I got the blues

 The Rainbow Scrap challenge at superscrappy has chosen baby blues as the color of the month.
I was visiting my friend Angela at (click here) where she did a fun block tutorial.
 I don't want to take a thing from her fab tutorial but this is my process in sort of following her directions.

Disclaimer, I never said I was good at directions.

First open the box of blue scrap strips and stand back! KaPow!
I sorted thru and found sets of light blues in about 12 inch lengths, and sets of med. blues same length.
See the top picture ^

I sewed the sets kind of keeping straight-ish lines.
To keep them fun I mixed widths and prints.
 
After trimming those sets to 12 inches square, I placed them Right Sides Together (RST)  with one set horizontal and one set vertical and then

 sewed around the outside edge quarter in. seam allowance. 

I recommend pinning along these outside edges as there is waaay too much stretch for my comfort and you don't want it all wonky at this stage. Next step is 

Trim diagonally with your long ruler and rotary cutter. Both ways. 

When you gently open the pieces you'll see some magic. 

Warning, these new squares are full of bias and really unstable and need TLC. Possibly spray starch

This is where I got a little confused. I looked at Angela's example and went to the design wall with the pressed squares and tried this...

 That's not nice like hers.
 Maybe it's my color choice of all blues. Then I tried different combinations like this

And some other more exciting combinations. I am going to keep those to myself for a bit...

Then I called in the big guns, DH. I showed him Angela's tute, and said come see the "dog's dinner" I made of it. He chuckled and said, well that's not like hers. (uh,  I know)
In his excellent ability to see pattern, he said "the outsides aren't right"




 I looked again and said, oh! The outsides should all point away from the center!  Voila!

 Now it looks good, see??

I really like it! It would be great with all the RSC colors too! This year's RSC has come to a close but there's next year or just doing it in all the colors I want and putting them together. The only thing is, how will the blocks look next to each other? Will  I like the secondary pattern that develops? 

Things I learned today:

1. You can make a lot of projects from a stuffed scrap bin and it still won't close at the end of the day

2. Use spray starch as lots of scrap strips aren't cut on the straight grain

3. Be willing to veer from a pattern/directions if you want

4. You could discover a whole new pattern while veering

5. Call in the husband for a new perspective when stuck

6. Whether it works or not, you are still sewing, and enjoying fabrics. Check out the scissors that I didn't even notice while choosing strips. I was going for medium tone and was happily surprised to see a line of bees show up in the exact center and a pair of scissors!
 LeeAnna