Detour - Creativity Ahead!

Sometimes we make mistakes.  Sometimes we get frustrated and toss those mistakes in the garbage can (or as the lovely English say - toss 'em into the dust bin!)
Perhaps we should laugh, Put them somewhere, but not too far away. Work on something else and sleep on it a night.  That is what I did.
You see, when I was cutting bias binding for the quilt I finished on Sept 1st, I goofed.  Somehow I forgot how I needed to fold the fabric - as demonstrated in my Cutting Bias Binding Video. I obviously folded NOT on the bias line.   I unfolded my strips to find these:

I seriously considered tossing them all in the dustbin. But I just couldn't.  So I piled them in a stack and left them.  I cut more binding - glad I had plenty of this fabric!  

After sleeping a couple of nights, I had an idea. I tried it - it didn't work!  Big deal, I did from "frogging" (rip it rip it) and thought a minute.  AH!

I took a  Creative Detour.  I love the idea of a creative detour from the plan.  I realized that I could work it another way.  I didn't have anything that I wanted to frame - darn, I didn't pack ALL my fabric for this long weekend.  So I decided to make something. "Hey!  I have the leftover batik with the fusible already on it. Why not cut a shape from it?"  LOL....little did I know that   Creative Detour was the word of the day.  When I pulled out the pre-fused fabric, I saw the "waste" where I had cut out the circles.  "hmmm, that looks interesting" I thought.  So I grabbed some slightly boring pastel pink scrap fabric and fused it down (Okay so I auditioned it first.) 

Here is the result of my   Creative Detour.  

The inset piece is sewn in wonky but I like it...and on a fun free pieced quilt, it will play very nicely and add some extra interest.
Some of you are probably wondering about the free piecing. I do it in little "chunks" like this:

Then play around until I can fit the chunks together.  Some of the chunks get trimmed, but I eventually get a piece somewhat like this.

Or if I use more orderly pieces and small pieces that I made as leaders and enders, I get something like this:

See that "rickrack plaid"?  I got that in a remnant assortment from Fabric.com.  Right now it is out of stock.  I got a great deal on about nine yards of quality fabric. Honestly I thought "this one is ugly, I may never use it"  but it works well in this type of quilt.   I will probably use some of it in rag quilts too. 

Have you considered taking a   Creative Detour?  I highly recommend it over getting frustrated.  I think my best ideas come that way.

Oh yes..I promised an "eye update."   My eyes are looking much better.  There is still some slight swelling and I am still putting the antibiotic ointment on the lids (hence the shine.)

Hmm... those eyebrows are a bit scary.