Long Way to Piece

Hello Metro Mod Quilters-

I'm inspired by Jess at lifeunderquilts to redouble my efforts on my "post-Sandy" hand piecing project. Since I don't have my own blog, I'm going to write this post for her "Monday Morning Star Count" (http://lifeunderquilts.blogspot.com/2013/06/monday-morning-star-count.html). My counts will more likely end up being on Fridays since that's when I tend to have some free time these days...

This quilt started because my power went out early during Superstorm Sandy. I was planning to go to bed early that night but was too anxious. I ended up cutting diamonds out of my fat scrap pile... by flashlight! I had one star left over from my first hand-piecing effort, and I decided to embed it in a new project which ended up being chevrons. Somehow I often have a rainbow theme to my quilts. I love the color wheel in its entirety and I can't seem to leave any out. I have lots of diamonds now, on the order of 500 or so:

That photo was taken in November 2012. It shows generally how I intend to put it together: one star in each set of four rows, blending through the color wheel from one side to the other. By now I have finished piecing a couple of star sections:

I am not the fastest quilter in the world! I may still make these rows longer, I want to end up with a good sized nap/lap quilt. I have pieced 158 diamonds so far, so perhaps I am a quarter of the way through? I have brought this project to a couple of meetings so far, I'm sure it will take many more! I'm listening to Railroad Earth's "Long Way to Go" right now (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rh8LhoL02CU) which seems appropriate...