A hodgepodge of red & black quilt squares and bandanas, for Project Spectrum 2.0

Quilt squares, red and black ones here for Project Spectrum 2.0, Flickr pages here, if you'd like to see more.  I've been gathering mostly green and red fabrics for this quilt for years as I see ones that catch my eye, particulary when JoAnn's has quilting cottons on sale.  Some are leftover fabrics from other quilts. 

About half of these were cut out individuaoly with scissors after tracing each one with a plastic template.  I've never really gotten the hang of the rotary cutter until last month when I stopped in the local quilt store one day, while my car was getting worked on across the street, and a woman there was cutting fat quarters.  She gave me a few pointers but, more than anything, she somehow passed enough confidence my way to convince me to just go home an go for it, to not worry about messing things up.  I've been shown a couple of other times by other people but for some reason, this time, it just clicked.  It looks like I might have gotten a little carried away, though, as now it appears that there are possibly enough squares for two good sized quilts.  Only about 8 of 24 strips of squares (24 squares per strip) are pieced so far so it's going to be awhile before I'm going to need the binding fabric that I picked out recently:

Anybody else out there loving the bandana themed articles in the July issues of Martha Stewart and Country Living?  O.K. so maybe the strawberry tart made to resemble a bandana in MS and the bandana clothes hanger covers in CL are a little over the top, but still, as a lover of bandanas, both new and vintage ones (Yes, I know somebody probably blew their nose on them, but things do come clean!  I'd prefer not to think of it, actually.) I've thoroughly enjoyed those articles.  On that note, I think that, after the seeing the Crazy for Dots and Blueberry Fresh articles, too, in that same issue, CL just might have won me back as a subscriber.  Not that MORE mags are what this household needs.

On the subject of quilts, I've been photographing my old quilts and putting together a little retrospective of them, along with pics and stuff about where I was living and what was happening in my life at that point in time.  It's been a nice little trip down memory lane for me and made me look back through some old pictures.  I might have gotten a little long-winded so consider yourself forewarned.    The posts are already drafted and so will take me through the week without any new posting. 

For some reason, even though I've checked the proper box on the proper page, Typepad isn't forwarding my comments to my email address.  Anybody else having the same trouble? 

Not that I often get the chance to get back with people.  Sometimes I wish there were a couple of extra hours in the day just for correspoding with other bloggers and commenters.  Please know that I do appreciate the time that you take to comment and that I read them all, often with the best of intentions to respond and then something comes up (lunch, a scraped knee, any of a million questions from the boys each day, a phone call, etc.) to prevent me from doing so.  I'm sorry.  I just can't get to it all.  Your comments and kind words stay with me, though, as I go about my days.   

Comments

[amysue]

I'm planning to make a bandanna table runner like the one in CL this month. I love bandanas and it's so easy!

[Cassi]

Siri, when you get a chance could you share the tips you've received/learned about using a rotary cutter? I use mine reluctantly and would like to feel more comfortable with it. Your squares look so wonderful all together - how great to have that project waiting in the wings :)