Luciferous - the Flimsy

Luciferous is now a quilt top (aka flimsy).

SO very far from my original idea, but so completely "me."

To assemble the top I stitched sets of rows (3 then 4 then 4 again) instead of working from the top to the bottom.

MUCH easier to work with.

This is the bottom set of four before the final yellow row was added.

I am really, really happy with the way this came together.  

The top measures 57 inches wide and 66.5 inches long.

Before putting Luciferous into the "waiting to be quilted" closet, I made some notes to myself about how I want to piece the back.

A week or so ago I realized that this backing, originally intended for Razzle-Dazzle, was actually better suited to Luciferous.

(Tropical Flair - Jungle Love Birds by Hello Angel for Wilmington Prints)

The Rollicking Robots "Glitch" yardage by Patrick Lose will be used for the binding and also for the inserts in the back.

Luciferous will definitely be a colorful scrappy happy quilt.

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I'm counting Luciferous as my project for the current AHIQ Yellow (Sun) challenge.  To that end, I will also post this to the AHIQ blog.

You can read the winding back story by using the Luciferous label at the end of the post (or in the sidebar).

Quiltdivajulie

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“Magical places are beautiful and deserve to be contemplated … Always stay on the bridge between the invisible and the visible.”

Paulo Coelho

Luciferous - Forward Motion

Since the last time I shared photos of Luciferous, things have moved ahead quickly.

I changed the orientation of the columns/rows from vertical to horizontal, decided to use a back and forth color flow approach, and elected to use the yellow rows at the top and bottom in honor of the AHIQ Yellow challenge.

The tape measures are pinned in place to give me an idea of the width possible with the existing triangles.

Here you can see the top three rows trimmed and sewn together.

The lower rows (not yet sewn together) are in position, but their ends have not been squared.

Rather than working one row at a time (square the ends / attach to the previous rows), I decided to get all of the rows to the same width before proceeding.

Since I had used up the available triangles, I used appropriate fabrics and cut whole cloth triangles to fill in the shorter rows.  Even in person it is not immediately noticeable, which makes me happy.

At this point the rows are 58" wide and each row should finish at 6" tall.

I am eager to get the rows sewn together.  Luciferous will rarely, if ever, be flat on a wall once quilted and bound, so I'm looking forward to seeing how the subtle interlocking diamond pattern looks when the top is crumpled or hung over the back of a chair.

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I have the rest of the needed side triangles cut for Razzle-Dazzle and know how I want to proceed, but I really have to switch gears after Luciferous reaches flimsy stage.  

I have three quilt tops/backs that I want to finish and send to my Michigan family along with the already completed baby girl quilt (one for big brother, a small quilt for the baby while she is tiny, and one for my sister/aka Grandma).   

Baby L is due October 6 so I need to get those tops/backs pin basted and put Max to work. 

Quiltdivajulie

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“Align with nature . . . Magic happens.”

John Friend

Introducing Pretty in Pink

I had a big pile of leftover side triangles after making the blocks for Kefi.

I also had a big pile of pink side triangles that were meant for Luciferous but were voted off the island.

I really didn't want to store them for "someday" so I turned them into half-rectangle-triangle blocks (HRTs for short).

But then what?

I had 96 facing in one direction and 89 facing in the opposite.  You can see above what I decided.

(just ignore the scribbled out areas - those ideas didn't fly)

I sorted the HRTs into sets of four to make forty blocks to be laid out eight wide x five long.

(each HRT finishes at 3" x 6" so each block finishes at 6" x 12")

And yes, I was planning to work on Luciferous (plates in the background) but I clearly got distracted.

Here are the first eight blocks on the design wall with one of the yellow columns for Luciferous on the right.

And I even have the perfect yardage to back this quilt that will be named Pretty in Pink (hmmm - obviously the name of the fabric somehow became the name of the quilt).

I will get these blocks sewn together, laid out, and clipped for webbing after I get back to work on Luciferous.

* * *

He's officially six years old.

(photo taken at the neighborhood playground when he and his class took their daily walk)

And if you supersize the photo, you can read at least most of the very cool text on his birthday shirt.

 

Oh my, how far he has come since that very first day of preschool . . . 

. . . Kindergarten starts on the 15th.

Quiltdivajulie

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“Children naturally live in the moment, and they allow that moment to be what it is; magical and beautiful in every way.”

April Peerless

Luciferous Returns

I first posted about my newest AHIQ "Yellow" challenge here.

Since then the project was set aside and then resurrected but as a possible baby girl quilt.

After cutting the pink side triangles and getting them laid out on the design wall, my initial reaction was NO -- it felt flat and contrived and I couldn't help but wonder about the gender-stereotyping of such an intensely pink quilt (especially since Little Man's favorite color has been and continues to be "pink" since he could first answer the question).

So I raided the stash of leftover scrap slab triangles and tried adding two columns of green to see how they would change the vibe.

Better but still not making me excited.

I removed the green and pink so I could try another idea.

Since the originally planned black and white side triangles had been redirected to Razzle-Dazzle . . . 

I pulled out the leftover scrappy side triangles from Kefi and arranged them on the design wall.

Still not making me excited.

So I tried adding one column of leftover pink triangles.

Again, better but not something I wanted to move forward after determining that it was the floating yellow triangles themselves that were my problem.

Backing up a bit, I had pulled this box of yellow scraps and strips for the original plan to make enough yellow scrap slab triangles for a lap quilt.

What if I took a more "scrap vortex-ish" approach?

So I took the existing yellow triangles and sewed them into a long strip.

This made me want to move forward.

But when I dug out much of what was in the yellow scrap box, I knew the all-yellow idea was not going to happen.

But what if . . . 

I quickly pulled out all of the leftover scrap slab triangles and sorted them loosely into RO[Y]GBIV order.

Hmmm . . . after counting the triangles, I decided to go for it (finally).

Here you can see the "red/red-orange" column sewn together alongside one-half of that long yellow strip of triangles.

Clearly this will not be an all "yellow" quilt top as in the theme of the challenge, but that's totally okay with me. 

And I'd much rather USE the mountain of leftover scrap slab triangles instead of storing them in a box for "someday."

Interestingly enough, the definition of Luciferous meaning "bringing or giving/providing light or insight" which was originally targeted at the challenge's yellow remains valid for this more colorful approach.

Yes!

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Side Note re Bloglovin' -- as I am sure those of you who have used Bloglovin' are already aware, it has been "down" and "unavailable" for weeks on end.  I used to follow 80+ blogs through their service, so if you haven't had a comment from me recently (or an email due to Blogger's recent comment sign-in changes), please leave me a comment below and I'll pop over to your blog for a visit. 

For now I'm using a free account with Feedly to follow the blogs I can't follow by email.  I'm not in love with Feedly yet, but it works to let me know there are new posts to check.

Thanks to a mention on Wanda's blog this morning, I have set up a free account with The Old Reader.  It works great and I like it a lot better than my now-deleted Feedly account.

I have also removed the Bloglovin' follow buttons from my sidebar.  There's no point inviting anyone else to use them when their system is broken.

If you have been following my blog through the Bloglovin' website or through their follow-by-email service, you may want to register for new post email notices using the "Follow by Email" sign up in my side bar (powered by Follow.It).  

Quiltdivajulie

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“Magic happens when you fill up your own heart – not when you wait for somebody else to fill it up for you.”

Diana Seneque

Reminder - "Be You, Not Them"

Aside from Kefi and Razzle-Dazzle, most everything else in the studio has been on hold for weeks now. 

Essentially I have felt stuck.

Then the quotation above absolutely stopped me in my tracks.  Over time I have indeed let myself become attached to specific outcomes, hence the sense of malaise.

So, I'm in the process of considering and re-evaluating where I am now and where I want to go from here.

One fabric pull, for example, has been dismantled and returned to the stash.  I love the colors and the fabrics but the piles of pulled yardage have paralyzed me and the idea to remake a quilt I've made before has left me cold.  

Luciferous has also been set aside after too many attempts with a variety of different side triangles, none of which lit any fires under me.  Someday the project in another form may resurface but definitely not now.  I'll have to come up with a different project for the current AHIQ prompt, or not.  

I have kept Raconteur.

And I have kept Concatenation for now . . . time will tell if the latest iteration will be interesting enough to move it forward.

There are four or five hospice quilt projects set aside to work on whenever I need sit-and-sew time minus any significantly focused thinking.

And my final Not a Mystery Quilt named Flaneur has also survived, but not as originally planned.  Stay tuned for its update on Monday.

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What about you?  

Do you prefer to make quilts with a known outcome in mind or would you rather create without knowing exactly how things will turn out?

Quiltdivajulie

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“No, we don’t need more sleep.  It’s our souls that are tired, not our bodies.  We need nature.  We need magic.  We need adventure.  We need freedom.  We need truth.  We need stillness.  We don’t need more sleep; we need to wake up and live.”

Brooke Hampton

New AHIQ Challenge - Here Comes the Sun

Last week Ann shared the latest prompt for the Ad Hoc Improv Quilters.  

You can read her introductory post HERE.

I came home from my visit with Lynne with a huge stack of scrap slab triangles that I'd made from her leftover blocks and scrap stash - including these forty-seven yellow triangles.

I have a good sized box of yellow bits and pieces to make enough more for a generous lap quilt (same size as Kefi).

So the "yellow" part of the challenge was easy.

But what to use for the side triangles?

Initially I thought about a blend of aquas, light blues, and turquoises along the lines of Poppyseed's Quilt (gifted to one of our nephew's families).

I even thought about using the elephant fabric for backing.

But this mix didn't make my heart sing, so I put the aquas and elephants away and went back to the stash.

During a long telephone call with Lynne we discussed the option of using greens.  The contrast representing sunshine and green grasses is powerful but I wasn't convinced I wanted to make such "dark" side triangles. 

So the greens were returned to the stash.

A while back I mentioned wanting to make a pink and yellow quilt inspired by a photo of Lynne's mom sitting under the Yellow Zebras quilt while reading her new Christmas book about Yellow.  So I pulled out a batch of pinks to see if that might work.

Again, I like the colors together but the intensity still felt too strong for an entire quilt top.

So the pinks were returned to the stash.

Eventually I realized I had been fighting with myself over NOT using my black and white stash.  

For some silly reason I had convinced myself that was the "easy way out."

So I pulled out this box of 10" squares cut a long time ago for a project that went in another direction . . .

. . .  and I found the obvious answer for the side triangles after using them for this "mock up."

 

I then went to the stash and chose these black on whites to use for the side triangles.  

So my project in response to Ann's "Here Comes the Sun" prompt will be a quilt I've named Luciferous.

(adjective meaning "bringing or giving/providing light or insight")

Quiltdivajulie

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“People often called us perfectionists, but we were not looking for perfection. We were looking for some kind of magic in the music.”

Paul Simon