Just Soup-er

I added some space between the JUST MAKE and the SOUPER rows. 

Yes, I should probably add space between BE, CHICKEN and HAVE NO, (and yeah, the bird could probably use another heart) but right now I'm too pissed off. I wanted this to be a quick little down-and-dirty project but NOOOOO! The damn quilt has taken a life of its own and this sucker is one DEMANDING dude. 

Screw it. He can wait. I have other stuff I want to do first.


by the way, the title for this quilt is going to be "Just Soup-er."

And yes, I do have a large collection of dud or misfit letters and a lot of extra bits and bobs. I'm from New England. We don't throw anything out if we think it could be useful in the future. The only things I made for this quilt are the three hearts, the wonky four patches, the letter M in AMAZING, the ER in SOUP-ER and the two seminole dot trios. Everything else came from the scrap and orphans bins.

Changes

It started with this.

I didn't like it.

I changed it, but I wasn't really thrilled with this either.

The butterfly didn't really look like much of an improvement.

The asterisk didn't seem to fit.

But then I tried these three almost invisible hearts, and I liked them very much.

I think this is very close to being finished.

Er...

The world is a funny place. I decided to make a quilt using my leftover bits, my scraps, my duds, and some orphans.  I took the word SOUP and added an ER to it to get SOUPER,

but a lot of people didn't like it. My sister came over yesterday and pointed to the ER. "This is too light."

Rebecca didn't like it. Lindaroo didn't like it. Megan was confused.

So even though the letters were already sewn into the quilt, I took them out.

 As you can see, there are thirteen individual pieces.

Then I made a new set of letters, and I made them DARK so everybody could see them and they wouldn't get lost.

Can't miss them now.

So Rebecca, Megan, Lindaroo, Sis, and anybody else who had reservations..  Do you approve?




PS Terri, I know about kerning, I studied lettering in college. I do the best I can when putting letters together in a way that makes sense visually. Unfortunately, a lot of times the seams get in the way.




 UPDATE - Some comments from me, after reading yours...
Ladies, I am amazed that you are all taking this so seriously. The plan was to use my leftover scraps to make this flimsy. I thought it would be fun to add the letters E and R to the word SOUP to make a version of SUPER. I thought it would be funny. A play on words. Ladies, loosen up! The whole thing is a joke of epic proportions.  Relax!

"QUILTS" -- updated!

For everybody who sees my finished work, I thought we'd start with how I get there BEFORE I trim stuff to make it "neat."

I suppose this puts "working improvisationally" in context.

Actually, I thought the "I" was to wide so I narrowed it down, even though I knew it would jam the letter closer to the U and the T on either side.  Then I thought there was too much space between the L and the T, so I sewed those two closer together too.

Here's the "cleaned up" version.

Now, however, when I look at the word on the design wall with all the others I think... it's too small and the letters are jammed too close together... and I don't like those four patches I added yesterday...

This is when it's time to put the tools down, leave the studio and go do something else.


HOWEVER, the point of this flimsy is to show students how I put things together, which they can understand more effectively by being able to look at the back. This exercise was never meant to be quilted, and rather than spend a lot of time making a super spiffy flimsy (that I would always lament I couldn't have quilted) I decided to use my duds, my rejects, my orphans and put something (anything) together.

From a strictly technical point of view, this is fine. It meets the requirements and I didn't have to expend huge amounts of energy, time and money to put it together.

From a design and creative point of view... it is lacking, I admit.


UPDATE: 9:00 AM

You didn't really think I could leave it that way, did you?

 I couldn't. I took it apart, made a new I and a new L and pushed them apart a bit. The word is still small, but I like it better.

This morning, even the four patches don't bother me so much.

Letter Flimsy Grows

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I've sewn all the words and rows together except the last one "QUILTS." The light in the studio isn't that great at night so the photos aren't so sharp and in focus.

I used the leftover bits from the Rail Fence quilt to make some four patches to fill up the spaces on either side of the "SOUP-ER AMAZING" block.

This damn flimsy is getting BIG! Right now it is 42" tall by 57" wide.

The Last Day of 2014

I ripped out (or "unpicked" the pieces I didn't like and replaced them with lighter versions. I think it is much better, but I can tell you that I much prefer it when everything is WOW.

I also moved the bird over. Now he looks like he's part of the quilt.

I also added a few little "seminole dots" to either side of SOUPER because I didn't want the word to get lost.

The quilt needs more little goodies. Like asterisk flowers and birds, I guess. Maybe it needs a cat. I don't know, but I don't want to make stuff. I want to use orphans that I already have.

Sometimes I think it's a good thing when you CAN'T work on something. It makes you slow down a bit and THINK. Continuing to work when your brain is in a muddle can be very bad. When I get like this, I stop. I clean up my workspace and put my tools away and go to bed.  But.

Before I go to bed, I ask myself a question related to the project I am working on. For example it might be, "What does this quilt need to make it stand out? What elements do I need to add?" It is very important that it be a question and that it be specific.

The answer will come to me, usually the next day. It will come unbidden, when I least expect it, but it always comes. I have learned to trust this instinct (or whatever it is) over my entire creative life.  My unconscious will work on the problem, and offer up some solutions. My job is to get out of the way and let it do it's thing.

Happy New Year's Eve!