American Jane meets Wabi Sabi...

Hello - popping in for a rare Monday post as I have some quilting projects to share... I found some motivation ... but I didn't get out of my pajamas till dinner time... but I was productive...yeah for me!! I've been working on another Moda Love quilt in the same style I did before, but this time I'm using my much loved American Jane Fabrics.  You can see the free pattern for the Moda Love quilt here.... I started with one layer cake of the Potluck collection and added bits of other collections to round things out. I got the center finished last week and yesterday I went into my sewing studio and got the borders on... now the borders aren't what I planned to do when I started but I'm so much happier with how this turned out...

 I had plenty of the yellow tape measure fabric but only a little of the multi-color tape measures... I think the multi-colored fabric is  from the Wee Play collection. Anyway I love pop of color it brings to the border... and I LOVE the perfectly imperfect... wabi sabi... look and feel it gives to this quilt.


Here's some close ups of some of the blocks...

and you can see the yellow polka dot background fabric peeking in at the corners of these blocks.  I used the technique where you stack 5, 6, or 7 fabrics .... then you cut them up randomly ... and then you shuffle the piles ...

There are 7 fabrics in this stack so I cut it into 7 irregular shapes... just layed the ruler down and sliced them up.

Then I shuffled each stack... in the first stack I moved the top fabric to the bottom, in the second stack I moved the top 2 fabrics to the bottom, in the third stack I moved the top 3 fabrics to the bottom, and so on and so on...

Now sew the pieces together and you get a block looking something like this...

Now the edges aren't going to match up but that's okay... next you trim down the block to the size you want. I started with 10" squares... I could squeeze a 9" trimmed block out of most of the pieced squares but it was easier to go down to 8 1/2". And the more fabrics you stack the more seams you have and so  it gets smaller.  Also, the block will get even smaller after you make all the HST for this pattern. My blocks finished 7 1/2" square and the center came out 60" which is perfect for my double size bed. The borders boosted it to 80" square... just what I wanted.

I take no credit for this crazy pieced block ...I've seen this technique in several quilt books... I have Stack, Shuffle and Slide: A New Technique for Stack the Deck Quilts by Karla Alexander in my library and have used it before... it is the same idea.  And I got my inspiration from this quilt done by Edyta Sitar for the Moda Love version.

And here is a close up of those wabi sabi borders...

I'm so happy with me for using up some of my horded fabrics... I know the multi-color tape measure fabric is long gone... maybe it will be reprinted some day ... but instead of living in a plastic bin it will now see the light of day... and will make me smile when it it on my bed... I'm getting the back together today and sending this off to David of Quilting by David as soon as I can pick a quilting panto for it.

Oh if you are fan of American Jane fabrics Sandy Klop has a website with her patterns and fabrics and she has some inventory of older lines... you can see it here... I just checked and she still has the yellow tape measure fabric listed....

So now that this quilt is done I'm off to play with another idea I have using my American Jane... since it is strewn all over the floor and the tables in my sewing studio I might as well play in the piles some more...LOL

I'll be linking up with couple of blogs today...Small Quilts and Doll Quilts for Design Wall Monday... and Quilting is more Fun than Housework for Oh Scrap!...and Love Laugh Quilt for Making Monday.

Hope you have great week ahead... I'm feeling good since I'm starting the week with a finish... maybe I'll get some other stuff done and have something else to show on my design wall next week...hope springs eternal...LOL

happy stitching-
carol fun