Orange Fizz

The orange quilt is progressing nicely. Well, it was progressing nicely. In fact, all drunkard's path blocks for a cute little quilt were completed until my copy of Valori Wells's Radiant New York Beauties caught me eye and refused to let go. My orange quilt blocks are colorful and cheerful and all those good things, but they seem lack a certain pizazz. What they need is spark.

Valori's book bursts with spark. Unfortunately, although Radiant New York Beauties provides patterns for several sizes of blocks, it does not provide the 6" block needed. So, armed with inspiration and absolutely no experience in creating curved patterns, I decided to create my own. A draftsperson I am not. After a laborious attempt with impressive looking rulers and graph paper, my first few pieced arcs looked just as I hoped, but proved to be the wrong size. Duh. I added the side seam allowance twice. Good thing a practice run was made before any type of mass production took place. (If you look closely at this practice piece, you 'll notice that I also cut into the arc while trimming the piece, rendering it completely useless even if it were the right size. Perfection is not running rampant in this endeavor.)Today, new patterns are ready to go. "Drafting" might be an overstatement for my method of tracing combined with folding and connecting the dots to create patterns. No matter. They will work. A smattering of spiked arcs will add just the kick this quilt needs. The new working title is "Spiked Punch." Or, "An Undaunted Search for the Perfect Punch." Or something else.