Monday, November 23, 2009

Drowning in a storm at sea

There's no reason to ask if you've done this. If you have any UFOs, it's likely this problem has happened to you.

I have a scrappy Storm At Sea that I started an embarrassingly long time ago. I've been in this "finish what you started" mood for a while, and I'm almost done with stockpiled binding jobs. I only have a few small tops awaiting quilting (I hope to do these myself if Santa got me those machine quilting DVDs I asked for). In fact, I'm pretty much caught up and ready for the mystery quilt that starts Friday. That is, except for the UFOs stockpiled on the top shelf of my stash closet. There's about 10 of them. Some of them are UFOs because I bought a kit and never got around to finishing it. Some are half-done and I got bored, bored, bored. Others were too nerve-frazzling for the time I was making them. This Storm At Sea was such a quilt.

I figure it's been marinating up there for about 10 years. Maybe more.

I pulled out all the bagged bunches of fabric. There were the pieces for the 8" square-in-a-square-inside-a-square blocks, the pieces for the diamond sashing, and the 4" square-in-a-square sashing corner blocks. But there were also some 8" square-in-a-square blocks, and some diamond sashing and 4"square-in-a-square corner blocks with the light/dark colors reversed. Wha????

I have no idea how this quilt is assembled.

OK. I knew it was a pattern from a book. Now, which book? Even though I cleaned out my shelves last year, I still have quite a few quilting books. So I pulled up a chair and started thumbing through them. It took a while, but finally I pulled out Marsha McCloskey's wonderful "Quick Classic Quilts" and there it was.
A Storm At Sea quilt with a reversed-colors pieced border. Page 114. It's on the chest at the foot of the bed in this cover picture.

What size is it? 94" x 94".

I guess I know why I burned out on it before. I'll start with the center, and if everything goes well, I'll add the pieced border. Or maybe not.

4 comments:

momtofatdogs said...

I think I have that book too!

I have only made ONE Storm At Sea. I gave it to my nephew when he got married. The first time.

I'm only good for quilt giving on the first round...after that they are on their own.

Do you remember the quilt magazine that had a SAS on the cover? In Blue & White with a heart at the bottom ? It was a premier issue...can't remember the magazine NAME but can see it in my head...THAT was the SAS that I made.

I wish I'd kept the issue as well as the quilt...

Sam

antique quilter said...

oh just think of all the beautiful fabrics in this quilt!
I do have that book as well
no have never made a SAS maybe I need to?
isn't it fun looking thru your books
Kathie

Diana said...

That book was one of the first quilting books I bought when I began quilting. The SAS was a pattern I set aside to make when when I had "enough" scraps. LOL! I still intend to make one, someday.

Linda C said...

Your McCloskey book is one of my favorite books! The only one I have made so far is the Indiana Puzzle but I know that there were a few others that have always caught my eye. Now I am going to go pull my copy so I can see the SAS.

I have made one-donation sized with challenge fabric Arks at sea so it fit) a few years back. I would make another but other things keep intervening, LOL.