Monday, July 9, 2012

When enthusiasm almost gets me in trouble on Design Wall Monday

Okay, getting more than half of the blocks sewn for this quilt got me all excited about seeing what it would look like with the sashing. A trip last week to Fabric Shack resulted in finding a dynamite clear blue Moda Marbles fabric with a golden yellow Moda Marbles for the accent. Exactly the shades I visualized. Here is part of the design.


This is an offset arrangement I first saw on Dana's blog Old Red Barn Co. Click here to see her wonderful quilt. Now mine is a bit bigger, but then you know I am genetically unable to make small quilts - really, its true - LOL!

So on Sunday I decided to start cutting fabric for the sashing - slice, dice, stitch, iron, slap it up on the design wall. Oooohhhhhh.......wait, I want unpieced straight of grain strips between the rows! Did I already whack too much off that 3 yard piece of blue? I hurriedly checked my math (and you know the issues I have with math) and I determined that I will have about 1" of extra length for the strips. At least I think that's correct. I did get the same answer two out of three times. So my enthusiasm had me dashing head long into this and some deeper thinking was probably advisable, but its too late for that now. I'll just roll with it -- and I did leave some of that blue on the bolt at Fabric Shack. That's my fall back position- gotta have a fallback position.

Here are two of my favorites of the last batch I sewed. I really like that cheddar print- you can sorta see the purple bird in it.


And that hot pink that looks like amoebas or paramecium (I never did get those straight) makes me happy with the chartreuse/turquoise polka dot.


So, I have a question... are you a neat quilter or a messy one? I don't suppose it will come as too big a surprise that I'm in the messy category. Years ago I worked with a guy who was brilliant but his office always looked like a tornado had just gone through it. Paper was piled everywhere, books precariously perched on the edge of the desk, half drunk cups of cold coffee held down other stacks and front and center on his desk was a little plaque that said "Chaos is a sign of genius". By that measure, I'm another Einstein - LOL! Right now this is how the floor of my sewing studio looks....


aren't the colors pretty?? I need to fold this fabric, but I want to whack off a couple of strips from each piece for another Kaffe quilt I'm planning, and I haven't found the time to do that. So it remains a heap that I step over and around. Oh well, its hard to find time to be neat when you are dealing with creativity - that's my story and I'm sticking to it!

Happy stitching-
carol fun



13 comments:

  1. Love your quilt but I'm crazy about your mad mess. LOL

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  2. I love the color combos you have going on. The blue is just flat out beautiful!

    You are so talented, who cares what your craft studio looks like....it's all about the finished product! Besides, a true artists doesn't have time to waste on cleaning, they must create...that's you my friend. :)

    I love seeing all the beautiful things you make. :)

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  3. lol I have a fridge magnet that says I'm not messy, I'm creative. I think it says all!

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  4. MATH in quilting is a struggle when all you want to do is sew! I am with you on this point, I often start slicing away on the fabric before I've determined I'm cutting it most efficiently. Good thing you left a bit of the blue for emergency needs later...Love all the bright colors and happy prints.

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  5. What a great use of your Kaffe fabrics; I love these blocks....and herein lies my problem (or one of them). I want to run upstairs and start making these blocks. You have such great Kaffe dots to go with your prints. This one is definitely going on my list.

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  6. :0)

    I must confess, too much mess makes me nervous. It is too easy for me to ruin one project while working on the next I don't keep a reign in on the mess.

    That aside, my dh is a tad OCD and it would drive him nuts if I had fabric lying all over the place.

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  7. Another beauty!! And you work like I do - everything ends up in a glorious, colorful, tangled mess! Your quilt sings.

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  8. That blue is spectacular! I'm a messy quilter. My kids say I like clean hands and clean rooms, but I like messy food and a messy sewing space. Yours doesn't look like a mess to me! You are just getting a feel for the colors ;-)

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  9. I think messy is making you very creative!!!

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  10. When I was a working professional woman I had a neat office. I needed to see the top of my desk and to have everything in it's place so I could find it. Now? Well let's just say that your picture could be anywhere on the floor of all three rooms in my studio. I prefer neat but it just doesn't happen....and I am still happy.

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