It's Not Perfect, But I Like It Anyway

I was looking around for a quick machine quilting project and remembered the green Floating Squares quilt. It took almost no time to sandwich and pin the top and then of course, why not dive into the quilting? So funny that I finished up the hand quilting on Learning Curves over the weekend too as it has some of the same dark green fabrics used as in the other.

Floating Squares #2 and Learning Curves--ready for binding

Sometimes it happens that way when you make quilts with lots of different fabrics. It's not unusual to see the same piece of fabric in five or more different quilts around here!  The green Floating Squares quilt was a crazy, dive-deep-into-the-stash-tote sort of effort and also, my second time to attempt this sort of process {another of Sherri Lynn Wood's improv. scores}. Honestly, I'm not sure it's any better than the first, but for some reason I like it anyway.  Some of the things I like about it is the fact that it looks truly looks make-do and carefree to me. Kind of 'Gee's Bend-ish'? It's not square, just has roughly trimmed sides and the piecing is absurdly unapologetic in its lack of pretentiousness. If this quilt had been made in a fabulous color palette, I would probably be hand quilting the tar out of it with Perle Cotton and getting ready to hang it on a wall!

The Green Floating Squares is a finish!

I also really like that it has at least two fabrics that have been lurking in the totes for over 20 years and many, many more that are not the least bit new or exciting. That makes me sooo... happy! And brings back lots of memories too, as at least one fabric was used in my very first full sized quilt. I'm always intrigued by the blending of old fabrics with newer, and how even a cactus print fabric can nestle up against a Christmassy fabric in this sort of quilt without looking completely bizarre.

Love the addition of raspberry pink

In fact, in a one or two color quilt, the print often becomes secondary to the value changes in the dominant color. One thing I've discovered for sure, green quilts are tough to make. Wowsers, is it ever hard to make a pretty green quilt unless you stick to the lighter, brighter, clearer greens! It's one of my irresistible colors though. I buy it in every tone and shade, whenever there's opportunity. Greens are so serene and calm, but they can be surprisingly drab and murky too. I'm sure some of you are thinking 'Audrey, it's time to step away from the green fabric tote!'*sigh

Finally found the perfect place to use that strange
butterfly, backing fabric that was given to me!

I will, I will....  But there's no harm in challenging ourselves to step outside of our comfort zones, experimenting with new color palettes or new methods of putting a quilt together. It's often an excellent way to reinforce the hard earned lessons of value and intuitive piecing or play. And more importantly, using the oldy, moldy fabrics makes us feel less constrained to cut and hack into fabric and perhaps make a quilt we regret making. What's to regret about this one? Absolutely nothing!

#isitoouglytobeagift

I snuck away from the bookwork piling up on my desk to write this post. Guess it's probably time to get back to work! Linking up with Linda and Julie Lou at Sew, Stitch, Snap, Share #6. After all this dabbling in darker, more intense colors the past couple months, I'm about ready to start a brand new low volume quilt just to get myself back on an even keel!

The Green Floating Squares Experiment

I've been plowing through the floating squares quilt as it is a very messy project. Working on this sort of quilt just sort of takes over the quilt room! And wowsers, late yesterday evening I was rewarded with a finished quilt top. Minus a bit of trimming of course.

Floating Squares quilt top

All along I kept auditioning fabrics and trying to 'look ahead'. It really helps me to not give up and just throw it all back in a bin, always very tempting to me. This style of quilting is just crazy awkward to me!

I so wanted to keep on using the oldish bits of green fabrics from the very bottom of the tote and except for about three or fabrics, every single fabric in this quilt has been with me for at least two plus years! One fabric in particular, the dark green polka dot, was bought between 1993-1995. So amazing that I didn't already get rid of it and why not, you may ask? Our income has been a fluctuating thing through the years. I do not get rid of fabric easily or well. There is this very real fear of fabric deprivation you know!*wink

All the blocks on the wall, auditioning fabric....

You might also think that I stole some blue for this quilt, but believe me when I say those fabrics were in the green tote as well. You know how some fabrics look green or blue depending on what they're lying next too? These are those kinds of fabrics and they always ended up back in the green tote because they look more green than blue. {Unless of course they're in a green quilt!} I will admit to making one more intensely thorough search through the green tote though. And that's where I found the brighter/bluer greens that seem to wake up the more boring greens. The first time through, I thought they were too brassy to be included.

Playing with a bit of pink

And at some point I decided to break my own rules and add a spot of another color {pink}. I didn't want to introduce too much, but it just seemed to be crying out for a bit of spark. Red was considered too, but it always shrieks 'Christmas' to me unless done very carefully. haha  Does this look like a careful quilt?

Sewing rows and deciding on placement....

As I worked through sewing the rows together, occasionally I had to make a square a bit longer. I just added a skinnier strip of fabric to extend the length and then put the pink right at the end. Kind of a cornerstone, but not exactly. I was going to do this for every single short block and then decided, no, a little pink goes a long way. Instantly, I could see the pink was going to be a perfect addition in very small doses.

One row at a time

I had to force myself to keep using all the ugly greens and not just pitch them aside. One of the things I admire most about the Gee's Bend style/make-do and utilitarian type quilts is the fact that the makers are very courageous about blending fabrics. So very bold and unapologetic. The unexpectedness of some of these extremely different fabrics being used  in the very same quilt {even side by side} always makes me smile, but when it comes to my own work? Totally different story! In this quilt I managed to use an old, (ugly) floral batik, an 80's style calico with pink roses, that hideous dark green/cream polka dot, and even a cactus print that I'm positive was given to me. I would never, ever have bought that!

 There are things already apparent to me that could have been done differently. For instance, I wish I had been more careful in how the horizontal strips of green were staggered. A slightly better placing could have possibly allowed the quilt to have better flow and movement. But it's done, I have to feel good about that. And the fact that it looks interesting to me {there on the wall} when I walk around the corner into my quilt room--success of some sort, don't you think? Linking up with Scraptastic Tuesday!

Hey, Whatever Works....

First there were four Vintage Red blocks and now there are eight. That means I'm either half through with them or maybe a third? Depends on how many I decide to make. They are super easy to stitch, but I have to take a break and switch them out with something else or I will probably go insane.

Vintage Red blocks on the wall

It could be that I'm already there. We all live in our own little reality don't we? lol  I worked on the Floating Squares score over the weekend and looky, looky....  I am making them into blocks again.*sigh  It is the only thing that makes sense to me so I finally quit fighting it and just continued on my merry way. It actually feels more comfortable this time around and I am thinking it must be the all green theme plus using my older fabrics.

Floating Squares in the works....

There is only one or two fabrics in the whole mix that I would love to have a bit leftover for working into other projects. Every other one could completely be used up and I'd only cheer! That does cut down on the 'what if I totally screw this up' factor which makes me more ambivalent about the outcome too. Not such a great feeling when hello? I'm putting my time into a quilt that I feel 'ambivalent' about? So I'm sorting through all those emotions and forging ahead anyway because I think I might actually be learning something. These blocks look okay, bad and terrible and yet, they seem to be getting slightly better with practice? Slightly more wonky even if only I can see the difference.

There's another very odd thing happening during the time I'm working with these mostly old, really tired fabrics. I am digging and pawing my way through the fabrics totes during short {okay, it's really quite longish} breaks and thinking/dreaming up new and wonderful future projects. What's up with that?

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....