Resplendent - the Flimsy

First step was to sew the center section together.

"Autumn is a second spring, where every leaf is a flower."

Albert Camus

This photo shows the colors more accurately.

"I hope I can be the autumn leaf,

who looked at the sky and lived.

and when it was time to leave,

gracefully it knew life was a gift."

Dodinsky

And then the pieced borders were sewn in place.

Even with my enlargement of the pattern

everything fit together perfectly.

56" wide x 68" long

(Appalachian Autumn pattern by Bonnie Hunter)

From the design wall to the pool noodles -

ready for pin basting.

(I unrolled two other projects so I had

the use of my three extra long noodles)

Thread color chosen . . .

"Autumn whispered to the wind,

'I fall; but always rise again.'"

Angie Weiland-Crosby

And because it has been six months 

since Max and I have worked together,

I used leftover HSTs and offcuts for quilting practice

Bonus:  four table mats for seasonal use.

Sneak peek at Resplendent's liberated free motion quilting . . . 

(and I ordered another 30-yard roll

of batting so I can get busy on some

of those many other tops waiting in the closet)

Quiltdivajulie

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"I listened, motionless and still; 

And, as I mounted up the hill, 

The music in my heart I bore, 

Long after it was heard no more."

William Wordsworth

 

Resplendent Begins

A while back I mentioned that I was going to 

do something spontaneous and make 

Bonnie Hunter's new Appalachian Autumn design.

Definitely a squirrel project . . . 

(see explanation in my sidebar - just look for Dug the dog)

but I've wanted to make a leafy autumnal quilt 

for a very long time but I hadn't found a design

that came close to exciting me.

This one with its scrappy stringy glory did that

and more since it has motivated me to go all in.

I spent my birthday doing the majority of the cutting out.

Since then I've been piecing multi-hundreds of 

HSTs along with color-saturated string blocks.

I'll confess to one mistake - 

I read that the string squares should be trimmed to "X x X"

but missed that only SOME of them were to measure that size.

Oops - so I made a few more and trimmed them

to the slightly larger size.

It's all good.

Here are the multi-hundred HSTs 

trimmed to size and counted out in groups of 10

so I was sure I had enough in each color group.

And then, at last, I had my first full leaf block.

And all the while I've been debating about

whether to stick to the square dimensions

of Bonnie's design or make more leaves

so my quilt will be rectangular.

Can you guess which way I've decided to go?

* * *

I have named this quilt RESPLENDENT

which means "characterized by a glowing splendor"

One leaf at a time . . .

Quiltdivajulie

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“I listen with love to my inner voice.”

Louise Hay

Otsego Revisited - the Flimsy

The second of my three tops to be webbed is done.

This is Otsego Revisited. 

48" x 60"

Otsego is a small town in Michigan

where my mother attended high school.

My favorite grandpa lived there when I was young

and his back yard was bordered with

the most fragrant sweet peas I've ever smelled.

When I saw Robin Picken's Sweet Pea and Lily line

at a local quilt shop, that layer cake

simply HAD to come home with me.

Scrappy greens from my stash

plus strips cut from that layer cake 

were combined with other fabrics from the stash

resulting in this saturated scrappy goodness.

And it looks just as good when rotated 180 degrees.

I'm not sure which way I like it best.

 Backing and binding strips . . . 

I'm so glad I gave these fabrics a second chance

after giving up on the first blocks I made.

Now Otsego Revisited is off to the

'waiting to be quilted closet.'

(more on that closet next week)

* * *

There's one last set of clipped blocks

to be webbed into a quilt top (Jingle Bells).

But then, instead of diving into Hello July's

scrappy red, blue, and cream tumblers as planned

I'm going to do something that was totally unplanned.

(spontaneity is seriously missing from our lives these days)

Bonnie Hunter has been sharing sneak peeks

of a design she's calling Appalachian Autumn.

I'm going to use these long stashed fabrics 

to create my own version.

I'm naming my impromptu project Resplendent 

which means

"brightly colored in an impressive way"

Time will tell if my results are impressive or not

but this quilt top will definitely be brightly colored.

* * *

And I finally figured out

why I was so unhappy with Sukoon.

It wasn't the quilt top at all.

It was the top paired with 

that hot pink elephant print.

When I put it alongside this Art Gallery owl fabric

I realized I just needed to change the backing.

Dilemma resolved.

Quiltdivajulie

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“Listen to your heart.  It knows everything.”

Paul Coehlo