Betwixt and Between

Wednesdays are in-between sorts of days.  They're between Tuesdays and Thursdays, when I work at The Shop, and the run-up to my long stretch of studio days (Fri/Sat/Mon and sometimes Sundays).  I find I look forward to Wednesdays and then, all too often, fritter them away at the computer.

Today, I've vowed, is not going to be a "Wasted Wednesday"!

I spent a good part of last weekend working on the commissioned medallion quilt so that I could turn the central square into a rectangle.  At the same time, I had to figure out how to tastefully convert the largest size in the pattern (queen-sized) to fit a king-sized bed.

It couldn't be done simply by adding deeper, solid-fabric borders.  B-O-R-I-N-G.  Plus, my client originally wanted a pieced border in there somewhere.  Trouble was, the pieced border in the pattern was illustrated only for the two smallest sizes (a twin size and one 70" square that's somewhere between a lap-size and a twin).  Thus it was rather narrow (3" finished) and had the pieces laid out horizontally, like rail cars.  The proportions would be all wrong for this very large project.

What to do?  Blessedly, on Sunday afternoon a long-time quilting friend -- one of the two gals who actually started me on this journey almost 20 years ago now -- called.  I ran my challenge by her and about 10 minutes into the conversation, I had it.  A piano-key border!  I have one of these on a quilt I made some years ago.  It was a class I took, and the pattern is Kathleen Bissett's "Garden Delight":

Okay; so I didn't turn the corner very prettily!  That was then (about 15 years ago); this is now -- and there will be a corner-stone or some such to perfect the border this time 'round! :-)

But you get my drift.

Then I had to figure out the math, answering the question, "how deep?"  I created an Excel (R) spreadsheet...All measurements are in inches, "finished":

	Pattern as Written			Proposed Adjustments
	Queen	Queen		King	King	Fabric
	Length	Width		Length	Width	Selected
Centre	60.00	60.00		60.00	60.00	Assorted
Inner border	2.00	3.00		2.00	3.00	Background
	2.00	3.00		2.00	3.00	Background
Rectangle conversion
	-	5.00		-	6.00	Brown
	-	5.00		-	6.00	Brown
Zinger (narrow border)	3.00	3.00		3.00	3.00	Gold
	3.00	3.00		3.00	3.00	Gold
Piano Key Border	-	-		6.00	6.00	Assorted
	-	-		6.00	6.00	Assorted
Wide Outer Border
	10.00	10.00		8.00	10.00	Brown
	10.00	10.00		8.00	10.00	Brown
Total:	90.00	102.00		98.00	116.00

Note: The highlighted measurements show the deviation from the pattern.  

Once I received approval from my client for this type of pieced border, I went to work turning the square into a medallion.  Here's the top-in-progress on my kitchen floor, showing the finished rectangle conversion and the "zinger":

And here's the "keyboard" under construction:

All the while, EB's response to my blocked pieces is swirling in my head...So the plan for today is to do some more strip-piecing, and then...maybe a background or two for the EBMC...while I link up to WIP Wednesday on The Needle and Thread Network.  

Have a great rest of the week!