Where it begins...

In thinking about the "why" of working with orphans, the simplest reasons are usually just that "simple". And depending on how your head works, that isn't a bad place to work from. You like making quilts. There is always a need for simple utility style function quilt for everyday use. Odd blocks, planned overs, too big, too small, too many...they all qualify for such projects. The quilt above is an early work of mine, started in 1984,finished complete with hand quilting just over a year later. It was for my youngest son, who was about 9. It's an odd assortment of leftover stuff, very few actual "orphan blocks", and probably created more from curiosity than need. The math to make it work was very simple, make the blocks a uniform size or divide-able by an even number. No part of making it was hard, except the hand quilting. And that wasn't hard in the traditional sense, just labor intense and somewhat misplaced on that particular quilt. Back then I hand quilted ALL of them! So that's my "why"...not thought about at the time, just "playing with stuff".My motive wasn't given much thought. I hadn't yet come to realize about "intent". I would say both motive and intent was "casual" with very little mental process involved. With 30 years and multiple attempts and orphan quilts behind me, my opinion is that it is as simple or complicated as you want/need it to be. Tomorrow took a bit longer getting here than intended, but...that's life. If you want to explore beyond the simple part of "why", think about motive and intent. Can you pull those 3 into a cohehsive unit? If not, they may fight all the way home.