The Next Thing

Cherie was right when she predicted that my next project would be improvisational. But after a couple of quilts based on straight lines, you kinda had to know that I would do something off-kilter.

Given that my long-term goal is to use up as much fabric in my stash as I can in the next 15-20 years, I have decided to make quilt tops that please me. They may or may not have a purpose, or a reason, or a future home. I may or may not have them quilted. I'm going to take a look at the fabric in my stash and the bins and take whatever hits me at the moment, and do something with it.

In other words, I am going to Play. I am going to try to have some fun.

In January I made these as part of a proposal to teach a class based on Sujata Shah's method of making traditional blocks with gentle curves. Here I have arranged the blocks in a Rail Fence arrangement.

Here are the same number of green blocks arranged in a kind of zig-zag design.

As I looked around my studio and saw the leftover pieces of various projects, I decided to do something with these pieces.

Since I had made four blues and four greens, I knew that I had to have four pairs of the other colors - so I selected oranges, pinks and purples. I deliberately chose fairly plain darker fabrics and the lighter ones were mostly equally blender-ish, but I did allow a few of them to be larger, busier prints.

Here you can see all the pairs and the prints in detail.

That's the start!

Waltzing Matilda

I've decided to name the quilt "Waltzing Matilda."

Several things came together to get me to this name. I was reading a book and a character's name was Matilda. The quilt reminded me of movement, of a dance, and I got an email from my friend Megan in Australia.

Matilda + Dance + Australia = Waltzing Matilda.
 
Waltzing Matilda has been described as the unofficial national anthem of Australia. I'm sure my friend Megan will correct me if I am wrong. It's not about what you think. There's a YouTube video of Johnny Cash singing it, offering a translation as he goes.

I received a wonderful compliment yesterday from Wanda Hansen of Exuberant Color. She thought the fabrics I chose were terrific. There are about 50 - 60 different ones. Anyway, you can click the pictures and click again to get a very good look at all the different fabrics I used.

I started this quilt Tuesday night, after 9:30 PM. I worked on it after dinner till about midnight on Wednesday and Thursday, took Friday afternoon off and worked on it all that afternoon, and after dinner that night, again until midnight. Saturday morning I got up about 9 AM, went straight into the studio and finished making the blocks and designing the layout. I started webbing the top together at 3:00 PM, finished one half, pressed it, had dinner, and then finished sewing the top before I went to bed Saturday evening.

It may not be the fastest quilt I ever put together, but it's damn close. One of the reasons is that I have learned that quilts I don't put a whole lot of thought into turn out really great. They don't suffer from being overworked, overwrought and overthought. It's all about trusting your instincts.

And, I suppose, having a good stash and a pretty good idea of what you want when you start.

Presenting... "Waltzing Matilda"

Here it is. I really like it. The individual blocks are 6" so the flimsy is 60" x 72".

I'm pretty sure this quilt knows where it is going to live when it's done, and it's a surprise, so don't ask. I've ordered the backing fabric already.

All Together Now!

I sewed the blocks together for this quilt using the webbing technique. I took a class to learn how to do it, so I respect that and will not reveal how it is done here.

Pressing a web sewn quilt is rather challenging.

One advantage of this technique is that it doesn't use pins. However it is quilt wrangling at its finest.

The quilt is all sewn together now, but it needs a name. I'm not thrilled with Ring Around the Rosy. I'll show the finished flimsy tomorrow.

Oh Oh Oh!

This isn't quite done, but it looks good. It needs a bit of fine tuning. I decided to add a ring of "busy" greens outside of the plainer green ring.

 So where is the other half of the quilt?

Right here!

This is the whole quilt.

I'm not accustomed to see a quilt like this. Now I have to sew it up.

Ring Around the Rosy...

YES YES YES YES!

I love this.

I might just name this quilt Ring Around the Rosy, which is kind of apropos. Did you know that Ring Around the Rosy* was once thought to come from the Black Death? It described the wounds on people who had the Black Death during THAT pandemic hundreds of years ago. Historians don't think that any longer.

ANYWAY...

I am in my happy zone and this quilt should be a flimsy soon!


*Ring around the rosy,
pocket full of posy
ashes, ashes
we all fall down.

This is the version I remember singing when I was a kid.  


AND CHERIE... Before you think you can take credit for the title of this post... I wrote it several days ago, but good on you for getting it early!

Round and Round She Goes

I am going round and round with this quilt. I like it a lot, and it's prettier in real life. You can click the pictures and then click them again to see it better. This is by no means the final arrangement. I have to make so many more blocks!

Around about here I figured out how I wanted the pink ring to be, and then I decided to surround it with the greens that had pinks and blues in them, and the next ring would be the plainer green. But to see it... I had to make more blocks!!!

Yup, I like those two rings...


Gotta keep going. I am really happy with this!!

Begin, Begin, Begin

I made a few blocks and threw them up on the design wall.  I need to make more. I have lots cut, I just have to sew.

When I was in college, my painting teacher, Armand Szainer, used to say "Begin, begin, begin." I'm pretty sure what he meant was "don't get bogged down early on." It's like Wanda says, when you get all your blocks on the design wall, that is when you START to design. It's way too early to pat yourself on the back and think you are done. I need to make more blocks, but you get an idea of where this is going.

Going Forward by Going Back

 

Five years ago I made this quilt using Sujata Shah's Cultural Fusion Quilts as a guide.

What was funny at the time was that it started out like this, and I thought, well that was ugly as hell, so I tinkered.

I am so emotionally tired (and I am pretty sure I am not the only one) but I need to get myself into the studio because doing creative work makes me feel better. I got to thinking about this quilt the other day because I showed somebody a calendar I had made with the Petals quilt (top photo) and was reminded of how much I liked it.

It's no secret I need to do something, but I don't feel drawn to any of the quotes I shared the other day enough to make a quilt out of any of them right at this minute. I know myself well enough to know that if I don't "feel it" it won't go anywhere. So the other night, instead of going to bed, I browsed my books in search of ideas, and ended up with the quilt above.

I pulled out this fabric with the dots. I bought it a while ago, and it's a hard fabric to use, but I liked the way the colors bounced around. Something like this can be more of an inspiration than a fabric in a quilt, and that's exactly what it inspired. You can see some of the fabrics I pulled out of my stash above it.

I pulled some pinky fabrics - but they all had to have some blue or green in them.

And I need some beige, cream, or whatever.

And because, what the hell, in for a penny in for a pound, so even though it was 11 PM, I cut some squares and then sewed these two blocks.

I have my next project.