The Stroop Effect Returns

My project I've been calling The Stroop Effect

was started back in January 2015.

This photo from March 2015

shows the last record of any "new" Stroop work.

Finishing BUILD A BARN

and then catching up on a lot of other things

kept this project waiting on the shelf.

Late last week I pulled it out of storage.

The light blue hand dyes were on top,

so I started with those.

Now there are four sets of 4.5" strata blocks . . .

. . . and four color names.

Each letter is contained within a 4.5" block.

(free pieced letters inspired by 

Tonya Ricucci's Word Play Quilts)

It feels SO good to have this project out in the open again!

Quiltdivajulie

Eleven Stroop Colors

Here are the final four colors for The Stroop Effect  - 

light green, indigo, brown, and orange.

(Based on the 2015 monthly RSC colors

featured in Vicki Welsh's hand dye fabric packs)

Just like the other RSC quilts I worked on in 2015,

I shuddered when I saw indigo and dark brown on the list.

That said, now that this mash up of free pieced letters

and colorful strata blocks are on the design wall,

I remember how and why I thought about 

the design for this project in the first place.

For the time being,

I've taken these off the design wall

in order to focus on two other

short-term time-sensitive projects.

It will NOT be another year

before The Stroop Effect returns!

Quiltdivajulie

Scrappy Saturday - The Stroop Effect (pink AND yellow)

After getting so sidetracked with the

Just Wing It string blocks last week,

my #1 RSC goal this week was to make the

PINK work for my Stroop Effect project.

(click here if you need a refresher)

* * *

The idea for my project came from

stroop words made several years ago by Cheri Sullivan.

Her blog

(Jovaliquilts )

was hijacked a year or so ago

by neo-works-blogtools.

 Does anyone know how to un-hijack a blog?

While I was in the mood for making letters,

I also made this month's word.

The background fabrics are from one of Vicki W's

Rainbow Stash Snack Packs

and

I'm using fabrics from my stash for the letters

and center strings.

Here are all three of the words with their string blocks.

SO happy together!

* * *

Linking up with The Rainbow Scrap Challenge.

CLICK HERE to see what the others have been doing!

Quiltdivajulie

Scrappy Saturday - Stroop Word No. 1

For this week's RSC adventure,

I pulled out my graph paper, 

pencil, eraser, sharpie markers,

and two of my resource books.

(I'm going to have Color Play wire-coil bound next week -

it makes using the book SO much easier!)

Step one was to cut a 1.5" strip 

from each of the six hand dyed fabrics

in this month's packet from Vicki W's

 Rainbow Stash Snack Pack.

I added a narrow yellow-orange strip from the stash and made strata.

The strata yielded three 4.5" string squares.

I've worked out my design on paper -

time will tell whether the plan works!!

For now, I'll let the blocks remain unassembled.

Then it was time for the main event - the first stroop word.

(click here if you don't know about the stroop effect)

There are lots (!) of ways to make free pieced letters . . .

For this project, each letter will have its own 4.5" square.

This is similar to the one-letter-per-block

approach I used for And Sometimes Y in 2007.

I won't stitch any of these new letters together 

until much later in the year when I have more words to play with.

Fingers crossed!!

* * *

Linking up with the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.

CLICK HERE to see what the others have done

with their final week of BLUE.

Quiltdivajulie

Jibberish - The Quilt

My Stroop Effect effort started in January 2015

as one of that year's 

Rainbow Scrap Challenge projects.

(there's a link in the linked post

for information on the stroop effect)

I made words and blocks for three months

but then the project was shelved

while other things took priority.

(i.e., writing BUILD A BARN) 

Fast forward to August/September 2016.

After finishing the rest of the

color words and strata blocks, 

I was finally able to test my 2015 layout.

You can read about that by clicking here.

By the end of October 2016,

most of the strata blocks 

were used to create this 

16" x 20" table mat . . .

. . . and the letter blocks had become

this quilt top known as Jibberish.

After way too much internal debate 

over possible quilting designs,

Max and I quilted Jibberish using

Hobbs 80/20 batting, Glide thread,

and liberated diagonal crosshatching.

31" wide x 39" long

(double click to supersize the photos)

Scrappy black and white binding

* * *

Linking up with The Rainbow Scrap Challenge.

CLICK HERE

to see what the others are sharing this week.

Quiltdivajulie

-----------------------------------------------
"Let's work hard, but take the pressure off ourselves and have some fun with the process. Otherwise, what is the point?"
(Gaye Adams)

The Stroop Effect - Resolved

In case you missed Part 1 of this post,

CLICK HERE.

Removing word "red" 

made it easier to see

what to do with these four words.

Just a short while later,

this small quilt top was sewn together.

24" wide x 16" high

(I'm thinking about DSM

walking foot outline stitching

 in coordinating colors for this one)

I sorted through all those 

busy background prints -

choosing pairs of 4.5" squares

to make six four-patch blocks.

This cheerful little top measures

12" wide x 24" long.

(Max and I might try 

the orange peel design

in the background squares

and then see what happens)

And then this happened -

so simple but so elegant.

16" square

(I will do straight line

DSM walking foot quilting 

with invisible thread on this one)

I plan to use the remaining letters

to make blank greeting cards.

(not sure if I will use a zig zag 

or a straight stitch yet,

but I have lots of Aurifil colors

to mix and match)

Tops and backs pinned on the design wall

In the end,

The Stroop Effect project

has yielded 

three small quilt tops

a nice variety of blank cards,

and a sizable number of 4.5"

scrappy black and white squares

as "seeds" for a future project.

* * *

Over the weekend,

I will link this post with

The Rainbow Scrap Challenge.

CLICK HERE 

to see more scrappy RSC goodness.

Quiltdivajulie

Process Notes - Styrofoam Plates

Scraps sorted by color before starting on Colorful Crumbs

I've had several questions

about the foam plates

that appear in many of my

work-in-progress photos.

WIP photo from the making of Wind Farm

Here I used the plates to sort and then keep   

 sets of four block-quadrants together.

By doing all of the sorting first,

I was able to sit and power-sew

the blocks together.

free pieced letters from The Stroop Project sorted by color

Here I used the plates to keep 

the color groups together as I worked on 

the design wall layout for The Stroop Effect.

I am lucky to have dedicated work space

but I also deal with Quilter's ADD

so I like being able to quickly move

one project's pieces and parts 

out of the way in order to work on another.

pieces sorted to sew blocks for Plaid-Mania

In this case,

I started with the plates laid out individually

so I could sort/distribute scrappy pieces

as I was cutting from the many different plaids.

Once each plate had its necessary parts,

I started stacking the plates and,

when they were fully loaded,

I moved the whole pile to the sewing machine.

I used the plates again when I cut scrappy squares

to make four new Christmas pillows.

I find it easier to distribute the colors into groups

when each group's space is defined.

(loose piles that tip over and run into each other

just don't work well for me)

So why do I use foam plates?

They work hard.

They're cheap.

They don't take up a lot of space

between projects.

They're lightweight and easily portable.

When loaded, 

they allow me to take advantage of 

vertical space instead of having things 

scattered all over my sewing surface.

They can be used over and over again

and, should one crack or wear out,

they are cheap and available

year-round at lots of local stores.

Quiltdivajulie

Stroop in Purple

The next color for The Stroop Effect is PURPLE.

This one was fun and easy to piece.

Seven of the eleven color words are now on the design wall.

And yes, I did go back and edit the "r" in green.

Quiltdivajulie

The Stroop Effect Revisited

This photo from a month ago

was the last sighting of 

my Stroop Effect project.

(I started it in January 2015 as part of 

that year's Rainbow Scrap Challenge)

Shortly after that photo was taken,

 the free pieced letters and the scrappy 

black on white background squares

were finally laid out on the design wall.

Maybe it was the extended length of time since

my "grand idea" for a crossword puzzle layout,

but seeing the blocks arranged this way 

on the design wall did nothing for me.

For the next three weeks,

I fiddled with the strata blocks

(angles and arrangement)

hoping I would rediscover that missing

 happy "AHA" feeling.

It didn't happen.

Was it the busy background prints?

I removed them - 

but the layout still didn't sing for me.

Was it the clusters of strata blocks

in the four corners?

I removed them -

hoping the letters/words on their own 

would save the original idea.

They didn't.

Note to self:

There would have been 

more layout possibilities 

if I had just gone ahead 

and pieced all of the letters 

for each color word

instead of being so rigid about 

that initial layout idea.

But somehow I suspect 

I sensed this dilemma could happen

as I had already gifted the 

leftover letter fabrics to a friend . . . )

Since the overall proportions of the 

crossword layout felt a bit "squarish"

(13W x 15L or 52" x 60")

I tried removing some of the words.

I liked the look of a 

consistent background color

in these six words.

And then "green" was edited out

leaving five words on the design wall . . .

. . . with all of this colorful goodness

piled on top of my sewing table.

* * *

Clearly it was time to stop and ponder yet again

but with the understanding this project would NOT 

return to another extended period of hibernation! 

Quiltdivajulie