I am not posting step by step pictures on this because I was in a groove and my phone was charging. But let me tell you lessons learned here.
1) My prints are directional. I did this at first by pulling a random strip or square and attaching it to the grey sashing. Well, what I didn't realize is I needed to pay attention to which direction the fabric was going relative to the strip. I ended up having to re-do all the squares except one to get them going in the same direction as the bigger pieces.
2) my prints are directional. So, for the strip running vertically I knew I was going to have to piece something together to fill that space since I only had fat quarters. I wasn't thinking about the directionality of the print when I pieced the blue square in the middle. When I held it up I noticed the top of strip the triangles point to the right and to the left on the bottom. I don't know how I thought it should look, but I thought with the different directions it looked good and kept it.
3) I modified my design from the original pattern. I made my large color 6.5" strips 21" long. This was 1.5" longer than the pattern I was loosely basing my design on. What I didn't realize was this would mean I would have to piece my sashing. So, if you look closely you'll see seams I. The sashing. I would have preferred no seams in it.
4) I didn't keep the sashing exactly the same. The whole time I was thinking to do the last strip of grey across the top would be easy. I didn't realize that it wouldn't match the bottom. I created this quilt in columns with grey sashing across the bottom of each strip. I should have attached a strip to the top of the row after I got it all together. Then, the top would match the bottom. I don't think it distracts from the overall look of the quilt doing it the way I did it. But I do think that I would be more pleasing had I done it the other way.
My next step is going to be piecing the back. This will be a challenge because I don't want to have to buy more fabric. Plus I need enough left over for my binding. Because I messed up on cutting so many fat quarters I essentially lost 1.5" linearly across about 3/4 of a yard of fabric.
I will post detailed pictures of my piecing process for the back because I searched high and low for a tutorial on how to do what I want to and saw nothing.
