A Cure for the Blues

Our guild's 2007-08 block of the month project involved nine 12" blocks. In spite of the fact that I don't like large blocks, I made three sets of them:

• blue and brown
• rust and green
• assorted shades of blues

Why did I make three sets? Maybe because I get excited about things when our quilting year begins in September. Maybe because I believe block of the month is a good guild activity. Maybe because I like Marie, Nancy, and Monica. Maybe because Ada, Sherrie, and I have been talking about contrast. The first two colorways did not really have enough contrast.

In early January, I got the first two sets assembled into tops. The all blue set was the best of the three. I decided to see if I could make myself like them by combining them with smaller blocks of varying sizes. I could even include some appliqued blocks. I tried to work it out in my head and on paper how I might do that and it was too difficult. I finally threw caution to the wind and started making other blocks and assembling them into rows. The first row was 18" by 47". That meant all other rows would be 47" wide. The second row was 24" deep. The third row was 12" deep. The final row will be at least 12" deep, possibly 18".

I absolutely love it! It was the cure for the blue blocks, thus the name of the quilt - A Cure for the Blues.