Squirrel Alert

Oh dear . . . 

It's happened once  again . . .

A squirrel has invaded my brain and my studio . . . 

So instead of my original plan to work on Merry and Bright

and/or Deck the Halls during November and December,

I will be playing with that squirrely inspiration.

Keep reading for background

on this unplanned adventure . . . 

Saturday's reveal post for Bonnie's 2020 Mystery Quilt 

set my brain off on a wild squirrel chase . . .

This is Bonnie's "inspiration photo" from her introductory post.

The very first thing I thought of was flying geese.

The second thing I thought of was this photo

taken as I drove to Nashville in 2008 for 

my one and only Bonnie workshop.

This photo inspired the palette for Dandelion Detour,

the first of what became my NOT a Mystery quilts.

As my brain continued to puzzle with her palette, 

I thought of this bouquet of flowers.

They come home with me last Friday morning

and the colors demanded to be photographed

while the groceries were still in the trunk of my car.

Which led me to finding a photo of this quilt

named SUNNY DAY from a class I took 

at John C Campbell Folk School.

(quilt name inspired by lyrics from a song by Mac MacAnally)

Then, after letting the inspiration photos, 

the colors in the flower bouquet and quilt,

and my first thought of flying geese 

muddle around in my head for a while,

I remembered this design named

River Trees from the 12/2011 issue of The Quilt Life.

It was the inspiration for The Eclectic Goose

but I veered far, far away from its offset layout.

(the link above will take you to a series of

randomly date-arranged blog posts shared

during the making of that quilt)

The squirrel and I have now decided to 

revisit the original layout idea

for what will become my

 NOT A MYSTERY 2020 quilt.

I've named it GRASSY CREEK GEESE.

This is my color/fabric pull from the stash

 with red-violets instead of her white neutrals.

I will not be following along with the mystery clues

because when I'm not quilting with Max

I'll be busy cutting out and piecing 

red-violet, orange, and red geese

flying through skies of gray all bordered

with bands of late autumn green and gold.

My offset flying geese top should end up

at  50" x 68" which makes much more sense for me

than Bonnie's queen bed 94" x 94" size.

* * *

If you're curious, you can see my previous 

NOT A MYSTERY quilts HERE.

Quiltdivajulie

-----------------------------------------------

“When you talk, you are only repeating what you already know.  

But if you listen, you may learn something new.”

Dalai Lama