Angular Jungle

It's been a bit quiet here in blogland, but some slow progress is being made on both the quilt and shoulder fronts. I'm trying to keep my time at the sewing machine to easy 20 minute stints, with extra emphasis on perfect posture. For the past several weeks, I've set aside any free motion quilting and have been doing simple piecing to give my shoulder some rest and relaxation.

This quilt top is one of the results. The blocks are big, about 16", so they went together quickly and easily. The block centers are cut from a panel of cute but oddly shaped animals. Each part of the panel was edged in printed hourglass blocks; sort of a "cheater quilt" design. I chose solid-reading fabrics from my stash in the same colors for the bigger triangles.

The block design is called the Exploding Block, and I followed the simple instructions in this Missouri Star Quilt Co video. Basically, the inner square is sewn RST around the edges to an identically sized, contrasting square. Then the second square is cut using scissors to create the triangles. Repeat with a second contrasting square for the final big block. It was fun and fast, and the scissor work was a good break for my shoulder. However, this method cuts the points off each round of squares:

I wasn't too unhappy about the points until I pieced all the larger blocks together. You can see where the green triangle meets the yellow one that pointy points would look much better. Hmm, this is making me cranky. I suppose I could pick out the big seams and add sashing. That wouldn't bring back the points, but it wouldn't be so glaringly obvious at those center junctions.

It's more likely that I'll take a deep breath and let it go. After all, this quilt is full of fun animals (look at those happy tails on the lions!) and bright colors. I think it will keep a kid warm and amused and no one but us quilters will cluck over the points. Maybe I'll take Quilting Jet Girl's advice and "quilt the life into it!" I bring it up here to mostly remind myself not to use the Exploding Block in the future and warn you away from this method if nice points are a priority for you!

Angular Jungle is now waiting in the WIP file to be quilted sometime in the future. My fishy drunkard's path circles quilt, Ocean Portal, is higher priority for quilting, as it has been invited to go on a special trip in October. More about that later. I'll share a few peeks at a secret holiday gift quilt I've been piecing slowly these last couple of weeks, too. Sitting here at the computer typing is actually much less comfortable than sewing, so bear with me as I slowly delve into documentation.