Reveal Day!!!

Well it's finally here!  YIPPY!!  I'm one of those people that have a hard time keeping a secret.  So the wait has just been making me CRAZY!!! 
Here's the orginal pattern.




Now, here is my version of Chain Reaction, which I have named mine Tequila Sunrise.  (While cutting my strips, I was listening to the Eagles, not drinking Tequila Sunrises!)

Now anyone that knows me well, knows that I'm not a pastel kinda gal.  So when I saw the pattern in my email, I wasn't really wild about it because of the colors.  But after looking at it couple of minutes, I knew what I wanted to do to make it more me.  I knew I wanted to do some kind of a sunrise/sunset color scheme and gradiate the colors.  If you are ever at a loss on what colors go together, hop on the internet and look up color wheel.  You will find it a very valuable tool when planning color schemes.  So after looking at the color wheel, I decided that my colors would be light yellow, dark yellow, gold, light orange, medium orange, dark orange, red/orange, red, redviolet.  Here's my first strip..

 Originally, I thought that my next strip, I would move all my squares up one and move my light yellow to the bottom.  I really wish that I would have had the forthought to take a picture of it.  I HATED it!!  The light yellow just looked bad next to the red and red violet.  As I sat on the living room floor looking at it and feeling somewhat defeated that the idea in my head just wasn't going to work, it dawned on me that I should start back the other direction.  In other words, go back to the orange family and work my way back.  So when I get to my last row, it would be the complete opposite of the first!

That was the winner!!  See how on the second row on the left the red moved up followed by the orange?  

This was a really easy pattern, but looks like it would be very complicated.  Don't be fooled.  There are a couple of things that will make your life easier if you try this pattern.  First and foremost, be accurated with your cutting and your 1/4 inch seams.  There's no room for fudging here.  I'm the queen of fudging when it comes to cutting and sewing.  Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.  This one would be a doesn't!  I have a hard time cutting angles with my ruler.  I prefer saying that I'm ruler impaired.  Now all these blocks arecut and recut on a 30 degree angle.  For my birthday a couple of years ago, I bought myself a rotating mat.  I found that I had huge success using the 30 degree line on my mat and line my ruler up with that 30 degree line.

Just remember that you have to cut 1/2 inch from the top edge.  So line your corner 1/2 inch from the 30 degree line.

It'll be perfect everytime!

If you read my blog on on my New Year's Resolution, you know that one of mine was to do feathers on a quilt.  Well I'm happy to say, I DID IT!!  This quilt was just screaming to have feathers.

I echo quilted my chains and echoed the chains on the outside, but used feathers on all the inner white zig zags.  Not too shabby for my first attempt at feathers on a real quilt, even if I do say so myself.  :0)
Sally Terry's book, Hooked on Feathers, is the best thing since sliced bread as far as I'm concerned.  My friend Andrea Clapp, bless her heart, tried to teach me feathers a couple of years ago.  Andrea, I think you just laid the foundation for me to learn.  Thanks girl!  And yes these feathers were done on my Bernina, not a long arm.  

Well, my first Scrap Squad quilt is now in the books, so to speak.  And rumor has it that it will be included in the upcoming addition on Quiltmaker's 100 Block magazine that will be out in a couple of weeks.  This is just a very fun and easy quilt that will amaze your non quilting friends.  You really have to try this one!  I promise that you will not be disappointed!  Now off to my sewing room to continue working on the next Scrap Squad quilt.