Final Block

Maia sent me this adorable picture of my favorite pup, Miss Chula! Chula loves the blanket I made for Maia and Lenny....just look at her all cozied up and adorable. Oh, this dog, she is so unbelievably cute! She's called a Maltese, I think, but I can tell you from experience that not every Maltese is this cute. During the time that they were planning their wedding, Maia was living here and Lenny was already living in London, so we got to spend many a Friday night with Chulita chasing our boys and curled up for movie time.

Too much cuteness!


That picture cheered me up so much! Yesterday was hard, and today was long, but look at that face! I think I finally have the emotional strength to share the final block of our running-themed round robin.

This is Jessica's finished block. I mailed it out on Tuesday, which means she'll probably have it by this weekend. I'm so nervous!


I thought I was done here, with three bigger feet on the bottom, and three smaller pairs on the top. I hung it up and passed by it a dozen times, from every angle, and I decided it couldn't possibly be done until I added a fourth foot on the bottom.





I really like the way the 'folded ribbon' looks going down the side, but it was never my intention to do the folded ribbon on all four sides. I had originally thought that the folded ribbons would fade into 'rolling paths' across the top and bottom, and I was going to put the feet on top of the path, running along. In the end, the path didn't work. Though I still think that could have been great.



Jessica's original block used turquoises, white, and red. It had two feet in the center. I really wanted to pull in some of the original colors, and use the feet again to tie it all together. I think picking the colors for the feet was the hardest part. In addition to trying to use fabric she had sent with the block, I added purple, because of the border ribbons.



I just don't know. Erik was very critical of my choices. He kept saying I was 'ruining' it. OMG. Seriously? I'm already a nervous wreck!!! (He's not a jerk, though this makes him sound like a jackass! I can't explain it...it was partly funny, and partly horrifying, the way he kept saying it.) So the center feet and red border was Jessica, the flower embroidery and striped-flowers fabric was added by Brit, and Juls did the green and purple window-panes on the bottom, with a red border. I had to cut the red border down, since it was the same size as the final border I was adding. My addition is the green boarder with purple folded-ribbons down two sides and running feet along two sides.

I guess I was torn because I wanted to bring back some of the design elements that she had started with...things like the turquoise, and the feet. But what I'm second-guessing is, I don't know if that worked with the other additions. Should I have just done something totally different? I mean, my block didn't look anything like what I would have imagined. (Largely because 'my' contribution was not the center block! It was, in fact, Jessica who made the brilliant creative decision to add on a second block, rather than a border around the block I made.) (Does that mean she would approve of divergent creative decisions?) (I have my fingers crossed that it means exactly that!)