WIP

This stripe is an interesting thing. I liked that it worked as a counterbalance to the checks and little fussy prints and I thought the darkest of the blues would help echo the darkest blue shirt and stop all the mid-tones predominating. Sadly, I didn't like it as much as I thought I would once it was in the quilt, so I went ahead and took it out.  But I can see that it looks much better in the photos I shared than it does in real life and the arguments for its inclusion are still valid, so I fully intend to keep it in the pile and start adding it back in, though possibly in smaller bits.  It's not in these photos, but I reckon next time I post, it will be in there again.

I still like the notion of separating my curvy claws with something, so I have had a go with the crosses.

This seemed to be worth persisting with, so I kept going.

Of course nothing is carved in stone, but right now I think the six blocks on the left will be staying as they are.  The right hand bits are more by way of an experiment.  I am playing around trying to work out how symmetrical or asymmetrical I want to be, taking into account that in some versions I like how the blocks interact a lot, and in others I do not like them one tiny little bit.  I don't feel like I'm stuck, just playing still, but it does also feel like these blocks might turn out to be a bit contrary.

 

Trying stuff out

I am moving slowly. After a few false starts, I decided that one of the issues I was having with my group of fabrics was that there was something rather similar about them - a preponderance of small, busy prints - that was making them hard to work with.  I dug out a much paler shirt and a nice stripe, to see if they would help.

I haven't found anywhere yet that the pale one looks at home, but I had a go with the stripe. Here are a couple of versions.

This definitely reminds me of claws, now that Yvonne has pointed it out, and I am now thinking of it as "Wild Things" but it is also reminiscent of the spiky teasles in my garden. Using the strip between the curves accentuated this and I quite liked it, so I kept going.

You will see that I got bored of just making curves and started making crosses as well.  I like the crosses still, but as of today, I have started taking the stripes out, in the places where I had done actual sewing.  I have been trying to put my finger on why I decided to do this and the closest I can come to an explanation is that they pull my eye too much toward them, so I see the stripes but the curves are fenced off from each other.  I'm not sure I want strips of old pyjama to be the star of this particular show, so out they go.  Of course I may revisit, but for now the crosses are staying, the stripes are going.

Off we go again

This is the next bundle of shirts. All bought one day in late March from an Age UK shop in an upmarket suburb of Nottingham. 

You can't tell from this photo, but the gingham-type check at the back is a pale purple.  the rest are pretty much as they look.

A first pass through my drawers resulted in a few options to bulk this out: a nice navy with a tiny white dot, a mid-blue with a Hawaiian vibe and some scraps of dark red.  They really are scraps, though, so while I'm not putting them away just yet, I won't be counting on them for much either.

My calculation is that I am a couple of shirts short, but that's fine. I'm going to make a start and worry about what else a bit further down the line.  

Not wishing to hang about, since sewing time is hard to come by, I ignored my original thought, which involved pinwheels and/or hourglasses and decided instead to go for something fiddly and time-consuming.  There's just no accounting for the way my mind works. 

Hmm. I'm not loving these right now.  I am okay with the general idea, but someone, in passing, said they look like dinosaur eggs and I just can't get that image out of my head.  I'm not going to give up though.  I am hoping that a little rejig of the proportions, otherwise known as a sneaky trim on one side, will sort things out. Let's see how that goes.