Friday, July 15, 2011

Baby Kaleidoscopes (aka a lesson in fuzzy math)

I originally made 20 blocks (I counted!) for Elizabeth's quilt-along. I planned on making a 5x4 throw-size quilt. Then last week I thought to myself, "Self, you need 2 baby girl gifts...why don't you take the practical approach for once and turn those 20 blocks into 2 baby quilts instead?" Made sense (I can be very convincing), so I set about making 4 more blocks, bringing my total to 24 so I could make 2 (3x4) baby quilts. Logical, right?

So after I made my extra blocks, I counted (three times) and much to my surprise I came up with 28. Eh? How did that happen? I puzzled it for a bit and then put my quilt tops together, figuring I'd put the extra 4 blocks to use on the quilt backs. After assembling my tops, I had 5 blocks left over, meaning I actually made 29. Is this a loaves and fishes type of situation, or am I really that bad at math (who am I kidding?) counting? Let's hope Luke never needs help with his homework when his father isn't around.



Baby kaleidoscopes
I'm much happier with my work now that the quilt tops are assembled. Sure, they still have their imperfections, but I think they're much less noticeable.


Some of these corner blocks are looking really good!

11 comments:

Kelly Irene said...

First of all, your finished tops look really good, so you're totally excused for the counting :0) Second, I totally understand! I am working on my fist self-designed quilt and realized after cutting out all the fabric that I didn't take into account the seam allowances when determining pieces sizes. Thankfully I am working with HSTs, so the mistake was easily fixed, but that could have been really bad otherwise! I like the sewing part, not the part that involves numbers!

Jan said...

I like 'em, too.

felicity said...

So glad I'm not the only one who does stuff like that. I want to blame pregnancy brain but my kid's 3½....I do love both quilts, though!

Kelly O. said...

love the fabrics you chose! well I guess you need to crank out some more blocks and make a third quilt :)

Shanea said...

So cute! great fabrics and math is the worse part of quilting :)

Angela N. said...

Oh, now you have 5 blocks to have fun with for the back!!! Sometimes i have such fun being creative with the back.

Being a math lover, its one reason why i love quilting... but i dont always get it right either! Thats the joy of quilting, you dont have to be perfect.

Leah said...

Love those last quilts!

Elizabeth Dackson said...

They look great, Katie!! And I can absolutely relate, sometimes my quilty math is SO far from right :)

Cheryl's Teapots2Quilting said...

As long as the 'bad math' is in your favor, it's ok. These are cute. You could always make a table runner with the extra's. Or placemats.

KendasCrafts said...

love the colors! Those will be great baby quilts!

Charlotte said...

These look so gorgeous, the colours you have used are lovely, they really shimmer and look jewel like