New York Groovy blocks

Remember how I said the 1970's scrap fabric would have to wait ("A Groovy New York Beauty")?  

It didn't wait long!  One day when I was wiped out from school and didn't want to work on my Meadow quilt, I pulled out the 70's scraps, and began making blocks.  

NEW YORK BEAUTY BLOCKS

I start with some conveniently pre-printed fabric: "Foundation by the Yard"™ by Sharon Hultgren © for Benartex, Inc.  Twelve New York Beauty blocks are pre-printed, with instructions to make a baby quilt by sashing and bordering them.  I decide to make all twelve, and then veer off the pattern into something more in line with my funky inspiration.  

I make one block according to the pattern, then get bored and alter the next block to add variety and challenge to my piecing.  That's fun, so I alter five of the twelve blocks.  I do enjoy choice-making more than mere assembly.  

foundation

altering the foundation; the red lines are my new sewing lines, and the slender piece will be a solid-colored stripe

Notice that this foundation pattern includes seam allowances?  So if you make it as designed, you'll trim the finished piece around the outside line.  But!  Be aware that if you slice and alter the foundation, you must remember to add seam allowances to the cut edges!  So as I foundation piece the outer fabric to the foundation, I make sure it covers the cut edge plus about a half-inch.  Then, when trimming it for final assembly, I cut on the pattern line for the unaltered parts, and a quarter inch wider than the cut edge of the foundation.  

Bottom block is sewn as drawn. Top block is altered to have an extra stripe.

Contrary to my wont, I try not to obsess about coordinating the colors.  When I look at all the colors in the bag, they scream "70's!", but if I co-ordinate them too particularly in the quilt, it might say something different.  My big concern is that coordinated blocks might fail to blend with the whole (i.e. a red block, a blue block, et cetera).  

It's hard, though, when the colors are uncongenial neighbors.  Especially the harvest gold solid, which I loathe.  I could make it more tolerable by putting it next to browns and greens, but then I'd have a block with reads "warm", instead of one which reads "explosion in Mary Tyler Moore's closet".  I sew the harvest gold to a blue and try to trust the process!  

SOME EMBELLISHMENTS

At one point, I get a bit bored and doodle some paisley on the back of a piece, then trace it with my sewing machine.  Looks cool, huh?  So I embellish a few more blocks.  

LAYOUT IDEAS

This layout idea is leaning into the resembance the block has to the Art Deco top of the Chrysler building.  I reject it for two reasons: first, because I feel finicky and precise as I'm doing it, and I don't want that feeling in this project; and second, because I show a few people, and two of them say "oh, ice cream cones"!  

This second layout, sketched and taped on graph paper, is inspired by a striped elbow quilt made by Dave (of Dave's Craft Room on YouTube) from Kaffe Fassett fabric.  I liked his background of long strips, with occasional elbows crossing over, that interplay of long/straight with short/curved. 

I draw and cut my twelve blocks, then lay them out like architectural arches.  In the spaces around them, I throw in some pillars and patchwork, like the textures of a city.  I could make the pillars with the traditional zig-zags of a New York Beauty quilt, and improv-piece the rest.  

​I am enjoying this project!  

The drawing has an unused block, but the quilt would use them all, it being a different scale.