Ode to Susannah

(or, A Lesson in The Importance of Perspective)

I chose fabrics for the blocks
I cut fabric for the blocks
I pieced the blocks
I matched the points
I pressed the blocks
I photographed the blocks
I put the blocks in my "completed blocks for BOMs and QALs of 2013" pile

I uploaded the photos
I edited the photos
I took another look at the cropped photos
Hey, they don't look alike -
What went wrong?

   










I retrieved the block
I unpicked the block
I restitched the block
I repressed the block
I rephotographed the block

I uploaded the photos
I sighed

Susannah is February's block for the Sisters' Ten BOM. Two blocks are made from the same pattern for each month. For more, check out the Flickr group.

How to use fish fabric

The Sisters' Ten Modern BOM has been created by AnneMarie over at gen x quilters. There's a bit of a difference with this one: each monthly block is made twice, so you can make the second one look totally different to the first. Then at the end they're put into a modern setting (click the link above and go take a look!).

This is my chosen range of fabrics:

Once I'd decided upon the fish as the focus print, it was so easy to pick others to match it. Actually I bought the fish fabric back in 1997, with some vague idea of making a skirt from it (I didn't quilt back then; I was studying fashion design). I was never brave enough to sew up a fish skirt, so it just hung around in my stash, one of only a few cottons.
Fast forward to the present day: I realised that instead of trying to add it to some quilting project, I'd add the other fabrics to it, thus making all those crazy colours make sense. And if you look closely, the fish have patchworky patterns on them, some of which I was able to match up almost exactly, and just with what was in my stash. (I'll try to get a better close-up photo for the next Sisters' Ten block post.)

And here are my two January blocks, Grandmother's Frame:

I love how these turned out, especially the one on the left with the fussy-cut fish.