If all else fails, ignore it.

I haven't been at my sewing machine lately, hence the blog silence.  The last time I sat at my machine it was skipping stitches horribly and my both my scissors and my sips needed sharpened, so I set everything aside and figured I would take care of sending the scissors in while DH fixes the machine.

Well then yesterday I read an article about digging in and dealing with what we've been putting off.  So forgetting my sewing studio woes I cleaned it and started sewing the final folded border on the front of the Mandala quilt.  That's funny, the machine purred like a kitten.  With not a single skipped stitch.  Everything was perfect.  Hmm, I think to myself, okay perhaps DH fixed it and didn't tell me.

When he got home later in the day I asked him about it.  Nope he never got to it.  So neglect fixed my sewing machine.  Funny, I wonder if it was lonely or just wanted a little vacation???  

Mandala Quilt Status Check Pictures

Just this morning I finished sewing the strips of the Kaleidoscope blocks together, from here I plan to border around in the black, likely the same with as the strips shown and then who knows?  Any ideas?

Hexagon Kaleidoscope Blocks Center

While I was taking pictures it occurred to me that I haven't showed you the Mandala front since adding the most recent border of half square triangles.

Mandala Quilt front with latest HST border 

Mandala Quilt weaving borders view

The above side view is the reason behind all of those small half square triangles.  See how the border stripes appear to wave through the quilt?  I'm planning to quilt Celtic knots over these to further emphasize the woven effect.  At first this was challenging and I constantly needed to look back to my EQ files, but as I worked it became clear this technique has two sweet spot corners. This corner and the one opposite.  Just as with any sweet spot starting here causes order to become obvious and with a little help from DD sewing the borders became much more natural.

Hope you enjoyed this little update.

Mandala's Reverse Starts Coming Together

Kaleidoscope Strips Layout

Last night I started squaring my rows of Kaleidoscope blocks up by adding the smaller triangles at the top and bottom.  Boy was I glad I hadn't thrown my scraps out!  All those end bits that I cut off to make the black equilateral triangles really came in handy.

Kaleidoscope Blocks Stripping together

I ran into a little bit of a problem working on my hexagon Kaleidoscope Blocks yesterday.  The problem was simple.  My mind told me I was making octagons, when really six sides makes a hexagon.  So I did some online digging and found the answer to my issue on a blog called Prosperity Stuff Quilts.  You see, it seems that some quilters who venture into Kaleidoscopes Blocks make many, many, quilts using this technique and have more than one for a newbie like me to drool glance over.   

About half of my Kaleidoscope Blocks

First I laid out my blocks as you can see above.  Each row represents two rows as I have them stacked as "sort of match" pairs.  We're headed for 6 rows total. 

First Strip of Blocks Together

DD said "wow" under her breath when she saw my first strip.  I took it as a wonderful heartfelt compliment, especially when she wanted her picture taken with it.

Second Row!

I couldn't stop, the blocks might get out of order you know, thereby I just had to finish up the second strip before she went to bed.  Can you see why I say these are "sort of matched" rows?

Sneak Peak Kaleidoscope Blocks

Kaleidoscope Quilt Block Layouts

I've cut all of my pieces and I'm now ready to start sewing them together.  What do you think of these first few blocks? I always find taking a step back and looking at quilt layout options through the camera lens to be a big help and today is no exception.