Frogging

The friend who gave me 300 pounds of fabric is the most exquisite knitter I know. And although she enjoyed fabric, her passion is really yarn and knitting: I was with her once when she purchased $400 of yarn from one booth at the International Quilt Festival. When she left Texas for North Carolina, her yarn collection took up several wardrobe size moving boxes. I can picture her in that artsy hippie town, just happily needling away.

Despite her experience and talent, she did occasionally make a mistake. Then, she would "frog." That's what she called undoing her stitches because, she said, she would rip-it, rip-it, rip-it.

Her expression came to mind while I worked briefly on the first of my Freedom Place quilts today. The design calls for alternating a feature fabric with a checkerboard pattern of complementary material.

First, I cut the butterfly fabric into squares and triangles.

 
Then I cut the other prints into strips and sewed them back into a set

that I cut apart and sewed back together.

Then I added the top and side triangles, so the completed block will be on point. I like how the yellow cools off the color combination, which reads a little "hot." Plus, it reminds me of sunshine.

Then I decided I hadn't put the block together properly, so I removed the triangles and unpieced part of the block.

And then, after turning the strips around a couple of times,  I realized I had done it correctly. So I sewed it all back together.

This is what happens when your head's in a frog.