My Red Puzzler!

No, no, no - this is not a red and green Ocean Waves... rather it is a completed GREEN ocean waves with pieces of a RED ocean waves - in progress - laid on top - checking size. And guess what? Surprise - the size of the red blocks is different than the size of the green blocks! Yes, I amaze myself - not sure how that happened since I used the same pattern 2X. Must be that 4 year old distraction, otherwise known around here as Little Boy, LOL!
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The green quilt I made last summer and I was so happy with it that I started the red ocean waves in early March - and SEVEN months later I now have successfully completed the 288 pieced triangle units!!! Who knows - maybe Ocean Waves will be an annual summer project - there are still more colors in the color wheel! When in doubt about color selection - I just go with 1 color family - all scrappy. I know, I'm lazy! Anyway - you put 4 units around the setting square and then 8 units around that... so 12 units per setting square. I haven't been working on this steadily, but it is a nice little project to work on here and there - piecing maybe 10 units a time. Even if I am very tired or just unmotivated - if I have something all set up and ready to go - chances are that I will work on it - slowly, yes, but progress is progress! One thing I did - I precut all the triangles ahead of time so they were all set to mix and match and sew. Bit by bit - it adds up you know?

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Here is a close up of 12 units set around a setting square (yes, the setting squares are already quilted because it is from the green quilt underneath! - quilted by Judy L!). You can click to enlarge if you want to see the fabrics - a mixture of some old red prints, bright red prints, oranges, pinks... well, I like variety! Some of these fabrics looked perfectly awful when I started cutting them, but look how great it all looks together, as a whole!

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I still need to buy the 2 border fabrics AND the setting squares fabric. I am thinking about a bright pink skinny inner border with a red outer border - maybe an orange binding. The setting fabric will be a bit more difficult... the green quilt has a light pink-ish feathery batik - very subtle. For the red quilt I am thinking of either a large/bold red print - maybe a toille or something, OR a light yellow batik. Then again, it usually boils down to what the fabric store has - because in my book a finished quilt is soooo much better than looking for the most perfect-ist fabric (and, yes - I know that is improper grammer, but I just couldn't help myself). So, yes, sometimes I compromise and in the end, I am always thrilled to have a finished quilt rather than collection of blocks in the closet waiting for that perfect discovery.

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Puzzler you ask? Well yes... the green ocean waves top went together fabulously well. For the red one - I must have been a BIT distracted because I cut the triangles not only a different size but a different way too than the directions called for. My slight little variation has caused a big difference in the size of the finished segment!!! Check out the photo below to see the size difference between the 2 quilts - keep in mind you have to subtract out the seam allowances so it isn't all that bad. But instead of cutting setting squares 7.5" I will cut them 9.5" and I still need to figure out the math for the edge/corner triangles. When in doubt - cut bigger and cut to fit! That is my motto! The good news - I would have NEVER thought to double check the sizes before cutting the setting fabric, but curiosity got the better of me and I just had to see how the red looked on the green, phew! I have no idea how big the finished quilt will be (if I use all the segments, obviously it will be larger than the green one, which is already fairly large!). I guess if it starts to get too big I can just stop and set any extra pieces aside for another project. Or, maybe I can get 1 big quilt and 1 crib quilt out of these blocks? And, even though I cut the pieces all the wrong size - it doesn't really matter in this pattern as long as all the pieces are consistently the same size! All the triangles are the same size so I only need to re-figure the background fabric.

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Little Boy's observation for the day: "Look Momma, not only are my feet getting bigger, but my socks are shrinking too. See Momma - it's true!" What a coincidence - don't you think?!