I’m back to this Riley Blake quilt that was designed to be cut out on the Cricut Maker.

Sew Many Squares Throw

All worked out pretty good with the fancy schmancy cutting machine except it was making ragged edges on the pieces until I changed to the denim setting rather than cotton. Yeah, I told you about that last week.

Could the blade be worn out already???? Do I need to change some kind of setting somewhere???   Where would that be???

It’s becoming very apparent that I might need to read a manual or take a class.

I did buy a blade replacement kit which I’ll change out if the shredding continues.  It was under $8.00 on Amazon—I thought it would be more.  All the other accessories that I bought were pricey.  But will I have to get a new blade every time I cut out a quilt? Inquiring minds want to know!

Okay, I’m done whining for today about the Cricut Maker.  I’m sure I’ll love it as soon as I start using it regularly.

Let’s talk about this quilt and what I like to call ‘analysis paralysis’

I spent many hours (days) deciding what prints and colors I wanted to use for it before even cutting it out. I finally decided on whites, and grays, and blacks.  I interviewed them all to make sure that they would play well together.

So Ms. Cricut did the cutting and then I started out doing the chain stitching on the small black and white squares.  Lots of pinning, stitching, pressing.

(Pinning, Stitching, Pressing. Why isn’t there a fancy schmancy machine for that?)

And while I was doing all that pinning, stitching, and pressing, my inner most critic brain that likes to mess with me was saying, this idea is doo-doo.  It’s going to be really boring.  You will possibly finish it and hide it in a trunk.

I have to pay attention to that part of my brain.  (Sometimes called my crazy brain especially when it wants me to stay awake and think about things at 3 am.) Cause it’s way smarter than my regular one.

So I made a temporary design wall when I got those white and black square finished so I could check out what my inner most brain was saying to me.

(Yeah, that temp wall is just batting hung up with wooden hangers on the Murphy bed. But it works!)

When I saw all those bits and pieces together, I had to agree with crazy brain.  I didn’t like it.

Boring.

Plus there were a couple fabrics that I really didn’t think fit in.  First off, I didn’t like the white blocks with the black flower print. It was just a tiny bit shade-wise different then the rest of the whites.  And I decided that was too much white, anyhow.

The gray with flowers was a little too “taupey” and the flowers perhaps too big to work with the other prints.

So I started cutting out different fabrics and interviewing them with the rest of the quilt then decided to throw a blue and black print in there.  At that point the gray with flowers was still in the mix.

Still didn’t like that and it took me a few days to realize this throw needed some more blue and out went the gray flowered blocks.

And then another change…

Much better!  Nice.  Neat.  And organized in diagonal strips.  Little happy dance! Crazy brain happy, too!

Then I stitched the blocks together to make rows. (Stitching, pressing)

and then the rows together to make the quilt top.  (Pinning, stitching, pressing)

And done!

Well, the quilt top is done.  Still gotta pull it all together with batting, backing, and binding.

And my inner most crazy brain, was right.

I think I will like this.  A lot.