50 Shades of Brown QAL

 Lori over at Humble Quilts has given out the final step in this little quilt along. Before she shared directions for the last step she mentioned that the quilt that inspired this quilt along features four different directional prints in the border. I didn't expect that to mean the borders would be whole cloth! Funny how we each have our own interpretation of things. Nor did I expect such a small quilt in the end. Her version finishes at 14" x 18." You can see it here.

Mine looked like this at the last stage:

I auditioned leftover prints for borders...

But still wanted to make a slightly larger quilt. I also had a hankering to make some flying geese for this project. (I really seem to be stuck on geese at the moment.) So I did this:

That upper 4 Patch block seemed a bit heavy. I tried a few variations... 

And finally ended up with this, borders included. 

I'm really pleased with the way this turned out. Makes me want to do another scrappy, liberated quilt! I've layered it up and handed it over to James for quilting. It will probably take him longer to load it and decide what to do than to actually do the quilting as this is only 20" x 26." 😁

Bee, Myself & I in September

 It's time again for a bit of selfish sewing - something just for the fun of it, not to a deadline or to fulfill any commitment. 😊

A week or so ago Lori over at Humble Quilts introduced a little quilt along she's calling 50 Shades of Brown. I don't think I've ever had 50 shades of brown but I thought it might be fun to see if I could use up some of my brown scraps. The first step was to make 17 little four patch blocks, each to finish at two inches square.

Lori really likes primitive and antique quilts and prints that speak of the pioneer era. I have a small collection of those type of prints but not enough for this specific project so my quilt is going to look somewhat different from hers (and her followers). She added a couple of patches of the cotton candy pink of that era and a couple of what I think of as cadet blue. I've used very light tans and ecru instead.

The second step was to cut 18 brown squares, 2.5" each, to distribute between the 4Patches.

I played around with placement and ended up with this flimsy:

The next step will be a border of some sort. Lori says the inspiration quilt features four different directional prints. Not sure I can do that all in brown but we'll see! 

Gwennie-Inspired Medallion Reveal

The day we've all been waiting for is finally here! I'm excited to see how everyone else's liberated medallion quilt tops turned out. In the meantime here's my story. (Do you have a fresh cuppa? You might want to go make one before you settle in.)

You may recall that I made liberated log cabin blocks in the first round when we were to be inspired by any aspect of childhood. (You can read about that here if you missed it.) That meant I had a real challenge when the next prompt came and it turned out to be log cabins. Rather than making more blocks I treated the whole medallion as a giant log cabin and only added some framing strips, Courthouse Steps style.

The next design prompt was stars. Seemed easy enough but I got stuck at that point. I had a few ideas, but without knowing what the final prompt would be I was afraid to make a move. That turned out to be a difficult month for me physically too. I fussy cut more images from one of the prints in my palette and randomly made a couple of stars but didn't build a single border.

The final prompt was completely unexpected: add something fishy. Given the nature of my medallion thus far I was driven to find some fish skeletons. And I did! In the right colors and scale to boot! But how to incorporate them in a way that made sense? How would fish skeletons come into the picture? Because cats had eaten the fish of course!

Cats are also fond of mice. The lower half of the quilt became a garden in my mind, the source of the roses in the baskets that started this whole adventure.

Along with the ubiquitous spiders of course. ;- )

I kept the creatures of the air in the upper half of the borders, with the exception of a few skeletons dancing in the star light.

And now, the whole quilt top:

I do have one more design decision to make. I'm debating whether to add final border strips, partly to bring the quilt closer to the size I was shooting for (although it's perfectly acceptable the way it is) and partly to frame the composition.

On the other hand, I don't want it to look like it's waiting for another border. These whole-cloth strips will mimic the strips in the Courthouse Steps round and I wonder if that will be redundant. I'm planning to bind the whole thing - eventually - in black. This shot isn't much to go on but I don't have much room to audition any further either. I'll only be adding 4" overall to the width and somewhere between 2" to 4" to the height if I go with the black border strips. I'll take all suggestions into consideration, thank you very much.

Now, if you haven't already, I highly recommend you to pop over to the link party on Lori's blog so you can see the whole gamut of liberated medallion quilts that have been created during this quilt along! This has been a really fun trip and I'm grateful to all the hostesses for making it so. :- )

A Little More Red

I've been working diligently on my liberated medallion this week. Next Monday, the third of October, is the big reveal day. After being stalled on it during August I'm excited to be making so much progress. I really think I'll be ready on time! (Not quilted and bound, you understand, but the flimsy complete.) You may remember that I began with a pair of baskets filled with roses. I've managed to work in a few more roses...

And a couple of leaves in honor of the season. :- )

Between sewing together the bits and pieces of the medallion project I've been assembling more scrap blocks featuring red. There are these four bear paw units:

And this assortment of blocks:

The blocks are a bit shadowed because I had to pin the medallion up out of the way in order to photograph them.

I hope to get the final border on my medallion today and then link up with the other scrappy bloggers over at So Scrappy tomorrow morning. It's going to be a busy weekend!

Patience in My Corner

My brain has been working better this week (hurray! finally! whooppee!!!) so I've been trying to create the final borders for my Gwennie Inspired Liberated Medallion.

I tell you what, it's a good thing I had all those patches cut for Patience Corner blocks to sew between seams. I tried to do some intuitive piecing for the bottom border of my medallion but just didn't like the results. Kept myself awake half of one night trying to find better options for utilizing a particular print. I've done more reverse sewing than anything else this week- or so it feels. Consequently I've made much more progress on the Patience Corner blocks than anticipated.

This is the stack of strips and patches for 35 Patience Corner blocks.

This is a sampling of the 24 blocks I've assembled so far.

I wonder if the remaining eleven blocks will be enough to see me through to completion of my liberated medallion? Doubtful. I may have to start cutting up red prints for more bear paws!

Liberated QAL - A Day Late

But I figured I could check in anyway. :- )

After touring some of the blogs of other participants I finally got inspired to work on my own liberated medallion quilt project. The prompt for July was "log cabins." I chose to build up my medallion Courthouse Steps style. At first I only added one strip to each side of the medallion...

But then in the beginning of August I decided it needed a bit more before I added anything in response to the "stars" prompt.

And then my body got the upper hand and nothing more happened until the very end of August. At that point I decided one more set of "steps" was in order:

As Gayle said, there are so many options when it comes to star blocks! I think all the possibilities overwhelmed me in my weakened state. I don't have any star prints that would work with this color palette. Sort of shot myself in the foot in that respect. I liked her solution: make stars every which way and see what works in the end. So I've fussy cut a few images and some scraps to make this:

Sorry it's a little blurry. Better pictures later!

I have two 4.5" liberated or maverick stars and one 6" sawtooth star so far. The larger owl and raven blocks may or may not become stars. I'm not sure I want that upper border to get that big. At least one of the little maverick stars will go down the side, and I plan to make more of those to fill up the side borders at least part way.

We've received the prompt to do "something fishy" for the final round of our liberated medallions. Didn't see that one coming! I have an idea percolating; we'll see whether it comes into being or not. I suspect that will be confined to the bottom border. This is shaping up to be a good size for a couch or nap quilt which is just what I wanted.

To see what the others have done with their liberated medallions go check out the link party at Humble Quilts.

Great Minds Thinking Alike

The next prompt for the Liberated Medallion Quilt Along has been announced. The most recent prompt was to use log cabins as inspiration. It didn't have to be actual log cabin blocks (or variants thereof) but could be a riff on any of the names of quilt designs made with log cabin blocks. I'd already used liberated log cabins for the first round...

So I wasn't sure what to do next. The best idea I had was to make some stars, perhaps half light and half dark in the way traditional log cabin blocks are. My stash of dark prints is getting a bit low however. I went online and found more of the bats that surround the baskets. Winter Creek Cloth also had that print in a purple I thought would work so I bought some of that too.

By this time it was nearly the end of July. I was torn between trying to make up some stars and adding them to my medallion or just waiting for the next prompt to see what would come next. Guess what Katy chose for the next prompt? Stars!

So for my log cabin inspired round all I did was frame up my medallion with four strips added in Courthouse Steps fashion:

It now has dimensions that should be easier to work with (i.e. nice round numbers) and I can make stars any old way I want. ;- )

You can see what the other liberated medallions are looking like by checking out the links over on Lori's blog, Humble Quilts.

Macabre Medallion

The big day is here! I can now share what I've done inspired by childhood for the second round of play in the Gwennie Inspired Liberated Medallion quilt along. I admit, at first the prints I'd chosen for this project didn't seem to fit in well with the theme. But then I thought about the fact that we'd had rustic cabins to vacation in throughout my childhood. That was just the light bulb I needed. :- )

Just to refresh your memory, these are the baskets I made to begin my medallion:

My first step was to choose what to put in my log cabin blocks and what to use for the logs. My sister and I were both given piano lessons during our early years. She enjoyed it much more than I did. She's a natural musician.

The hands and the strip of music print above felt very appropriate. I've turned out to be more of a visual artist. ;- )

I also found this "portrait" to use to represent my sister and I. To create a gallery wall I framed the portrait with a postage stamp print. The calico above and below the portraits is something my mother bought for me a long time ago when I was still a fairly new quilt maker. It's been waiting all this time to be put to good use. This isn't quite what I had in mind when I originally chose the print but it turned out to be perfect for this project!

I had to have birds in my quilt. It's become sort of a thing for me. There were some great ravens/crows in the same print I took the sisters out of.

These dancing skeletons are another of my cherished prints. There wasn't much left so I decided to use it up in this quilt. Some of them appear to be playing leap frog. I've also used text prints that feature phrases from classic children's stories.

There's some French text as well since I studied French all throughout my high school years.

Here's the progression of the medallion on my design wall:

And this is where I stopped:

At this point it measures about 33" high and 53" wide. I could have added framing strips to bring it up to nice even numbers but decided to wait to see what the next step will be. And that day has finally arrived! Cathy at Big Lake Quilter will be giving us the next prompt. You can see all the other basket medallion projects via the link-up over on Cynthia's blog.

Basket Reveal - Gwennie Inspired QAL

I'm so excited the day has finally arrived to show you the baskets I made for the liberated medallion quilt along. Plus we've been given the challenge for the next step. More about that later...

If you hop over to Humble Quilts there's a link party wherein you'll be able to see the variety of baskets that have been made for this quilt along. So far most fall into what I would call a country or primitive style. But not all! Mine don't clearly fit into that category either. ;- )

There's been a lot of applique happening to make the various basket blocks. I don't applique (except under duress) so of course my baskets are pieced. I also chose to make two so I would have a rectangular format for my eventual-quilt.

Or maybe I just had so much fun making the first one that I made a second one to go with it! (If you're going to piece one basket block you may as well piece two.) My baskets are filled with roses. They were fussy cut from a skull and roses print. Now you may have a clue as to the choice of bats for the background of my blocks.

The challenge that has been given us for the next month is to think on our childhoods, or on childhood in general, and use that to direct our design decisions for the first border around our baskets. I truly hadn't anticipated that curve ball. But now that I think about it, my goal when I selected the skull and roses print and then the bats was to allow my inner child to finally play with these prints that bring a smile to my face. They tickle my funny bone, they make me happy. I'm not quite sure how that will manifest in the next round but I'm looking forward to finding out! :- )

A New Temptation

Not having quite enough energy this morning to actually start sewing I took the opportunity to catch up on what a couple of my blogging friends have been up to. That may have been a mistake. My first stop was Julie's blog.

Turns out there's a new quilt along starting up, inspired by Gwen Marston's liberated quilt making. Specifically, this quilt along is to create medallion style quilts. There are five co-organizers for this endeavor. Each one will pick a design feature for us to interpret and incorporate into our quilts in our own way. We can piece or applique at will, work in a liberated style or stick with precision cutting and piecing. That's just the kind of freedom I like!

My dilemma stems from the fact that my energy levels are so sporadic these days. I hesitate to commit to a new project that could be mentally demanding, to say nothing of the physical. And then there's the question of whether to work out of the Parts Department (something I picked up from Gwen and Freddy Moran's collaborative efforts) or to use some of the prints piling up in my stash. I admit to leaning in the latter direction. If only the Parts Dept. weren't overflowing!

Lori over at Humble Quilts decided we would all begin with a basket block for the center of our medallions.  At the beginning of each of the next four months one of the other organizers will give us the next design element to use. Cynthia (wabi-sabi quilts) in June, Cathy (Big Lake Quilter) in July, Katy (KatyQuilts) for August, and Wendy (The Constant Quilter) for September.

I have a few basket blocks left over from making this quilt...

But I can't say I'm excited about using them. The final decision may hang on whether I can create a satisfactory basket (or two) in the palette I have in mind. So I guess I should set the laptop aside and see what comes to hand!