it is finished...?

It's pushing 9 EST, I haven't heard anything from my paper partner. It was raining today, and with our house being on a north easterly side of a hill, it got dark, faster than usual, so I lit the not-so-Adventy colored candles on the wreath, plugged in the tree, lit my festive pine scented candles, and turned on every light in the apartment. Even the festive bush is having a hard time burning against the darkness tonight. I must say, I am more appreciative of the warm incandescence of the filament bulbs outside than the cool glow of the white LED bulbs that grace my indoor tree. But I was rather hoping I wouldn't have to bother replacing bulbs - question: if we are capable of producing LEDs in almost every color of the spectrum, why is it so hard to get a bulb that isn't a cool white?

but I digress.  this is the world's worst photo ever, so bear with me. I have a friend with a[n even bigger] fabric problem [than I have], and she invited me over to go shopping in her stash. So I did, before student teaching happened and my life became a giant question mark. I've been sitting on a borrowed Kaffe Fassett book from the library, featuring projects from the V&A Museum in London, England. Featured on the first page of the Utility Quilt set was a brilliant red and black affair based on a homey pink and brown quilt which caught my eye, made according to the book, by - or more likely for- one Sarah Wyatt in 1801 [though the V&A website does not corroborate this detail].

I had to make it. Now I have the fabric to do it.

So out of the king sized pillowcase stuffed full of fabric, I carefully sorted the shades of cherry, cayenne, magenta and purple would I thought would work best for this project, as well as large scale florals. That lovely swath of purple is going to be the inner border you can see in the picture on the left page.

This doesn't do it justice, but you can see the strip piecework 

I also started cutting out this project, and then found to my dismay that I didn't have nearly enough fabric for this (I suspected as much) so I sewed some of the blocks together and I trimmed some of the scraps to make squares, which made for interesting patches themselves. The rest of the squares are hanging out until I purchase the rest of the material, so it doesn't look as obvious that I'm adding new fabric mid project. I did throw caution to the wind and just make the middle though.

As irritating as it is to have to sit on it and wait for the funds to buy some more red and magenta tones and large scale floral... no, it's plain irritating. It's an incredibly simple project, though the color combination is by no means staid. If I felt like it, the top could be done before Friday, but it won't be. 

It's not something I would have thought to make; at least, not with these colors, which make me think I've broken jars of saffron, chilli powder, curry and paprika; it reminds me of a feast, of a broken open pomegranate, with it's glossy, garnet seeds.