Lancaster Diamond: N-22

 

So, this morning Marsha and I were sitting together at the annual summer barbecue at our church (where there was some really good macaroni salad, by the way), and she said to me, vis-a-vis the Lancaster Diamonds, "I'm not going to make every single one of them." I told her that as far as elimination, N-22 was a really good place to start.

This is Attempt Number One.

Oy.

Trust me when I tell you that I struggled mightily only to come up with what must be classified as a miserable failure. The block calls for a rather nice-looking design that is inexplicably slashed across the middle. I was doing fine until I had the block at the wrong angle when I slashed!

Attempt Number Two followed after an insufficient interval.

Talk about an ugly block! This happened around ten o'clock last night and I gave up at that point, watched some television with Himself, and went to bed. 

There ensued a dream or two about this block. Followed by a period (3:30 -- 5:00 a.m.) of being wide awake and actually considering going back down to the sweatshop for what I hoped would be a final attempt. Every time I closed my eyes I had visions of triangles, paper-piecing, and that bizarre slash. Oh, Buggy Wheels!

After the barbecue, we came home and I settled in for  what I thought was a well-deserved nap.

Then back to the "studio" for the third try. I kept in mind all that I'd learned from Attempts One and Two and still made a judgment error: After paper-piecing the two strips of HSTs, I impulsively decided that the black side should be affixed to a black center strip, instead of the red-to-red that I'd initially planned. I didn't think about what this would do to the mechanics of the design. So this block doesn't look like the N-22 in the book, but it is definitely in the spirit of the illustration. And I like it. 

There's something about "the third time's the charm," but I'm telling you that if a block doesn't want to be blue and pink, by gum, you shouldn't make it out of blue and pink. Clearly, an audacious block like N-22 needs to be red. And black. So there.

And, Marsha, I stand by what I said this morning.