That 70s Quilt: Layout

With all blocks for That 70s Quilt cut to size, it was time to plan the layout. Hopefully it will all work together.

Using my handy dandy pattern I made as a guide, I grabbed my piles of wonky 9-patches and squares of Alexander Henry’s In the Kitchen and went to the only place large enough to lay out all the blocks: the kitchen floor. So with that, I wiped down the entire surface before I began carefully and painstakingly (okay, so mostly randomly) placing the blocks into the pattern I wanted them to be. It took about an hour until I felt that everything was where I thought it should be, but just to be certain I had my husband confirm that it was random and scrappy enough. Of course, I had to do this while also attempting to keep our cat, Dexter, off of the blocks and disrupting their order. He’s a little shit, I mean, er… helpful like that.

Once everything was where I wanted it to be, I started facing columns together to be strip pieced. I used numbered sticky notes to keep track of placement and direction of each stack and pinned them just in case the sticky didn’t want to stick very well, which, by the way, it doesn’t on fabric.

Now that all the blocks are in place and ready to sew together, I can’t help but think that maybe the scrappy approach isn’t the best one and I’m starting to second guess my decisions. Should I have used so many solid colors for the 9-patches? Should I have instead opted for four or five solids instead of twenty? Should I start all over again? I quickly had to gather all of my thoughts and throw them away and remember that the late 60s and 70s were a time of experimentation and wild color combinations. It will work. And if it doesn’t, I have enough of the In the Kitchen line to make another quilt.