A Revealing Feeling - Good Fortune, Parts 7 and 8

Bonnie Hunter revealed the full design of the Good Fortune Quilt this week after surprising us with Clue 7 a few days earlier. It's stunning. It's wonderful. I feel so fortunate to be a part of this quilt-along.

But, I now have a lot of work to do. I have to finish Clues 1-7. Then I can start on the two blocks and four borders described in The Reveal. Bonnie's finished quilt looks amazing. I am really motivated to press ahead and finish mine, but it will have to wait until I get back from my next trip.

I did a tiny fraction of Clue 7. This involved making lots of double pieces by sewing two pieces from Clue 2 together. In addition, we have to make a small number of quad pieces made with pieces from Clue 2. Here are some of the quad pieces:

Clue 7 also called for making some quad pieces with pieces from Clue 1.

Clue 7 went a little faster because there was no cutting involved, but I did make another trip to a fabric store this week, and that took up some time.

Now, before I go on, I want to talk about a New Thing. During this quilt I started listening to podcasts. That's a New Thing for me. I'm really enjoying it. My daughter recommended Serial, so I started with that. Then I added Lexicon Valley, because I love words and linguistics. Then I found a few more interesting ones. Then I got the idea that there might be podcasts about quilting, and I found several! These are some that looked interesting:

•  Quilting . . . . for the rest of us
•  Sit & Sew Radio
•  The Off-Kilter Quilt
•  Just Wanna Quilt

These quilting podcasts are not professionally produced (I assume) but they are something fun to listen to while I am quilting. Do you have any favorite podcasts?

OK, back to the Good Fortune Quilt. I didn't have a lot of time to work on it this week. I couldn't do much without finishing some of the previous clues, so the first thing I did was to finish Clue 1 completely. Then I decided to make one sample each of the two blocks shown in the Reveal. 
 
Here they are:

The Spinning Star Block

The String Chain Block

These blocks alternate in the finished quilt in a checkerboard pattern and the result is wonderful. I like the Spinning Star Block a lot. I'm not so sure about the String Chain Block. I don't think the red and orange work well together. There is not enough contrast for me. However, I think (hope) that when it is all put together and viewed from a few feet away it will look fine.

Please take a look at Bonnie's Link-Up page and check out some of the finished blocks (and even finished quilt-tops!!) that other people have done. It is so much fun to look at them.

Lessons Learned:

• If you can't sew with friends, sew with podcasts.
• Procrastination has its rewards. I only had to make 192 pieces for Clue 1, not the 240 originally specified.
• Doing sample blocks to start is probably a good idea. The blocks are supposed to be the same size. It turns out my String Chain Block is almost 1/4" larger than the Spinning Star, which is the correct size. I need to think about this before I do any more work with the String Chain Blocks or the components thereof.
• There is treasure at the end of the rainbow! Just be patient and follow it.