more spontaneity from piles

yet another pile of fabric looked at me and said, "i belong together in a quilt!" this pile was from an order from the etsy shop finley fabrics. at least half the fabrics are ruby star society prints, which explains why they go together. the others other few colors i got were related and the low volume and gingham coordinated to round out the look.

so why did this suddenly want to be a quilt when i have soooo many others in the works?

two things: mother's day weekend and aunt bet's.

this is the "aunt bet's quilt" from designer jo of frankie and ray.

i first saw this pattern when jolene of blue elephant stitches posted her version. jolene's quilt is clean and warm, the pattern distinct. i loved the improv, scrappy look of it. aunt bet's has been on my to-make list every since.

mother's day weekend this year i knew i was going to get some time to sew. i get to do whatever i want for the weekend, no guilt. on saturday afternoon i was ready to sew and just needed to decide what to make. i was having that itch to start something new. i mean, it's my absolutely guilt-free sewing time. so i didn't need to feel any guilt for ignoring all my other quilt babies and working on a new one. i began debating which of 3 long-planned quilts i should start. the fabric pull piles for them have been sitting enticingly in my sewing room for quite a while.

but as i walked in to my sewing room, i thought, "i want to make an aunt bet's." completely out of nowhere. because, really, what i wanted to do was play with my fabrics. when i sew, i do have the goal of making quilts but playing with fabrics is equally important to me. so on this guilt-free day, i just felt like working with some of the many fabrics i've collected that i haven't had a chance to use yet.

there is another pile of fabric that i had recently been thinking might make a good gypsy wife (laugh long and hard with me if you know about my first still-to-be-finished gypsy wife) or an aunt bet's. yet as i went to pick up that fabric pile, i saw the finley fabrics pile and it was simply serendipity. 

i studied jolene's quilt a bit to see what it was i liked about her version and what made it work for me. looking at some of the other aunt bet's quilts on IG, i felt like some of them were so busy the pattern was entirely lost, at least when viewing as a whole from a distance. i wanted to clearly see the geese and quarter log cabins amid the improv border and spacing sections.

i decided there needed to be high contrast between the geese and the sky in the flying geese blocks, that the improv rectangle sections should be mostly low-volume and small scale prints, the quarter log cabins more of the mid- and high-volume prints. i also wanted the hearth squares in the quarter log cabins to be the warm colors, with a few surprises thrown in.

the colored fabrics in my pile were pretty high-volume prints, so i added a few more low volume neutrals and another light blue print from stash.

 

i actually wasn't feeling that great on saturday night, but i really wanted to make use of my special sewing time, so i worked through the headache and the eyeball that felt like it wanted to pop out of my head. i got about half my flying geese done before i knew i needed to stop.

as i was making my geese, i was sewing the trimmings into hsts at the same time. with my last batch, i had one lone grey triangle and couldn't figure out where in my mess of a sewing room its partner had gone. i was completely puzzled. there isn't much space between where i was cutting and sewing.

well, when i pressed everything open i found out what i'd done. i'd trimmed the wrong side of the block off! that's when i set down the rotary cutter, turned everything off, and walked out of the sewing room for the night. 

on monday afternoon, i finished off the geese. this particular grouping ended up look very christmasy with the red, green, and gold tones in it.

all together, though, the christmas look recedes. i would like to use the hsts in the quilt top, maybe as a border. i'll have to adjust the spacing sections to accommodate them if i want to keep my aimed for size of 60"x72". i'll decide when i start piecing sections together. i could always keep them for the quilt back. it just seems more work.

i've got my geese done and have mostly completed the 8 quarter log cabin blocks. i've been very intentional as i piece these about what i'm putting where. i have about 12 fabrics i'm using (none of the low-volumes) so i pick 8 for each round, making sure to rotate through them as i go. i haven't used any of the fabrics on repeat in any of the blocks.

i did pretty good at keeping everything straight until the last round of blocks. look at the top two and you can see where i failed to rotate the block correctly. sigh. a little unpicking and i'll get them righted. once these are done, all i have to do is make my spacing sections and i'll have a new quilt top!