Wednesday 19 August 2015

Learning to stretch!

This is a post with two strands. The first is this:  I have been working away at Walls assuming I knew where the top was but yesterday I looked at it from a different direction and quite liked it that way too., like this:


Ignore, if you can, the longest vertical gold stripe, which is too big and too central (in this picture at least).  I think I am going to stick with my original plan, but this may at some point turn out to be a different quilt!  And sadly, one of the things that argues against this is that I like my tiny gold triangles to have their points heading upward not over to the side.  I'm not entirely sure what that says about me, but I definitely wish I could be a person less bothered by triangle points.  Funny how whenever I learn something about myself whilst quilting it turns out to go against my view of myself (less calm, less patient, and now more picky about little details - oh dear!)

My second thought for the day is that I definitely will not have quite enough of the fabrics I have been desperately trying to stretch.  I do have a virtual safety net in the form of lovely Lara, who has offered to send me more, but am resisting on the grounds that it will be good for my character to make this work the hard way (that's my Methodist upbringing rearing its head).   So, I am now going to push it as far as I can with the gold.  My latest block went like this:


Here it is in the middle of the rest.



I think it looks fine, so will try a bit more of this and see how far I can take it.

Leaving aside the mess of random squares on the right hand side of this (it's okay, I already knew I was messy!) I can see some things I don't like as well as lots I do in this picture.  At the moment the strip horizontal strips are a bit too chunky for my liking, but as they are not yet joined to anything else I'm hoping they'll look better once I've lost the extra bit in the seam allowance.  Also the lower gold strip is not right - I think I don't want it directly beneath the top one.  Luckily it's not joined to anything, it's just laid down there, so plenty of room for manoeuvre there. 

Finally, thanks to everyone who has expressed an interest in AHIQ.  It will kick off on September 1st.  After that posts will be on Tuesdays, and the linky party will be the last Tuesday of each month, so keep an eye out.  The button in the sidebar is just me trying to work out how this all works!

8 comments:

Sandra Walker said...

Love your colours here. This is so interesting to read about the process, decisions, and lessons learned in both quilting and about yourself. REally made me stop and think, how intriguing, the bit about the triangles pointing up. :-) Isn't Lara wonderful...love that girl.

Rachel said...

Nice! I agree that mixing up the position of the gold stripes might be good. And I think your new block type will work just fine - I had to really look to find it. I really like how this collection of colors is coming together!

Mystic Quilter said...

How very exciting!!! Looking forward to September 1st. What a splendid button you've come up with - are we able to put this on our side bar yet?
On your quilt I have to agree that I too find the strips a little on the clunky side but we don't know until we try!

Ann said...

I quite like the new direction of your quilt, too. And like you, agree the gold stripes need greater offsetting. As a fellow Methodist, let me remind you - allowing others (Lara) to help gives them joy, too. ;-)

JanineMarie said...

I do like the addition of bits of the gold. It somehow makes the blues even more vivid. And about the chunky strips--it's always amazing to me how much a block's look changes when the seam allowance has been absorbed in the sewing.

Ruth said...

I think we are all a lot more picky than we think! I think I'm quite fussy about triangle points too!

Soma @ inkTorrents.com said...

I like the gold and your latest block. A lot! Adds even more interest to the quilt.

-Soma

Paulette said...

It is always interesting to see how your thought process works. I had to chuckle in recognition at, "...it will be good for my character to make this work the hard way." Yep, I know that feeling! ;)