others would throw away.

I'll be putting a doing a nice gallery summary tomorrow of this whole series! Be sure to come back. 

I know that I've not quilted these - that is on the docket as soon as I get these 120 charity quilts done - I've finished quilting 116 of them so far!  YEAH! You can not imagine the relief I will feel when I finish the last four!  The very last two are HUGE - they appear to be king size - donated tops!

Last, but certainly not Least!

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Make sure you check out what my sis has for you over in the store. If you get a hankering to make up a blue and white quilt, she has put together some packs for you to work with - of  name brand half yard packs of blue fabrics.  You will not find a better deal!

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