The Floating Squares Quilt and A Roundabout Way of Getting Inspired

I've been in a little bit of a funky, funk lately. Summer blues? Who really knows, but the fact is, while I'm piddling away on all my many applique projects (which I still love), I'm a bit bored. And lethargic. So I'm taking a kind of side step in the hopes of challenging my brain to wake up, not that I'm giving up the applique projects. Heaven forbid!

My Quilty Chaos quilt

A lot of little things led to this idea of mine. It usually works that way with me. Sort of a trickle down, pile it up effect. First of all, the quilt above. While we were having a boat load of company a couple weekends ago, my oldest daughter dug out this quilt and piled it on top of the little nest she makes whenever her bedroom's been taken over by our guests. It's one I worked on over a year ago for Sherri Lynn Wood's Improv. Handbook as one of the test quilters. I graded it as a big fat fail at the time, but now I'm starting to see things to actually like about it. Things that might help me get somewhere in that never ending 'personal style' quest that I seem to be on all the time.

I did buy Sherri's book recently, but I can't seem to read it. My brain kind of freezes at all the design terminology and says 'Hey! NOT imputing up here!' Anne talked recently about studying this book, working her way through the scores, {such a great idea} and then made a fun version of this same floating squares score. In an email conversation, she mentioned Stephie's version and of course I had to go take a look at that too. Wowsers, I do so admire their courage with fabric and color! Also, thanks to Lynne, I've had this interesting idea of making single color quilts from fabric that's languishing way deep in the stash. It may not be our favorite fabric today, but it's definitely worth hacking into, right? And I do so adore a frugal make-do sort of quilt.....

The first units

Oh yeah. So with all that tumbling through my busy, summer-drained, but mildly interested brain, I decided to revisit this particular experiment. Why did I think it was a fail exactly? Because there are definitely elements of this quilt that I rather like, in spite of everything I don't! Okay. For starters, the process was, to put it bluntly, quite terrifying to me. With a capital T. Very un-orderly with absolutely no clear vision of the end result. I'm not always a big fan, no matter how adventuresome you might think I am. It felt like white-knuckled winter driving to me.

Putting them together into blocks and auditioning other fabrics

I literally had to push, prod and make myself get through the process. Friends, it wasn't the least bit fun until I finally had a kind of breakthrough, allowing myself to set a few boundaries, cheat on a couple of the 'limits' and finally decide on a finishing-up plan. How improv. is that?

Settling on a design layout and where the block overlap should be....

I admit to loving the learning how to sew gentle curves and getting the chunky, funky blocks together into something less than straight line rows. That was the very best part. Because I am soooo lame. And why did I put the improv. units into blocks anyway? That still bothers me even though it's probably my default  position and the only way I could get through what felt like absolute chaos.

Learning how to cut and sew gentle curves...

But who cares if they're being lame when something starts getting fun? Just take a rotary cutter and roll it through both layers in a gentle motion, going in where the blocks go in and trying to be very organic about it all. Sew it together slowly and bingo! We've got curves! Something to store away in that bag of quilting skills we pack around. Try as I may, I had never quite got the hang of it before....

Playing with exactly where the curve should be....

I used my entire design wall and a little extra, trying to make sure the quilt was always laying flat, flat, flat. Honestly, it was the first time I was almost bitter about not having a real, honest-to-goodness sized design wall!

Starting to sew the quilt top together....

I sewed up those short, 4-block rows into a big square and then added on the others sides until Ta-da! A quilt top with raggedy edges. Which I didn't know what to do with AT ALL. Why chop off all the edges into perfectly straight cornered quilt with so much quilty chaos going on inside? I didn't want my quilt to hang completely wonky and look unkempt. {Remember, I generally make fairly traditional looking quilts and this was painful to see.}

This was another frightening moment, with me actually perspiring and getting a headache, until I made the decision to add on a solid border. Just cage it all in. {Refer to the first picture in the post.} Which again, sort of defeats the idea of WooHoo! Look at me, I'm sewing Improv. style! But it really did help me so very much to come to terms with getting an actual finish in. That felt huge even though I was pretty sure Sherri would not approve. I quickly forgave myself for imagined shortcomings and made the deadline, knowing it would never be chosen for the book.*sigh

One big quilt top, minus the border that hopped on...

It's so hard to learn new things--the anxiety, fear, almost physical drag that we feel on our body in making the attempt. Stepping out into the unknown and pushing through.*whew  I felt pretty wrung out and yes, a bit exhilarated too, believe it or not. Because I did finish. I pushed through something that felt nearly impossible for my very structured, creatively challenged brain to absorb and comprehend.

Then I left it alone except for some of that gentle curve stuff. Such a good feeling to have a good, solid grasp on that particular process at least!

My first hunt for long forgotten greens....

And now I'm thinking about doing my own sort of series, which I always find challenging and interesting no matter how appalling my fabric choices. I'm going to start out with Score #1 in 'The Improv. Handbook for Modern Quilters: A Guide to Creating, Quilting, and Living Courageously'. haha  Except for the word 'Modern', the title could have been written for me. And yes, that's the Floating Squares score. Again. Only this time done in greens from the very bottom of the big green tote. {Some of these lovelies have probably been in there since the late 90's in case you were wondering.}

Adding a bit of spark....

Maybe a bit more of the sparky greens to help? Yep, that already appears more lively even though it's utterly safe and bland looking. It's feels like a very comfortable starting point, just saying. And I need to get started. There's been something nagging away at me lately that makes me feel like this experimentation is very necessary for my continued growth as a quilter. Does that make sense? Truly, I feel better already just for having a plan to purposely hack away at some fabric. Especially because none of it's important enough to make me cry if perchance it gets ruined in the process! And don't worry. I'll play with the good stuff at a later date. A big thanks to everyone who helped inspire me in this series as it already feels fun and not nearly as scary-hairy as the last go-round. *Nobody paid me to try and persuade you to buy this book....