Red is a Neutral

Since I'm not doing much actual sewing I thought I'd keep my blogging muscles working by doing a quick post reflecting on the Red is a Neutral challenge.

This is where I got to in the end.

Sadly it seems to be a difficult top to photograph and the bright sun here has washed out the colours too much.  I'll try again when it's cloudier.  In real life there are a pale green and a lovely lemon-y yellow which are virtually indistinguishable in this picture (though you can get a better idea here).

It's been an interesting exercise for me but I think on balance I'm happy that I met the brief.  There is a lot of red in this quilt but for me it works to enhance the blues, greens and yellows rather than demanding to be the centre of attention.  It's a useful notion to have up one's sleeve - that red can be used instead of, say, low volume options. 

I have also learned that if I stick with the same block for too long I get bored, then I kind of lose the will to sew at all, so if I want to work along these lines again I will need to build in variety, either by making more than one block or by changing scale or some other jiggery-pokery.

Red, Two Blocks, and Chinese Coins Mashup

The border of the Square Deal is finally done. I hope. After a few months in time out, I changed a few blocks in the outer border to get better definition. Now they move from crips delineation at the bottom left to more diffusion at the top right. {EDIT: I retook and replaced the photo. This one is better but now a bit cooler than real life. Sigh.}

The Square Deal quilt top

The center mixed some Chinese Coins that just didn't make it as a quilt with HSTs in every shade of solid red/peach/pink in the stash. The triangles are all ruler cut although {if I'd been thinking} free-hand might have looked better.

The crosses are Sujata's Lattice design from Cultural Fusion Quilts and they were scissor cut. My crosses widen with each set. The first ones were so narrow that the seams overlap after pressing but the last few are superhighways!

Does that mean I finished three improv invitations at once?

1. Chinese Coins {because those were the original units for the striped triangles} 
2. Two Blocks
3. Red is a Neutral (because I played with several fabrics before deciding red looked best with those striped triangles}

"Red" stretches it a bit. These reds all read as foreground rather than background. Must {and will} try again.

Also posted on my blog.

Finally! Chinese Coins finish

I worked on a Chinese coins quilt way back when we were challenged to do so. It seems so long ago. I have six granddaughters, which really means that I have a great deal of pink fabric. Pink of all types and shades and prints. It's almost wrong, except that I still sew for said granddaughters which leaves me with lots of scraps. I decided at some point to put them to good use. We were working on Chinese coins at the time, so why not?

This is what I came up with. I added the teal just because it was there and I liked the contrast. I discovered this pretty pink flowered linen in mom's stash and decided that it was the perfect backing. That despite the fact that it wasn't quite long enough. A strip of hot pink added to the top and bottom fixed that.

Naturally I wrote a post on this little quilt. You can find it here if you're interested.

Hello! from Debra of Debra Dixon Design

Hello Happy Quilters!

I've decided to join you here!  My blog is Debra Dixon Design and you are welcome to stop by!

My first improvisational quilt was sewn in college from corduroy scraps I bought from a factory.  This was in 1973 while I was at the University of Oklahoma getting a home economics degree.  Up to that point I had been primarily a dressmaker.  I started sewing clothes in the 3rd grade while attending an after school program but it wasn't until junior high when I took over the main task of sewing my own clothes.

In the early 1990s I discovered thrift shopping where I could buy all the clothes I wanted at a ridiculous price. My focus moved away from dressmaking to quilting.  I had already been dabbling in quilting from the mid 1980s; just about the time Olfa rotary cutters and mats showed up on the market.  My 2 influences at the time were Nancy Crow & Yvonne Porcella.  Armed with my trusty rotary cutter I set out to try to figure out strip piecing.  I poured over their books for hours.  I eventually got the hang of what to do & my work was displayed in a local art gallery.

Around 2004 I discovered the internet had opportunities for like-minded people to hang out together.  About.com was a friendly quilt forum and I made a lot of friends I still have to this date while there.  Blogging came along almost immediately.  I formed a nucleus of quilters who wanted to blog and together we designed blogs and linked up through web rings.  It was great fun!  For almost 10 years we spent a lot of time visiting each other's studios through our blogs.

My quilting is mainly improvisational.  I've gone through a lot of phases, stages and styles but I always return to the idea of letting the machines do the work.  I've done some major embroidery work through crazy quilting but presently, I am enjoying the machine work more.  I have an APQS Millennium longarm, a 6 spool Babylock embroidery machine and a few Janome sewing machines.  My stash is unbelievable.  I recently inherited another quilter's huge stash when she decided to start over and give all her current stash away.  I am also a huge clothing thifter so a good percentage of my quilts use reclaimed fabrics in them.  Right now I am sewing improv quilts with thrifted knit clothes.

I currently maintain a studio where I concentrate on commissioned work, art markets and donating quilts to various service organizations.  This year I am focusing on the children of Angel Tree.  I hope to have plenty of quilts to give children during the Christmas season through my church's ministry with Prison Fellowship.

I look forward to your friendships!

Mapping Challenge complete.

I sewed on buttons all morning.  I kept putting off finishing this because I knew it was going to take a while and be a little tedious.  But, it's done and dusted.   Whew!

21 1/2" X 25 1/2"

Label

There is a little more information on my other blog.

I still need to finish the Scale Challenge.  It's been languishing unhappily for months.

I have a lot to learn about improv.  I haven't quite climbed out of the box yet.

Robin

Red is a Neutral has been such an interesting challenge! You can read more about my finished quilt top over here at my blog. I think after a couple other projects get some attention, this is one that I will definitely return to.

#AHIQRED and #UANDUQAL quilt top

Starting without a plan

Finally I get to Red is a Neutral, though I have literally no clue now what I am about.  

I found these shirts:

and teamed them up with some reds from my stash (no pictures because I have shoved them in the washing machine, but there is an old Grunge and a couple of Oakshott bits).

So far so good, but it seemed very red.

So I added these:

I'm thinking that the bits of green, black, white and tan give me some options in terms of what else I will add.

These two could open it up even more.

I am torn since the one on the right almost deserves a quilt all to itself.  It's in the mix for now though.

Here they are all together.

Now I've got to team them up with some not-so-red fabrics and see where that gets me.