I finally started quilting...

Indeed I did! I finally overcame the quilting inertia... I'm following the basic idea for the snowball quilt in Kaffe Fassett's Kaleidoscope of Quilts

Are you thinking the same thing as me? It's bright, eh? I'm hoping it will look less kindergarten-decorationish when it's all sewn up. It took me the longest time to choose a pattern because there are just sooo many to look at...of course, it was my own fault for looking at so many books at once, but I like having lots of options.

The cutting was done over two days, which could have gone faster if I just focused on doing that instead of arranging the squares as I went along...a difficult task, I have learned. And then I ended up spending ages rearranging them all over again. When you stare at so many colours for a long time, your eyes start playing weird tricks on you and you lose your sense of design (I do, anyway), so D had to help me finish up as Gatsby sat on the squares, getting them all hairy.

So, each octagon is made by sewing four small squares diagonally from corner to corner, then folding it over and trimming the excess bits. That means LOTS of little bits. Maybe I can use them for something...? It would mean teeny teeny work though...

I've finished three of these strips so far, each one 13 octagons in length...another twelves strips await. I'll probably add a big border around it so that it will be a queen-size quilt. I'm hoping to finish before next Wednesday since we'll be having people over that night, and I've got to be all cleaned up. I'm staying home all day today, so I should get a lot done. After that, I'll have to think about how to actually quilt this thing. Likely by hand.