Forty-Six - the Flimsy

And then, 

after all of the machine appliqué was completed,

 there was a flimsy on the design wall.

(no fusible was used - 

just lots of pins to hold the shapes in place)

I'm very pleased with the string pieced tulips

and the way they sway back and forth.

Their consistent stems

and pairs of scrappy leaves make me happy.

* * *

The top finished at approximately 48" x 60"

Quilting will happen later this year.

EDITED LATER - Forty-Six was quilted by

Alycia Carmin before being donated to

Hands to Help 2022.

Quiltdivajulie

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"I spent every day of third grade wearing a glittery purple cowboy hat."

Simone Giertz

This is the Song that Never Ends . . .

You might be wondering why this photo

 of Shari Lewis and Lamb Chop is here today.

They popularized a song - 

one that our boys learned in Scouts

and still sing fragments of today.

Maybe you know this one?

"This is the song that never ends.

It just goes on and on, my friend.

Some people started singing it, not knowing what it was.

And, they'll continue singing it forever, just because

This is the song that never ends..."

(you can hear the melody by clicking HERE

if you don't already know it)

The words of that song pretty much sum up the way 

the current AHIQ challenge has affected me.

It would have been so simple to follow

Ann's how-to posts and make a quilt like hers - 

but "oh, noooooooo."

I wanted to make one of my own design.

Three months later and the words

of that song keep running through my head.

 

I know full well that I'm trying too hard

and have fallen far into the dreaded comparison trap.

I NEED to stop pondering, DO something,

and quit worrying whether or not

my SOMEthing is the PERFECT thing.

I'm sure many of you have been in this same spot . . .

So THIS is what I am doing . . .

I'm narrowing up the bias-cut stem strips 

because they were just too clunky-looking.

There are twenty tulip blossoms so I've chosen

twenty different greens for the leaf pairs.

I've added one of Marilee's numbered pins

to the center of each tulip so that

when I take the blocks down to machine appliqué

the current layout won't be lost.

Amazing what happens when you quit

trying to make a masterpiece and just MAKE.

(to see previous posts for this project,

use the FORTY-SIX label below)

Quiltdivajulie

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“Color can raise the dead.”

Iris Apfel

Updates Galore

Let's start these updates with this initial fabric pull for a future quilt

that has (at least for now) been named Scintillating.

This one will feature larger pieces to show off the fabrics

and hopefully come together in less time

once I get done pondering the fabrics themselves.

Dumpster Diving 7 - Respite has been pin basted.

With the excess pieced backing from DD7

and some stashed purple stripe for backing/binding,

I'll be able to make another runner for my sister.

Younger son has laid out the 4" (fin.) blocks for his 

upcoming milestone birthday quilt named Namaste.

He's letting it rest for a day or so and then he'll do 

some rearranging before it is ready to clip and web.

Here's a better in-process view with more accurate colors.

The KF Geode in blue will make a fabulous back.

(this is standard KFCollective yardage -

I don't really like the wide back sateen versions)

Moving on to my ongoing AHIQ challenge project,

this is one sewn-together string pieced tulip for Forty-Six.

Heres' a look at some of the 12.5" (cut) background squares

and backing fabric that has finally found its quilt.

(and each of the yellow tulip petals contain at least one text print

as a nod to Amanda Gorman being a poet)

At this point all twenty tulips are pinned with their backgrounds.

Next step will be stems and leaves but for now it is 

time to let this rest for a bit while I work on other things.

These are my March blocks in scrappy greens for Hoppipolla.

There are 31 of them and they'll each finish at 3 inches.

(Reminder - for any of these quilt projects

you can click on the labels at the end of this post

to see all related posts for that project OR

you can use the labels in the blog's sidebar) 

Wanda posted a photo of herself after thirteen months without a haircut.

It has been six months since I've had mine cut 

and this is the longest my hair has been in over 40 years.

(unlike Wanda's "curl" - mine is fine and not curly)

The whole family likes it - a lot.

My second dose of COVID vaccine is set for this coming Friday

so maybe by late April I will feel comfortable enough

to schedule an appointment for a gentle trim.

If not, I'll let it continue to grow.

And through it all, Little Man continues to bring joy to our lives.

He has grown so much taller and none of us

want to believe he is already four-and-a-half . . .

Quiltdivajulie

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“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Forty-Six - My Revised Plan of Action

Suffice it to say that I have spent HOURS and HOURS of time

pondering the seemingly millions of options for completing

the current AHIQ String Pieced Tulips QAL challenge.

I don't do hand appliqué so that route was not an option.

I've made dozens of string quilts including my Dumpster Diving series.

Which left the concept of tulips as the remaining challenge focus for me.

But with my chosen color palette inspired by the glorious images

from January 20, 2021, I was stumped over how to incorporate

all of them into a coherent whole.

So what am I going to do?

1.  Edit my palette.

2.  Honor my own way of doing things as well as the squirrel in me.

3.  Stop pondering and start making.

Step one was to edit my palette.

This large wall of pieced-together light blues

caused a massive attack of "blank journal page syndrome"

aka utter creative paralysis.

So it has been folded like yardage and put back on the stash shelf.

The colors that struck me the most on Inauguration Day

were those worn by Jill Biden, Kamala Harris, and Amanda Gorman

namely their aqua/teal/turquoise, purple, and that glorious yellow.

So the dark blues, pinks, creams, and reds were returned to the stash shelves.

But with several hundred inspiration images still haunting me,

now what?

Step two involves honoring my inner squirrel.

So I pulled another project from the gestation closet - 

one that featured even more inspiration from this book 

and that project's stack of  aqua/turquoise yardage.

By combining that project's ideas/yardage with Forty Six's challenge

and my own sensibilities, I have finally found my path forward.

I sorted through that box of hastily cut strips,

removing the reds, blues, creams, pinks, and blue violets

leaving only the red violets, yellows, and aqua/turquoise groups.

Step three involves MAKING instead of more thinking.

I will make the tulip centers from these newly-string-pieced yellow slabs.

I will make the left and right tulip petals from

the newly-string-pieced red violet slabs.

The stems and leaves will logically be from the basket of scrappy greens.

All of these will then be machine appliquéd in place.

 I will make my background blocks from this range of yardage - 

meaning those boxes of leftover teal/aqua/turquoise strips in the previous photo

 will go back to the closet for future Etcetera projects.

While any backing choice is still up in the air 

I plan to use this colorful batik for binding.

* * *

I cannot tell you how good it feels to have forward momentum again!

* * *

Note:  I will also be sharing this post on the AHIQ blog

where you can find other participant's related posts

using the hashtag #AHIQStringTulipQAL

Quiltdivajulie

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“Color is the keyboard, the eyes are the harmonies, the soul is the piano with many strings. The artist is the hand that plays, touching one key or another, to cause vibrations in the soul.”

Wassily Kandinsky

FORTY-SIX - an update

As you can tell by the date on my sketch,

this was my plan for FORTY-SIX on February first - 

with each colorful clip representing a planned tulip.

Ann has shared a tutorial for her string pieced blocks

as part of the AHIQ String Tulip QAL.

 

She plans to share her string pieced tulip process in early March.

(as I explained in this post, I'm treating "string pieced tulips"

as a "prompt-driven" rather than "quilt-along" process

so I'm moving ahead on my own)

That same week, DH made two acrylic templates

using the diagram in Gwen Marston's Liberated String Quilts book.

My test block showed me that my plan to machine appliqué

each tulip blossom will work.

(the tulip right petal flips over to become the tulip left petal)

Then it was full steam ahead to create a backdrop for my blossoms

using a wide variety of light blues cut into 6" wide x random length chunks.

(shown here before the rows were sewn together

and before I remembered to flip the calendar page to February)

My vertical vine idea was "voted off the island" by the people I live with.

"Jack and the Beanstalk!" one exclaimed

which sent the other into gales of laughter

as the word "kudzu" was bantered about.

Their reactions were all it took for me to change my plan,

especially since I wasn't as in love with the look on the design wall

as I had been with my pencil sketch.

So now the green vine will run along the top and bottom edges

with leaves pointing to the right on one and to the left on the other.

(chances are they'll be cut from scrappy green made-fabric)

* * *

At this point I stalled - something about my approach

wasn't sitting well so I sewed the rows together and moved the background 

to the design wall in the other room while I worked on the top for Lagoon.   

Yesterday I realized why I had stalled.

Even though the tulips would be made from scrappy string pieced fabric,

I didn't want all twenty-one tulips to be exactly the same shape.

(that twenty-one number is subject to change -

it got stuck in my head because of the 21-gun presidential salute)

I also didn't want to cut strings from perfectly good yardage.

I quickly pulled out my crumb and resource boxes and

sorted out scraps in colors close to the previously-pulled yardage.

(shown here at the top of the photo)

In the foreground are the red, red-violet, and pink scraps.

(I also pushed myself to not be so literal about 'matching' the purity 

of the colors that were worn or displayed on January 20th)

Aqua/turquoise, blue, and blue-violet yardage (top) and scraps (bottom).

And finally yellow and cream yardage (top) and scraps (bottom).

It didn't take very long to cut up all those scraps

into 1.5" and 2" strips along with a few random-width strings.

* * *

At this point the top and back for Lagoon 

are on a hanger waiting for their turn with Max

and the light blue background is back on my design wall.

I've been studying string tulip posts on Audrey's blog 

and Lee Ann's blog, as well as lots of other online images.

Now it's time to start piecing scrappy made fabric.

I'm sure there are more strings than I'll need

but I can always find a way to use the leftovers.

Quiltdivajulie

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“The distinct blue, red, and yellow colors …. Though they have not the kind of harmony which is produced by a variety of broken and transparent colors, have the effect of grandeur.”

Sir Joshua Reynolds

AHIQ String Tulips QAL - My Color Story

This is my color story for the new AHIQ challenge.

You can read about it HERE and HERE.

Last week's inauguration day was filled with inspiration

and Lynette captured it beautifully in THIS POST.

Ann hasn't started posting instructions for the QAL yet

but knowing myself and how I work, I'm pretty sure 

I'll be treating this as a "prompt" rather than a quilt-along.

(this is for the Ad Hoc IMPROV Quilters challenge after all . . . )

And that is where Gwen Marston's Liberated String Quilts book

with her string tulip information fits into the overall picture.

I pulled the fabrics in the foreground from previous projects

to make an eclectic, diverse, and gloriously scrappy back.

* * *

And, for the record, I've named my string tulip project FORTY-SIX.

Quiltdivajulie

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“Try to forget what objects you have before you - a tree, a house, a field, or whatever. Merely think, 'Here is a little square of blue, here an oblong of pink, here a streak of yellow,' and paint it just as it looks to you, the exact color and shape, until it gives you your own impression of the scene before you.”

Claude Monet