AHIQ Green Challenge Project Update Featuring Sawtooth Borders!

Log Cabin Improv by Mary Hogan is an excellent book full of great tips!

Being encouraged I've been piecing sawtooth borders like they're going out of style.

This is my 'Mostly Green' quilt top started with the AHIQ green challenge.

 

Hello AHIQuilters!

This is an update on my green challenge quilt I call 'Mostly Green.' It has 16 patch blocks, 4 patch blocks, and 9 patch blocks and then I ran out out of inspiration and it got folded and put away.

But after reading and rereading Mary Hogan's Log Cabin Improv book full of great tips and ideas I got enthused and now I'm piecing sawtooth borders to finish it up! 

And I'm piecing more string borders and more sawtooth borders for other projects, I'm rolling!

Stay tuned for more on borders!

Luciferous

Luciferous is now a quilt top (aka flimsy).

SO very far from my original idea, but so completely "me."

To assemble the top I stitched sets of rows (3 then 4 then 4 again) instead of working from the top to the bottom.

MUCH easier to work with.

This is the bottom set of four before the final yellow row was added.

I am really, really happy with the way this came together.  

The top measures 57 inches wide and 66.5 inches long.

Before putting Luciferous into the "waiting to be quilted" closet, I made some notes to myself about how I want to piece the back.

A week or so ago I realized that this backing, originally intended for Razzle-Dazzle, was actually better suited to Luciferous.

(Tropical Flair by Hello Angel for Wilmington Prints)

The Rollicking Robots "Glitch" yardage by Patrick Lose will be used for the binding and also for the inserts in the back.

Luciferous will definitely be a colorful scrappy happy quilt.

* * *

You can read the rest of the winding back story by visiting my blog and using the Luciferous label at the end of this post.

Quiltdivajulie

Blanca Peak Sunrise

 Since Kaja proposed Picking a Palette I keep coming back to this photo by my sister. The Navaho know Blanca Peak as the Sacred Mountain to the East. It feeds immeasurable sand into the Great Sand Dunes National Park along its southwestern side. 

Blanca Peak, CO

Using the scrap bag, here's what I made. Although I love the mountain and the foreground, I decided to concentrate on the sky for my quilt. It's such a wonderful mix of grey, greyed purples, clear sky blues, and brilliant pinks.

Blanca Sunrise baby quilt

This is posted on my blog, too, but needs to be here. Thanks for a great prompt, Kaja. 

Ann

Concatenation - Version Four

It started here in February - this was my initial post for Concatenation on the AHIQ blog and the "Pick a Color Palette" challenge from Kaja.

And this was the initial fabric pull.  From here things have only "gone south" instead of moving forward.

In June, I shared this update post on the AHIQ blog after the initial design idea was abandoned in favor of a Scrappy Trips.

And this was the enhanced fabric pull to brighten and lighten the palette.

But still nothing happened and the yardage shown above went back into the stash.

Somewhere since then the design idea changed again, from a Scrappy Trips to a Two by Four layout with the blocks oriented on their sides (inspired by one shared on Cathy L's blog).

Over the weekend, I pulled out the already cut strips (half-WOF in length) and sorted them into pairs, just to see where things stood.

My reaction?  

Ugh - too dark.  And too muddy.

Not to mention there are only half as many strip pairs as I'd need to make 70 blocks for a quilt 56" x 70" in size.

I pulled out the backing yardage and hung it alongside the strip pairs.

Just not loving this plan at all. But since I still love the elephants, I am going to give these strips one last chance to become a quilt.

Version 4 will be inspired by Cluck Cluck Sew's free tutorial for her Scrappy Summer double four patch quilt.

Step one was to check the drawer where I keep the random leftover 2.5" strips.  

The weathered gray would make a good alternate color . . .  

And, given the past "stalls" on this project, I decided to forge ahead with this latest plan rather than setting it aside.

It wasn't long until I had paired the two different grays with some of the already cut strips to create 126 four patches.  (my version will be slightly smaller that the one in the tutorial)

The four patches are now pressed and ready to help guide the choice of scrappy alternate squares from the resource boxes.

Onward.

(originally posted on my personal blog / cross-posted here for "the record")

Quiltdivajulie

Response to New Challenge

Last week Ann shared the latest prompt for the Ad Hoc Improv Quilters.  

I came home from my visit with Lynne with a huge stack of scrap slab triangles that I'd made from her leftover blocks and scrap stash - including these forty-seven yellow triangles.

I have a good sized box of yellow bits and pieces to make enough more for a generous lap quilt (same size as Kefi).

So the "yellow" part of the challenge was easy.

But what to use for the side triangles?

Initially I thought about a blend of aquas, light blues, and turquoises along the lines of Poppyseed's Quilt (gifted to one of our nephew's families).

I even thought about using the elephant fabric for backing.

But this mix didn't make my heart sing, so I put the aquas and elephants away and went back to the stash.

During a long telephone call with Lynne we discussed the option of using greens.  The contrast representing sunshine and green grasses is powerful but I wasn't convinced I wanted to make such "dark" side triangles. 

So the greens were returned to the stash.

A while back I mentioned wanting to make a pink and yellow quilt inspired by a photo of Lynne's mom sitting under the Yellow Zebras quilt while reading her new Christmas book about Yellow.  So I pulled out a batch of pinks to see if that might work.

Again, I like the colors together but the intensity still felt too strong for an entire quilt top.

So the pinks were returned to the stash.

Eventually I realized I had been fighting with myself over NOT using my black and white stash.  

For some silly reason I had convinced myself that was the "easy way out."

So I pulled out this box of 10" squares cut a long time ago for a project that went in another direction . . .

. . .  and I found the obvious answer for the side triangles after using the black and white squares for this "mock up."

 

I then went to the stash and chose these black on whites to use for the side triangles.  

So my project in response to Ann's "Here Comes the Sun" prompt will be a quilt I've named Luciferous.

(adjective meaning "bringing or giving/providing light or insight")

Quiltdivajulie

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“People often called us perfectionists, but we were not looking for perfection. We were looking for some kind of magic in the music.”

Paul Simon

AHIQ Prompt July 2022: Sun

 Our family is already anticipating the solar eclipse that crosses Texas in 2024. Since some of them live in the path of totality, there's a place to easily visit and view. With my mind stuck on sun and eclipse not to mention sunrise, sunset, sunshine... SUN seems like a possible prompt.

How to start?Use the color or a traditional block including medallions, rising sun, and a galaxy of star blocks. Songs and quotes often include the sun. Some of my favorites include: 

    Peter Pan is the sun and the moon and the stars!

and

    Sunshine on my shoulders makes me happy.

and

    It's gonna be a bright, bright sunshiny day. 

Whether you create a paean to our bright, particular star; segue off a traditional design; or simply grab your yellows, Here Comes the Sun!  "It's been a long, cold lonely winter." Let's make some time for joy. #AHIQSun is the tag so we can all follow your work. 

Join the celebration!

For the Americans, Happy Fourth of July!

In the Background . . .

I last posted about my project for the current "color palette" challenge in February (click HERE).

Since then I had chosen a design and cut 2.5" strips from each of the fabrics in the initial pull.  And then things sat . . . and sat . . . and sat.

Younger son claimed the quilt as his (despite its very UN-made status) and I showed him the design.

We both agreed it was B-0-R-I-N-G.

After a bit of brainstorming, he decided he would really like me to make him a Scrappy Trips quilt.

And again the project sat.

Until today.

 

I was tired of the pile of WOF strips on my countertop so I cut them in half and sorted them into the beginnings of thirty blocks using my fold-up laundry dryer (purchased exclusively for projects like this).

He and I had both agreed the palette was pretty dark so off to the stash I went to brighten things up.

96 more half-WOF strips are needed to make the thirty blocks so I pulled 48 more fabrics from the stash.  This is half of them.

This is the second half.  

These will definitely brighten the overall palette and add a lot of interest / curiosity to the mix.

So here is where things stand now.  Backing in the foreground and fabrics pulled to cut the additional WOF strips.

Once that is done at least I'll be able to clip the sets together and put them into a project box for easier moving about until it is time to sit and sew them together.

I am quite sure that this will not be completed within the current six-month challenge period!

Oh, and the project/quilt has been named Concatenation (noun: a series of interconnected or interdependent things or events)

Quiltdivajulie