So, so long ago…
Back when I was a new mom and looking at quilt projects that “might be fun”…
Actually, this story goes back even more than that. Many years ago, there was a block of the month class I attended that used thangles to make the blocks. It was a lot of fun and I made 2 of my most favorite quilts ever; the 30’s Thangles Quilts.
The next year, I did the block of the month thangles again and created this awesome batik quilt for my sister and a civil war quilt (that, unfortunately, is still unfinished because I made it king size and I haven’t been able to pony up the money to have it quilted).
I really enjoyed the thangles approach to triangles and decided to try one on my own. I found this neat fabric line on Connecting Threads called Cheap Talk and I really liked the colors and the color-on-color pattern.
I got work with the fabric and a white to offset and started making thangles. So many thangles; more thangles, and more thangles, and then a few more thangles. I was getting exhausted! It was time to lay some things out and see what I was working towards. It looked good, but the number of thangles I still needed to make was overwhelming. This project got tabled while I attended to a newborn.
I pulled this out again when baby #2 arrived in hopes of finding some new perspective. I started adding some larger triangles with the smaller ones to add some interest and movement through the quilt. Unfortunately, baby #2 was more demanding and everything got tabled again.
It took a quarantine to make me finish this project, but I am so glad I did!! I finally finished the largest triangles and a few of the medium triangles and got everything assembled. I thought for sure I’d finish this with disdain and a solid desire to never look at it again… and then It was done and I was in love!
I was afraid I was going to have to table it again until I found some backing, but I made an appointment at my local quilt shop, Cactus Quilts, and they had this a-m-a-z-i-n-g honeycomb-pattern fabric in the clearance room in the colors that matched the quilt perfectly! I bought it ALL and I added a strip of a green fabric I had to make it big enough (I have a sister quilt to this one that has the rest of the honeycomb fabric ; details to come).
I finished the quilt with a simple meander and reached the binding step. I did not have a fabric plan for this, so I started looking through my stash. I found this cute brown fabric that looked like sticks from a birds nest. It seemed fitting for the birds in “cheap talk” to need a little nesting material so I went for it. I really like how it framed the quilt.
This was an amazing finish! I am so glad I finally got this done, and I admit, I don’t think I will be working with thangles for a while. They are awesome tools to make triangles from strips, and I’m really glad I discovered them. I just think I need a break. Maybe a nice strip quilt to change course a bit.
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