Tuesday, January 6, 2015

Playing Around.....on a Snow Day....

I have spent the last few weeks giving myself permission to "play" in my quilt room.  Once I finished some Christmas gifts, and before I tackled a few big projects, I decided to play with "found objects" that showed up as a result of cleaning.

One thing I discovered was a bag of teal/white/turquoise scraps.  My friend, Nancy, had loaned me her book, 15 Minutes of Play a year or so ago.  While I didn't do any of the book exercises, I did spend a good bit of time absorbing the philosophy of "letting go" to allow some creative side to take over...without being hypercritical about it.

I decided to just do some improvisational blocks with these scraps.  I don't know where this will go; maybe in the trash, or maybe into some future larger enterprise.  But I didn't care. My only "rule" was to make 6 1/2-inch squares.....

This was the result:



This week, I found a bag of 1 3/4-inch strips that I have used for various black/white log cabin blocks.  I am always inspired by the "Strip Twist Quilt" using scraps on Bonnie Hunter's Quiltville page..so I decided to change the block size (5 1-/2 inch vs. 8 1/2-inch) and do a "mini-scrap twist" substituting one solid color for either a dark or a light in each strip set.

I'm pretty happy with the results.  Here's how far I got today:


Now I'm arguing with myself about borders.  Lazy Kathy says "one big white border all around".  Critical Kathy says, "alternating borders of white print, solid color segments, another black, and a white print for finish"..keep them all narrow, keep this look clean and elegant. I suspect Critical Kathy will win, but after 3 hours, I was ready to quit today.

The fun part of all of this is a:  it's from scraps, I have nothing to lose.  b:  I love working with small designs so I can find my "sweet spot". c: Repeat a:  I have nothing to lose....this quilt top makes me happy.  The solids juxtaposed against the black and white prints just sing to me.

Do you give yourself permission to play with your fabric?  Do you just give yourself permission to play, period?  Nobody needed this, nobody wants this, and I'm not looking to sell it.  I just made myself a little piece of "quilt art" that makes me happy.  I think that is a good product for a day's work.

What do you think?  I'm glad to be back among my quilt blog friends.  And, here's a photo I took of the sunset last night.  We do live in an incredibly beautiful spot in Virginia.




That could be an improvisational quilt right there.  Don't you just love all the complementary colors?  Talk to you soon.

Chatty Kathy

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