Kona WIP 1 and 2 Progressing

Way back at the beginning of July I posted about my two Kona WIPs and finally, I've actually gotten around to making some actual progress on them!

The one above is my Project Modern entry. I just submitted it this weekend it. I don't know the etiquette for posting about your entry. I don't see any specific rule against it, but I think I might wait to do the full reveal.

I have never entered anything like this, so I don't have high hopes but I really liked having that extra motivation to finish it. My machine, which complains mightily under the bulk of bag-making, really didn't want to quilt a whole quilt! There were some mishaps and a bit of swearing but I can report that it is finished, soup-to-nuts.

As for these beauties:

I finally cut into them this past week. My jumping off point was Kate Conklin's Stack and Slash tutorial on Rebecca's blog, Chasing Cottons. 

So, I took that stack above and made them into:

I have been toying around with the layout. I had a brief impulse to make them into HSTs and set them a la the Strip Twist Quilt. When I had laid them out in that pattern, I asked my husband what he thought. He looked them over and said, "I don't mean this as an insult, but it's very 80's." I wasn't sure how to take that. So, I tried arranging them in a basket-weave style.  Then, all the strips horizontal in columns of lights and darks. I liked it, but it was too matchy-matchy, so I messed it up a bit and I really like that the best. I'm going to add to it a little bit to make it bigger and mess it up even more

One of my first quilts was a similar block on a smaller scale in batiks from a Karla Alexander book called New Cuts for New Quilts (the pattern is called Summer's End), but I liked having Kate's refresher.

Here's a terrible photo of that early quilt (I must have been standing on a chair at a weird angle...):

Did I ever mention that I worked predominantly in batiks when I started quilting? My stash in Santa Fe contains yards and yards of batiks! I'm eager to get back there to get re-acquainted with them.

I think this new project is going to look great with our new-to-us 1940's chairs!

Happy Labor Day!