First thing I did today was to recreate the dots/turquoise pairing strips setting them up so when interleaved with the flowers/hexagons the dark fabrics would be opposite one another, not adjacent. My goal was to end up with a rectangular rather than a square panel. I accomplished that by adding a final 9″ row of the dots/turquoise pairing to one end to make the block longer.

I have just finished assembling the panel – 35 x 44 – not quite large enough for a lap quilt. I want to end up with something closer to 48 x 60. I can can obviously add borders – 7″ all around would give me a finished size of 49 x 58. If the borders were a bit asymmetrical I could fudge the final size closer to 60″ in length.

However, first I need to sort out a narrow framing border around the panel to set it off from the borders which I can then assemble by piecing the original four fabrics. So back to the stash to see what I have that might close off the panel in an interesting way.

I’m also going to appliqué some flowers from the yellow fabric over the turquoise blocks at the bottom to bring that colour to that bottom right corner (in the photo on the left – I must have stood on the opposite side of the panel when I took the second photo!).

Afternoon Update

I couldn’t leave the panel as it was – I applied some fusible web to the back of floral fabric, fussy cut a bunch of elements, then fused them in place. Now I need to edge-stitch and embellish them before I can go further. I’m definitely happier with those turquoise segments at the bottom partially covered – the appliqués extend the bright colours beyond their quadrant.