QAL: The Unconventional and Unexpected: Overlapping Octagons

I've decided to join in The Unconventional and Unexpected Quilt A-Long . The QAL is being hosted by Sujata Shah, whose work I have admired since I bought her book,  "Cultural Fusion Quilts". The inspiration for this QAL comes from the book "The Unconventional and Unexpected", by Roderrick Kiracofe. For more information check Sujata's posts on The Root Connection. I have chosen to start with the quilt "Overlapping Octagons".

I decided to join in after much deliberation. After all, "Do I really need another project?" "Yes", I answered myself, "You have to move on and this will be a new challenge."

My fabric choice is this:
 

blue and neutrals: a bulging bucket of blues and the right hand pile in the box. My supply of neutrals is very low, and in need of urgent replenishment.

with a few splashes of:

orange: starting with the scraps on the left.

Yesterday I started sewing blue strip scraps together along the short ends as leaders and enders in another project. These will be chopped and sewn together with others to make the string rectangles in the Overlapping Octagons. I shall be ordering more neutrals/ low volume during next week.

My plan is to cut the fabric freehand with the rotary cutter, although I shall be piecing the strips on phone book pages to keep them stable, as I can't manage to cut on the grain freehand, and would like to avoid wobbles and bubbles!

I'm already enjoying this project and look forward to sharing information and progress with others at Basket full of Scraps.

I'm linking to

Click on the button above to see more works in progress.

Happy sewing

Marly.