Rotate That Baby and Conquer Your Scraps
I finished a quilt top this week but before we get to that, here’s an invitation to a free event for anyone with scraps.
I’m sharing a new talk called Smashing Sashing during the Conquer Your Fabric Scraps Summit.
And I’d love it if you’d be there. A ticket to the summit is complimentary. There will be 21 teachers all sharing their best tips, tricks, ideas and inspiration for diving into your scrap fabrics and making good use of them in wonderful ways.
You’ll find all the details and registration (it’s free!) on the Summit’s main page. I hope to see you there!
Full disclosure: You’ll be offered the option to upgrade your ticket for a fee, which gives you extended access to all of the presentations as well as a bundle of goods: patterns, classes and more. If you upgrade, I will earn a commission. But you can take in all of the Summit at no charge and it’s fine if that’s what you prefer. 😊
Here’s the scoop on my latest project.
Early this year I decided to jump in for the Tiny Nine Patch Challenge, hosted by Taryn @reproquiltlover on Instagram. There were three sizes from which to pick and I decided on the middle size. The squares are cut at 1-1/4″ so the Nine Patch will finish at 2-1/4″ x 2-1/4″. Small enough to be super cute but not so small as to make me miserable.
You can see that I was just having fun with it, making blocks here and there when I had a few minutes, not worrying about anything but enjoying the process. They were typical Stash Bandit colors, bright and happy. However…
The original antique quilt in Taryn’s collection is so fetching, and her reproduction so alluring, I couldn’t help myself.
I also started a set of blocks in reproduction fabrics.
A ridiculous amount of fun! Over the months, both piles grew by leaps and bounds.
Recently I decided it was time to do something with them. I didn’t intend to make Taryn’s exact quilt but I didn’t really have a plan, either. So I started messing around.
I thought maybe some frames in bright colors would set them off.
So I made frames for quite a few days before anything started shaping up.
I didn’t think much about the colors, but I tried to make sure that each frame contrasted nicely with its block. And then I put some on the design wall.
I had this black with multi-colored polka dots, above, and that seemed like it might be a nice break from so many repeated blocks. I kept messing around.
I arranged and rearranged and thought maybe a Barn Raising type setting would be interesting.
It still needed something to pull it together, so I made a bunch of frames in hot pink, added another black, made frames in blue, and kept on playing.
This is how I work—one trial at a time, testing and evaluating and trying different things.
Not everything works, far from it. There are many ideas that are scrapped along the way.
At this point it seemed I could not “bring it home.” It felt incomplete but also dull, lacking in some important way, without charisma. At some point I decided to use blocks from both piles, so the bright, happy blocks got mixed with the reproduction blocks in a happy free-for-all.
Digging through my stash, I had some neon orange stripes from Tula Pink, so I made a few frames and it got a little better. I kept mulling it over, wondering why it was so lackluster.
Then a brainstorm:
Maybe I should put the blocks on point?!
What if I rotated that baby!?
And the whole quilt kind of fell into place. I found a wildly brilliant yellow in my stash for the setting triangles and cut them oversized so the piecing would “float” in the quilt center without adding a border. And I’m quite pleased with it, enough that today I’m basting it in preparation for machine quilting.
Scrappy takeaways:
- You don’t need a complete plan to begin
- Playing is not wasted time; it’s an opportunity for ideas to surface
- The plan can change many times during the creative process
- The result can be less-than-perfect until near the end, when the solution will appear
- When it’s right, there’s a little “click” in your heart that tells you so
Now I’m off to do some quilting! I hope you are creating on this warm summer day, too.
In stitches,
Tags: Diane Harris, fabric savvy, instagram, make extraordinary scrap quilts, nine patch, quilt design, scrap quilt, scrap quilts
Amy Falise
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Thanks for sharing your creative method Diane, it’s always helpful to see how you keep trying until it “clicks”. I love the end product of all your efforts, it really is very eye catching and fun.
Deb
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The first version was very nice, but I LOVE the final version – and the bright yellow/green border really frames everything in very nicely. Gorgeous! Deb E
Linda Ferguson
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Very fun! Nice job!
Roxanna Owen
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Thank you for this posting. It is okay not to know what we want, until we do! I appreciate your pictures and comments about your thinking ‘out loud’. Best wishes to you for more colorful ideas!
Marilyn K McGahan
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What a wonderful way to use scraps–even if those little squares a really tiny (in my opinion!). Love the way it finally turned out. I might even be able to do something like this. Marilyn
Jillaine K Gallagher
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Love it. I was thinking “why doesn’t she do it on point?” YEP, you did it. We think too much alike. LOL