Weekly Update: scrappy, trippy pinwheels

(c) Jen Kingwell

 

In 2019 I made 360 pinwheels for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. They've been in a box waiting for the right opportunity to become a quilt.  

That opportunity came when I read Jen Kingwell's book Quilt Lovely, I bought a copy after attending the virtual program she gave for NSQG last month,    The strong vertical columns on neutral really appealed to me. Note that hers has three different kinds of pinwheels. 

 
Each column of 6" pinwheels turned out to be about 80 x 18 inches.  I had enough neutral (subtle plaid) homespun for the setting triangles and three plain columns.  There's not much contrast between the homespun and the design wall but if you look closely you can see the difference.

*After* I had it sewn together it looked blah. What to do?  

The Magpies' current group project involves Scrappy Trips blocks.  Several 'Pies have followed up their project contributions with Scrappy Trips blocks of their own.  Bingo! I pulled out the 2" strip hamper and cut 15" strips. I turned to the stash and cut more 15" strips.  I cut, sewed, sliced, sewed, and eventually made 45 Scrappy Trips blocks.  (2" strips = 9" finished blocks.)  

Right:    81 x 80.  It still looks off-balance.  

The solution: 

I was able to get enough setting triangles out of the cut-off neutral columns to make a third pinwheel column.  With a horizontal orientation it's 80 x 90.

 I have a left over column of 8 Scrappy Trips blocks to piece into the back or use for something else.  And there are 310 pinwheels in the box hollering that it's their turn now.

Linking up with Oh Scrap    Monday Making  Design Wall Monday   So Scrappy

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 I read two good books this week.     

Recently we watched a PBS program about Agatha Christie's 1926 disappearance. This book is an imagined retelling of what might have happened. Chapters alternate with past--going from the time Agatha met Archibald Christie in 1912 -- and the "present" meaning December 1926 when the police arrive at Archie's door wanting to know if he knows where his wife (by then a best-selling author) is. The story has usually focused on Agatha's side. Here Archie is the "unreliable narrator," a literary device that Agatha used in several of her books.   This is a good tale -- but I do encourage you to watch  the PBS show narrated by David Suchet who played Hercule Poirot. David Heska Wanbli Weiden's debut novel has received critical acclaim. It's a thriller set on the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota.  Narrator/protagonist Virgil Wounded Horse is a thug-for-hire.  Got a grudge? Virgil will punch the guy out for a fee.  When his 14-year-old nephew and ward Nathan becomes a pawn for the local node of a drug cartel, Virgil is determined to get the dealers.  His girlfriend Maria, the daughter of a tribal council politician, enlists herself in the effort.  The tale is gritty, at times violent, and ultimately hopeful.  I hope that  Weiden will write more about Virgil and Maria.