Back to the Nine Patches

Yesterday I decided that it was time to layer up the Disappearing Nine Patch quilt top that has been hanging on the back of the door to my sewing room for way too long. It was the last of a long line of DNP quilts I made. All the others had a planned palette and layout but this one was completely scrappy with no plan except to sew 4 sections together into 12 inch blocks that were all in the same orientation value wise. By the time I got 30 blocks done I was all "nine patched out".  I was ready to layer it without a border and quilt it and be done with it. Now after about a year and a half I am ready to do something more. I spread it out on my bed to look at it and decided to make it a more usable size by adding another row of blocks to every side and put a border on it. That means I have to make 26 more blocks and piece an 8 inch border. The picture above is a 1/4 section of the part that is together. I have a gazillion 4 1/2 inch squares already cut because I cut all of my scraps into squares so they would be ready to use. They have been sitting ready and waiting in a box on my closet shelf  for at least 3 years. I only had to cut about 50 light value squares.

Below on the left are 6 blocks ready to be cut in quarters.I made these yesterday and today .

On the right is a 12 inch block showing the orientation of the light and dark value segments. They will all be made like this one, I find it less confusing than laying out the whole quilt in quarter block segments and sewing it together in rows. I always turn something the wrong way.  On the left side of the block picture, behind my flannel work board,  you can see a small section of my Diva Challenge quilt that is up on my sewing room wall. I am really dying to show it but I am waiting for our group reveal. Actually I am waiting very impatiently to see everyones  challenge piece.

It is a good thing I did not layer up the DNP top because the back I had hanging with it is for one of the QAWM pieces . I didn't hang the top with the back because it is on point and I did not want it to sag out of shape.

Guess how I knew not to hang it.

Oh gee whiz!!! I just noticed the spellchecker. It wasn't there before.I have been painstakingly correcting all my typos and looked up and there it is. For how long have I been missing this?