Overlapping Octagons

My "Overlapping Octagons" is progressing, but nowhere near completion. Here are the units I've made so far, randomly placed on the design wall.

Overlapping Octagons: Try-out on the design wall with 4.5" red (the new neutral) centres.

I thought I would use as many of my 19th century reproduction fabrics as possible to make space in my sewing room. Unfortunately most of the "reds" look more like brown, so I shall be adding brighter reds to the mix.There was not much blue, and that has nearly all been used now.

I started by planning to use neutral squares; changed my mind to using red ones; changed back to planning neutral and went for it. I forgot to take a photo, but 4.5" neutral squares, surrounded by dark blue strips were so boring! I decided to go back to the red plan and to add neutral and green as well as orange to the strings.The neutral squares went into the hourglass blocks, and strings; cut smaller they are much less ugly/boring..

Although I planned to cut everything freehand, that hasn't been the case. Only the hourglass blocks and some of the strings have been cut freehand, a lot of the strings are actually strips left over from other projects. I didn't dare cut the squares freehand; 4.5" is definitely still out of my comfort zone!

At present I've no idea how large I'm going to make this, and how I'm going to finish it. I'm enjoying using up scraps like this: really satisfying!

Happy sewing

Marly.

U and U QAL: fabric choice for Overlapping Octagons

I've decided to join in The Unconventional and Unexpected Quilt A-Long . I have admired Sujata Shah's work since I bought her book,  "Cultural Fusion Quilts". The inspiration for this QAL comes from the book "The Unconventional and Unexpected", by Roderick Kiracofe

I decided to join after much deliberation. After all, "Do I really need another project?" "Yes", I answered myself, "You have to move on and this will be a new challenge."

My fabric choice is this:
 

blue and neutrals: a bulging bucket of blues and the right hand pile in the box. My supply of neutrals is very low,and in need of urgent replenishment.

with a few splashes of:

orange: starting with the scraps on the left.

Yesterday I started sewing blue strip scraps together along the short ends as leaders and enders in another project. These will be chopped and sewn together with others to make the string rectangles in the Overlapping Octagons. I shall be ordering more neutrals/ low volume during next week.

My plan is to cut the fabric freehand with the rotary cutter, although I shall be piecing the strings on phone book pages to keep them stable, as I can't manage to cut on the grain freehand, and would like to avoid wobbles and bubbles!

I'm already enjoying this project and look forward to sharing progress here.

Happy Sewing

Marly.