23 January 2020

Ruby Snippets a finish for 2020

This quilt is titled Ruby Snippets. I have no idea why, that's just the only thing that I could come up with. Regardless, it about as improv as a quilt can be. I started with beige scraps and intended that would be the quilt. But just beige didn't work, it cried for some color.  So I relented.


And voila. I'm not sure I can explain my process. Mostly I have a short attention span, when I get tired of something, I make a change. In this case I added red. You remember the red challenge? Well, so did I. What better way to solve the blahs, right?


I do most of my deciding standing in front of the design wall. That was certainly true in this case. These pieces are just that, pieces. Big chunks of squares and rectangles--before I added the larger neutrals. I added those just as I would for HST, except I cut everything into rectangles about the same size. I drew diagonal lines and sewed on either side, then cut on the lines. In every case I pressed toward the solid piece.


The next feeling of "ahn, enough of this" I dug out some larger pieces of beige and used them to turn what was (for the most part) rectangles, into right triangles.


It was while I was trying to figure out how to arrange the new diagonals that I hit on creating these bold lines with the red pieces. In some ways it's meant to look like a log cabin on the diagonal. But I may be the only one to see that. 


I finished it just in time to enter it in the Gulf States Quilting Association's biennial show.

7 comments:

Janie said...

How fabulous is that, Mary!
That's a classic, great use of color, contrast and balance.
I applaud you.

O'Quilts said...

LOve Love and Love...red is my favorite neutraL!!

Robin said...

Oh how clever you are! It's beautiful.

Ann said...

How clever you are to work it out. And what a treat to have it in a show soon.

Kaja said...

This is just great, Mary! I like the diagonal, sort of log cabin-y feel a lot, and the combination of those lovely reds with all the neutrals.

Quiltdivajulie said...

I love it - no matter how you got there, it's wonderful. Process is a very tricky thing to describe for others.

Mary Marcotte said...

I can't believe that it's been so long since I posted about this quilt. Sorry for missing all your comments and posts. I've been a little busy with family. When you have seven sisters, catching up with everyone is a whole thing. I love my crazy, fun-loving sisters!

So the quilt. I see log cabin, but the show team is a bit more traditional, so there were some questions. Some "how" and "why" questions that I'm not sure I answered in a traditional way. In the end, I said stick it anywhere. I feel that I've gotten enough from making the quilt that seeing it a show or winning a ribbon is not terribly important. It will be in the show, but perhaps in the "other" category. After all that, I am thrilled to read your comments.

I always love my quilts, no matter whether others "get" them, but your responses certainly are encouraging. I am convinced that my tribe is right here and hope I applaud your work as much as you praise mine.