Ostrich finally complete!

In 2006 I took part in an Ostrich Challenge through BQHL. Every month there was a theme (eg. paper, flying, quarter square triangles) to make some part of a quilt top. The ostrich part comes in when you either can't think of anything to do, or life intervenes and you run out of time, so you can bury your head in the sand (like an ostrich) and give that month a miss. I did very well in keeping up with the challenge, except for the last part, when I just couldn't find anything which would finish my quilt off. Into the UFO box it went, until last week when I dug it out, tried a new idea, and hey presto! it all came together.

I knew it needed a strong border, but hadn't realised how strong it needed to be. I'm very pleased with it now.

The whole exercise was a big learning curve for me. I started with a block which was left over - an Elly Sienkevicz Baltimore lyre block - and that was the first problem. Why was it left over? Because it didn't fit in with my colours or my style. Next problem was the frame quilt format. To start with, it's fine, but the frames get bigger and bigger, and take a lot of time, work and fabric. It would have been much more sensible to have done either individual blocks or rows, in an exercise piece. The other problem is the squareness. It has to either be subverted by extra pieces, or it'll end up as a double bed quilt, as it has. Oh, well, at least I've learned something, which is what a challenge is all about.

Here is a close up of the centre block. In the end, I felt there was too much white space on the lyre shape, so closed it up with a couple of extra flowers and a few leaves. Anyone unfamiliar with Elly's work might think it was meant to be like that! The only problem I have now, is that now the quilt's out of the UFO box, it'll need quilting. I think I'll wait a few days before I tackle that challenge!