Trying some more choices

I tried 4 more fabrics, eliminated one before even taking pictures. Click on the pictures and have a closer look. This fabric is gold/melon print.

This purple looks so much at home I hardly noticed it had been added, but then I didn't want the new color to take your eye away from everything else.

This one is a deeper gold/orange batik.

Tomorrow a friend is coming over to baste her quilts and I will sew in all of the zebra pieces. They will become smaller when the seams are taken. All of the new colors I have tried adding are going to be narrower arcs too so they won't be quite as bold as they look now.

I thought I was sure

Looking at these pieces on my design wall I thought I had made a decision. In this close up picture it looks good but......... once again the full photo doesn't show this quilt's potential. I am going to take out the big green arcs and any greens added will be the small arcs (if the green stays in there at all). I will be happy when all of the decisions are made and I can put this one behind me.

Then I decided it was time to start playing with the die cut pieces since I didn't have a clue what a layout with them is supposed to look like. So far I'm just playing to see what shapes the pieces make. I think this one has to be designed one piece at a time before anything can be sewn.

We made it up into the 70's yesterday but today isn't supposed to get out of the 40's. It was nice to have a warm day to open all of the windows and air out the house.

Layout and auditions

When I started putting the blocks on the wall I began to wonder what it was that I didn't like about these blocks. After photographing it I remembered that it just doesn't photograph well. It didn't matter how much I liked it in person, I just couldn't show a photograph and get anyone else excited about it because it looked dull. I think it is the army green that subdues it. Oh, and I have 54 blocks not 42 like I thought yesterday. In person this little green arc looks wonderful on it and it also doesn't photograph well. This is what made me think that it needed a brighter green added though.

So.....I tried some different greens. # 2 is a dotted more lacy look.

#3 is a batik that has little shots of yellow and red through it. and I liked it.

#4 is a brighter green but I think it is too light.

And here is what one of my art quilters suggested, a little zebra. I have a little bit of zebra in every room in my house so it is kind of a trademark for me.

All of these arcs that have been placed on top of the quilt still have seam allowances on them so they will be skinnier when they are sewn in. I haven't made any final decisions and will probably still try some more things. My favorites are the green batik and the zebra print.

Playing with a pile of blocks

I have this group of Strips and Curves blocks that I made at least 4 years ago. I started with the large floral print fabric that is in the middle top block and chose a run of floral fabrics in values from light to dark. after I had made about 20 blacks I thought it was too dull so I added the pinkish color batik and that livened it up some. I made more blocks and I think I have 42 now but I still wasn't really happy with it. Then Louisa L. Smith came out with the second book, "A new twist on Strips 'n Curves" where she shows cutting through in another direction and adding more arcs.

Here is the page that discusses how to do it.

Today the art quilters are coming so I'm going to have them help me choose a fabric to insert into my blocks to give them a little life.

More double 4 patches

Yesterday was cleaning the basement day. My art quilters are coming tomorrow. I took a break though and pieced 4 more double 4 patch blocks. I still need to make 5 more for the top and 2 for the bottom corners. As I look at the photo I can see one that can be moved to the outside edge and I'll make a new lighter one for its place. The Christmas cactus has its first official bloom of the year. I think they are so beautiful.

The sun is shining and 60 degrees predicted for today and tomorrow. I will open some windows today and enjoy the fresh air.

Migraines and left brain/right brain

I got up with a migraine yesterday. The good news is that they only last about 8 hours now compared to 3 days like they used to. When I have a migraine my thinking is fuzzy so I usually will try to do some dummy work just to stay busy since I can't concentrate on anything else. Remember these piles of pieces I cut from the irregular shaped scraps? I took the pile of triangles and divided them into lights and darks and pieced them together. You can see they aren't perfect triangles, just triangular shaped scraps.

After I pieced them together I cut them down into 2.5" squares.

Then I took any of them that there were 4 of and made pinwheels. As you look at this picture with them on my white flannel design wall, imagine them pieced with white fabric as the alternate square. But wait, I don't use white as fill in very often........

I remembered the Kaffe Fassett fabric pinwheel quilt* that I made a couple years ago and the fill in fabric was busy with circular designs. How about this batik print to imitate that style?

This is what the fabric looks like so you can see that with a strip cut across the fabric I got several different colors.

I wasn't sure if I was going to use it as the setting triangles so I took the ends of the strips and cut some triangles to see. Yes, yes, yes, this is ME!

And here it is all sewn together. Now I just have to decide whether I want a narrow dark border and more of the busy print as an outer border, or just bind in a dark color. It is approx. 24" x 30". You can see that I like to cut my setting triangles too big so that it floats the center design.

Now there is that left brain/right brain theory out there and since I am so math oriented I figured I didn't have my creative brain working as often because I stifled it with my logical half. Now I think I realize that the logical half is the one that goes fuzzy with the migraines and the other half just keeps on working. Could I have made this without a migraine? Yes, and it might have been more subdued.

*If you are interested you can go back to this post and see the Kaffe pinwheel quilt that I made.

Progress

I made a few more double 4 patch blocks, some for the edge and 2 for the center. I have 11 more to make. I had all of the leftover 2.5" and 4.5" strips on a tray and there aren't enough combinations left so I have to do some more cutting. I did get the 2 side borders on the Turning Twenty Again top and cut the 2 pieces for the back so now it will get finished.

The sun is shining but it is still below freezing as it has been the last 2 days. I'm ready for a warm day!