Memorial To A Family Cornerstone

Late summer/early fall 2010, while I was at the height of my quilt making frenzy, a picture of some coordinating fabric I had picked up was sent to Wylie Coyote.  He really liked the collection.  Now, Mrs Coyote is a quilter of some reknown, so it pleased me to no end that he liked the fabrics I had put together.  After all, he had surely seen lots of really nice fabrics and quilts go together.  I decided that I would use the fabric to make matching lap quilts for Mr and Mrs Coyote.  I set a spring timeline for working on these quilts and added the fabric to my queue.


Fast forward to Dec.  The last of the quilts I needed made for Giftmas were complete, and I was finishing the binding on the last ones.  I pulled out the Coyote Quilts fabrics and started designing.  One fabric had lovely pictures that would lend themselves well to fussy-cutting.  Because these were directional pictures, the design I finally settled on was a Disappearing Nine Patch (D9P).  This fabric had 9 different pics on it,) and since each D9P block would use 4, placement was going to be fun.  Finally I had all the fussy-cutting done, and the other blocks figured out.

Fast forward to Jan.  Time to put this project to rest because we were leaving in a few days to travel east and visit family for Giftmas.
The 2nd day into our trip I got a call that Wylie Coyote was in the hospital, gravely ill.  This may sound horrible, self-centered, but my mind immediately started re-planning the quilts.  Of course my mind and heart were focused on all the Little Coyotes, and the Grand Coyotes, but the fiber wielding portion of me was disappointed that he wouldn't get his quilt.  Should I make Mrs Coyote a larger quilt incorporating all the blocks into one?  Should I split each quilt in half to make small quilts for Mrs Coyote and the 3 Little Coyotes?  After counting blocks and playing with lay-outs, I finally decided that Mrs Coyote would get a lap quilt of 12 blocks, and each Little Coyote would get a 5 blocks-on-point wall hanging.

Fast forward to Feb.  All the fabrics have been cut, and the blocks are all ready for that double slice that makes D9Ps magical.  Cut, sew, cut, sew, now we're ready for corner and side triangles.  Have I mentioned how much I dread side and corner triangles?  No?  Well, suffice to say I dread them.  Cutting them out is a nightmare because my table is too small to lay the fabric out and just cut them.  Luckily, my LQS is managed by an Angel.  She told me to bring the fabric in and she would help me cut the triangles.  15 corner triangles with 2 bias sides each, and 15 side triangles with 1 bias side each later, I am heading home with not only the Triangles of Doomy-Doomness (TDD), but also the 1st border cut for Mrs Coyote's quilt.  The plan at this point calls for the TDD to match the 1st border so as to tie the quilts together.  For being the shortest month of the year Feb certainly has felt long.

Now it's March.  I have stared at the TDD until I am pretty sure they will behave.  I lay out the 1st wall hanging on the bed because I do not have a design wall.  OMG it sucks.  Remember me saying the pictures were directional?  The problem with putting directional pictures on point is they lean 45 degrees to one side.  Now with lots of small pictures this is less of a problem since you can alternate the side they lean to and "even out" the whole.  But these aren't little, each picture in the block is 4", and there are only 5 blocks so you can't set them up to alternate.

Back to the drawing board.
Plan B would be lose one block from each wall hanging, but then you lose a bit of the over-all look too.
Plan C would be to steal 3 blocks from Mrs Coyote's quilt, making it 3 rows of 3, and add 1 block to each wall hanging making them 2 rows of 3.
Decided to go with Plan C.  This is where we are now.  Am hoping to have update on these next week.