SLW is quilted

This quilt has been a worrisome thing. I've enjoyed the celebrations, but the fretting parts have not been fun. There's so much to it though, that I feel compelled to deal with the parts, good and bad.

The sun makes a stained glass illusion.

After the Sherry Lynn Wood workshop, I thought seriously of abandoning the chunks of fabric that I'd put together but guild sisters said to keep going. I decided to take it on as part of the Cotton Quilters "Finish on a UFO" challenge. 

I like the purples, which may be blue in reality.

I tossed in AHIQ's hourglass challenge--because what's a challenge without a challenge and I'm an idiot, sometimes--and found that I really liked how the hourglass blocks helped to make sense of it all. Then AHIQ helped again when I remembered the old Chinese coins challenge and used that to come up with a setting. Ann and Kaja, thanks for the help!

a row of hour glass blocks

The idea of quilting this was overwhelming. I folded it up and put it in the "to be quilted" bin, where the possibility of never looking at it again is kind of real. But where would that get me after all the other challenges? So a week or so later, I made a backing, loaded everything on, and tried to make a plan. 

Some of the original pieces

I should have known better. I don't make plans! Those are throwbacks from the old teaching days when everything was planned, or schemed. :) No, these days I have to plug in the machine and hold onto the handles. Something happens. Some times I have to rip out the stitches, but mostly I just play along with the muse that is the machine. (Doesn't that have a poetic ring?)

The neutral has a green undertone that may influence the binding.
But it's too soon to tell.

The quilting is rather unconventional. I mostly followed the shapes, but occasionally added some sort of motif in areas that needed additional quilting. I like that quilting it this way tends to draw people in because the motifs are a surprise. The kids started looking for circles and other shapes. They asked a couple of times how many to look for. I haven't the slightest idea! Ask the muse.

Linking up with
For the love of geese #47 Thanks, Denise!

SLW quilt ~~ a finished top

I started this quilt in a Sherry Lynn Wood workshop back in November. Since it was a two day workshop, I brought home only the beginnings of something. I could not determine what that something was. Can you tell from this picture that I was not impressed? Thanks to my friend Glen of Quilts and Dogs for taking this shot when I was completely lost in my piece.

In January I challenged the Cotton Quilters' Guild to bring a difficult unfinished project to the next meeting. At that time we would each present the project and tell the group what our challenge was. In March we were to bring the project to show. The beauty of the idea was that everyone got to choose her own piece and decide for herself what she would try to accomplish. 

 For example, one lady brought in a completed top and challenged herself to have it quilted (though not necessarily completed). I brought in the "SLW mess" and challenged myself to figure it out and complete the top. In March I would show the top and challenge myself to quilt (or complete) it.

Since AHIQ (adhocimprovequilts.blogspot.com) was having an hourglass challenge, I decided to add a few hourglasses. That was the pivoting point. After that the pieces seemed to just make themselves. 

As you all know there have been all manner of crazy things happening in the world. The March meeting was a sewing room tour and, because of the Coronavirus, we won't meet in April. 

I decided that I would still meet the challenge and get it to a completed top for the beginning of April. But look at that messy confusion on the design wall. I needed a strategy. Back to AHIQ, of course. At one point we had a Chinese Coins challenge going...What if? 

   



I tested my theory and voila! If you have too much happening, separate the confusion. Calm it, slow it, sort it. Just do something to give the eye a way to see the ideas individually. I used every inch of the neutral. Otherwise I'd have made the top and bottom strips wider to make the quilt longer. I am much happier with it now, however. I'm not exactly looking forward to quilting it, but once it's on the longarm, something will happen.

Voila! I figured it out....happily!

Remember that I went to a Sherri Lynn Wood workshop some time ago?


As you can see from this photo, I was a bit discombobulated by my work. I kept at it, but while there was something I liked, there was more I didn't like. People kept telling me it was good. That was nice, honestly, but I have to be happy from the inside. So I decided to put the whole thing on the design wall when I got home.

On the design board waiting for a plan

There it stayed and stayed. Life kept getting between me and it, including other pieces. Then last month I came up with a challenge for my traditional guild: bring a UFO/unfinished project to the February meeting with the intention of bringing it to an advanced stage for March. 

For example, I'll bring the SLW quilt pieces (that's my name for it for now) and tell the group I plan to bring it to a completed quilt top for the March meeting. Then in March I should commit to finishing the quilt for April. 

Reworking part 1

The problem was that I needed to get to a stage where I could make a commitment. What I had simply wasn't working for me, but I liked most of what I had. To add to the twist, I wanted to incorporate AHIQ's first challenge for 2020, hourglass blocks. 

I played and ripped and moved and added and subtracted and all sorts of crazy things for about three days. Then I read a couple of posts on the AHIQ blog and found the answer. Back to the design board, but with a plan I liked. Funny how a plan makes such a difference.

Reworking part 2

Reworking part 3

At this point (ready to go to the guild meeting) I have long strips of improv pieces that will be arranged in Chinese coins fashion. I've chosen a neutral brownish gray beige oddity for the background. 

  Final plan without the background

Once I arranged the strips in the order I wanted them, I pinned them with numbers, folded them neatly into a project box. Then added three stacks of magazines for the monthly mini (we buy tickets, the winners get to choose from the "minis" on the table until we run out) and even folded and stacked the two quilts I plan to bring for Show and Share. So I'm ready. Now to remember my phone, dues, and my stack of items. 

What the heck is happening here?

I have no idea where this is going. It was supposed to be a quick little quilt made with scraps just to give me something to do while I was between "real" projects. Sometimes I just can't get going. I resolve that problem with a new project. Every time. I resolve to work on finishing something. Anything. But the new project just happens.

I guess the Red as a Neutral just isn't out of my system, because when I went to the scrap cupboard, they somehow followed me to the worktable. Anyway, there were some large chunks of scrap fabric in both bins, so win! I tried mixing it up a little and put some pieces on the design board. No, that was not working.

So I cut some pieces, trying to tone it down a little with larger pieces of neutral (left), making these rectangles cut on the diagonal and pieced together. No, not really working. I tried to make them into windmills (right). Still not a plan. 

An attempt at taking the lazy way out and not ripping what was obviously a mess, I started making more of those half-rectangle triangle thingys. Are they right triangles? Whatever. They were keeping the seam ripper at bay. So I continued.

So now my theory became if I just keep going something good might happen. And I started to see something of a pattern emerging. I can't tell you how many times I moved those pieces. Actually I can: 15,000 times!

But I got here and I like what I have. It's a long way from done and red is not the neutral but why not just keep at it, right? 15,001 might be the magic. And I think I have some kind of magic going.

Red is a Neutral becomes... finish

Another Red Feather. So named because, though there were other titles in the running, this quilt wanted red feather quilting. And more red feathers. And more red feathers. In fact, every inch of red is quilted in feathers, with a few scrolls to break up the monotony. 

Detail of the back...just enough
pattern to make the worst of
the quilting less noticeable.

This one serves in all manner of challenges: the Cotton Quilters' Guild block-of-the-month, in which different quilters presented a block or two from January through July, and as the AHIQ "Red Is a Neutral" challenge. 


With encouragement from Kaja and Ann at Ad Hoc Improv Quilts, I decided to combine the two. So here we are with, finally, a red quilt made from guild blocks.

Detail of some of the feathers in the red sections.

Like everyone else I started in January and worked to keep up, especially since I set the parameters for the BOM. This setting just seemed to want to be this. I tried other ideas: putting the center medallion on point and surrounding it in red, kicking it off center and adding red there, considering making other blocks to work it all out. It was not having one bit of my ideas. Then flying geese flew in and saved the day. 

Detail of some scrolls

When I say finished, I mean quilted, bound, labeled. Ready to go straight to the quilt show if it were due tomorrow! Which is good because I have tons of things to remember and to do between now and the show.

The quilt has an off-center medallion surrounded by 12 inch blocks. I decided to keep the quilting in the blocks simple since there's so much fancy stuff outside of them. I used an improv style and decided things as I drove the long-arm. 

That is the best way for me to be really happy at the machine. Just play, figure it out as I trip along, change my mind. I often just stop somewhere along the way and search my phone, or cards, or books for new motifs. I've even walked to the bedroom to look at the quilt on my bed. That's my kind of improv!

		Quilt Stats
	Name:	Another Red Feather
	Size:	54" X 54"
	Fabrics:	Fabric yardage from stash
	Pattern:	Guild BOM block patterns
	Backing:	Linens from mom's stash
	Batting:	100% Cotton
	Binding:	Red yardage to match background
	Quilting:	Feathers and straight lines
	Notes:	Made to meet AHIQ “red is a neutral” and Cotton Quilters’ BOM challenges

Getting back to LINK UPS!

I've been missing out on link ups for a while but 

decided to remedy that. At the same time 

Alycia of the Alycia Quilts - Quiltygirl blog 

is taking over Finished Or Not Fridays 

from Myra at Busy Hands Quilts. 

Best of luck, Alycia!

Improv...Kaja style

I may be wrong but I think I've figured out Kaja of Sew Slowly and AHIQ fame. Before we get too far, though, let me tell you that every quilt on this post is Kaja's and every picture comes from Sew Slowly, with her permission. Now, indulge me for a moment: 

In this post Kaja writes about her starts and stops on the quilt top she is currently working on. Kaja is a rare gem. She works intuitively from the start. That's rare, I think. 

Most quilters begin with something in mind--a pattern, a combination of fabrics, a challenge--something. We begin there and play with the something in our heads. We call this play improv and it absolutely is! But it's not improv from the start: We play with that something but hold on to the essence of it. In a "come hell or high water" sort of fashion, something from the original idea will still be there when the quilt is bound. 

Findhorn

Kaja begins with the fabrics. She writes, "My usual method is to pull out literally everything and just keep auditioning until I find something that I like." One fabric speaks to her and she runs with it from there...auditioning fabric, playing with pattern (both fabric patterns and the size/shape of blocks) and continues fiddling until she has something else she likes. 

It's not at all surprising when she tosses back a fabric or chooses another because she's running low and won't be able to finish the quilt. She builds perfectly good blocks, rips them apart and rebuilds them. She likes to fiddle.

She's "fiddly" to the very end, even after decisions are made, blocks are complete, every seemingly usable piece of fabric is in the quilt. No, there always seem to be "bits" that she can find and those become something else entirely, and she figures a way to get them into the quilt. Even if it means taking things apart, again.

Lighthouses

But she can also be a bit more traditional and begin a quilt with a big idea. Her lighthouses come to mind immediately. In one of our emails, she wrote, "I occasionally have in my mind that I would like to use a version of, say, hourglass blocks, but mostly that idea goes out the window once I actually get down to do.  I have found, with the exception of the lighthouses, that starting with any sort of plan rather scuppers me: I don't like it when I try it or I get stuck trying to force something to work.  No plan just seems to suit my sort of brain."

As I was reading her blog earlier, an analogy of Kaja's improv style struck me: She travels lightly when she quilts. Consider a journey. For her, improv is like traveling Europe on a college student's budget. What a wonderful way to go. Have you ever listened to a young person who talks about his/her trek? There never seems to be a bad experience. Everything just is. 

Improv can be like that--really I have to give it a go one day soon. I wonder if I can begin with nothing except the fabric at hand. Pattern, no. Pre-cuts, no. Block style, no. No, no, no. Nothing.

Yellow Birds

And I can't know where I'm headed or how I'll get there. I must just go. Just go and it doesn't matter where I'll end up. I have to trust that at the end of the trip I'll have had a wonderful time and great memories and a quilt top. 

When we travel and get to a crossroads, Richard loves to stop the truck and ask, "Which way? Right or left?" I look at the map one more time and answer. Not that it matters, most of the time we're just headed in a general direction, north. Maybe north and west or maybe north then east, but the roads don't matter and place doesn't matter and time doesn't matter. We're just traveling and it's an adventure and we're together. 

Moon of Fallen Leaves

That's all that matters, really. We're together. But almost always, we haul a whole camper of stuff. We travel with our bed and clothes and food and chairs and a bathroom. I have my books and the Bernina and lots of sewing stuff. Richard has tools and wooden blocks and rope and charcoal and things I don't know the name of, but he knows why they are needed, just in case. Somewhere he has a stash of cash. I'd never find it, but then again I'd never find myself alone either.
In fact we've never taken off without a bag of clothes, an ice chest of food and drink, and full tank of gas. Never. Not even when we took a day trip with a specific destination and that destination had a restaurant, hotel, gas stations, etc. We are just always prepared. Always. 

The Marcottes do not travel "De manière improvisée." In Louisiana we say "on main," unprepared. I wonder whether I can quilt that way. Certainly Kaja can--like nobody else--and she is great inspiration, so maybe...
You must, must, MUST go to Sew Slowly  and drool over her quilts.

Red Is a Neutral ... more blocks

There are not many more blocks, but I put in a couple of afternoons to get these done. Tuesday's work: 
I made these Dutchman's Puzzle blocks. I needed only one but it's an easy block, so I thought I'd make two. As soon as I sewed the final seam on the second block, I realized that I had not arranged all four sections correctly. One was turned the wrong way. What an annoyance!

Once I started ripping the sections apart, I decided to play. Why not? I needed only one block. So now I have two different blocks that sort of match. 

Wednesday's work included these two. When Richard came into the studio for a visit, I told him, "I'm running on stupid." That tickled him quite a bit, but I was not laughing at the time. I cut the wrong size patches. So I cut them again, correctly this time, but I cut twice the amount. 

The one on the bottom is the correct block, but since I had extra pieces, why not? Play I did. I ended up with the block on the top. It looks familiar, but I haven't had time to look it up.


Yesterday I made the Card Trick block. Now that was a mess! I kept getting the pieces mixed up. I pressed seams open and laid them out in the right order, then took a picture. Good idea! I needed it. I think I could make a second one without the visual aid, but I won't.

These five are the blocks I'll have to show on Monday at the guild meeting. I think I should have five different ones but, oddly, I didn't get instructions. As it is, I didn't have the directions for the Card Trick block, so I improvised. Not well, mind you. My center patch was just a little too small, which means my block isn't quite 12". This quilt... I don't know.

So to sum up, very few blocks match in size, some are not blocks at all--just extras from the miscuts, I'm behind on the BOM and don't have directions for the missing blocks. Yes, that's how we do it in "typical Mary fashion." 

And now my Red Is a Neutral challenge

AHIQ has a challenge going. Ann and Kaja discussed the possibilities and introduced readers to a couple of shows in which the makers used red as a neutral in their quilts. 

I love the idea! I really wanted to get started back in January but one thing and another got in the way. Finally, I lost my guild BOM blocks when they got caught in a flood of my doing. When that happened, it occurred to me that I could simply change the colors of the blocks and meet two challenges at once. 

So figuring it out took a while, but I rolled up my sleeves and got to work. I went from no blocks to five. At the time we had instructions for nine blocks. That left me four blocks when I went into the hospital. On Monday we received two more blocks, so I have to get back in gear if I plan to catch up.

I definitely do not have enough of these grays and blacks to make all the blocks, so I'll be adding more of these colors and mixing up the blocks when I put them together. Hopefully the quilt will have a coordinated scrappy look, not a disjointed messy look.

Do go by and take a look at some of the quilts other participants are making. I promised you will enjoy the show!

A Touch of Teal ~~ Finished!

I've had this little pink top sitting in the quilt queue for a while now. It had everything needed for a finish: backing, batting, binding. 

"How easy and quick would this be?," I wondered. "Quite easy and especially quick," I answered. 

So I loaded it and thought about quilt motifs. I wanted, as Richard loves to say, "Quick, fast and in a hurry." 

While quilt my last quilt, I stumbled upon a motif I like that is fast and pretty. It has the look and feel of a pantograph, except that it changes at random rather than repeat in a set pattern. It's kind of the best of both worlds: I get to enjoy the randomness but also have a pattern so it doesn't take long to come up with ideas. I can play a little with the motifs as I go along, and the openness of the motif quilts quickly.

I picked out my favorite motifs from One Big Finish, enlarged them and stitched them in in my usual, graffiti manner. All of the motifs have curves and wiggles to contrast with the straight lines of the Chinese coins pattern.

The backing was just a little short but I really wanted to use it since it has a pink, girly look that goes well with the front. It also has these small little teal flowers mixed in with the large pink and peach ones. How perfect is that?

To make it long enough, I just added a strip of hot pink on the top and bottom. Of course, I didn't have the sense to center the quilt top on the bottom, so the strips are not balanced, but I still like the quilt and the back is pretty awesome anyway.

	Quilt Stats
	Name:	A Touch of Teal
	Size:	35" X 46"
	Fabrics:	scrap fabrics from stash
	Backing:	scrap fabrics
	Batting:	100% cotton
	Pattern:	Chinese coins
	Quilting:	graffiti quilting w/ variety of motifs

The entire quilt was made from scraps and yardage from the stash. I made it back when Kaja and Ann had their AHIQ Chinese coins challenge. I can't find the original link to the challenge, but go to this link and scroll down to the labels which you'll find interesting.