On the second day Gwen wore this fabulous knitted sweater given to her by a Japanese woman while she was teaching in Japan. It turns out these sweaters were selling for about $600 at the time. On this day I decided to document some of my design decisions for the next piece. I deliberately kept it small to make it quicker. What fun these small quilts, especially after doing all those great big Collaborative quilts.
First I picked my palette- mostly greens and neutrals. I've got a mix of all sorts of solids- shot cottons, chambray, linen, Kona solids and other un-named solids. Oh, and that subtle white on white print too.
First I rough cut some strips wide and narrow so I'd have some choices and not have to stop and cut as I went along. You can be conservative here. One or two strips from each fabric is all that's necessary at this point.
Then, just start sewing. Whatever looks good. I had started off wanting to have a large plain field to do some cool hand stitching in later. However, after a bit that big white piece started to bug me, so I cut it up.
And I made this tiny pieced insert to fill in. I didn't plan that at all, it just came about on it's own! I do have a bit of an obsessive nature with the tiny scraps though and often will just sew a bunch of them together to make them more manageable. After while you have a piece big enough to use somewhere! Notice, the red snuck in too. It seemed to need something surprising to make it more interesting.
Then I made that little strip of squares at the bottom. These were inspired by a quilt that Tonye Phillips was working on in the Gwen & Freddy retreat. She had made these little tiny 1/2" square filler strips and they were so cool I had to try it. Mine are a bit more, ahem, liberated than hers. The right hand strip came about next, again probably using up some small pieces that were just lying there begging to be used.
And, the finished piece. Trying to balance out the right hand strips with the strips in the upper left and side. A bit more red to keep you eyes moving around. The green at the bottom is meant to anchor the piece. Now it appears that I started with the tiny pieced rectangle in the middle and built out from there, but you know better! This one is about 16" square.
This one came about because I couldn't just stop. I really wanted to try the equilateral triangles, which, it turns out, are tons of fun to make. Sarah was still working after the class had ended and I needed something to do. This one was a lot of fun with no planning.
It's also about 16" square. I've started hand quilting it, but need to give my wrist a rest, so it will probably not be worked on for a while. I've got one more post's worth of pictures from the class. Stay tuned and enjoy the first day of spring!
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