Monday, November 9, 2015

Show and Tell!

Let me first get apologies out of the way...these are rather miserable photos, even by ipad standards, since my guys have the camera with them, several hundred miles away! They look much better on the ipad!

Sharing with you this little pet of a quilt top today feels just like Show and Tell!
You may remember it was originally going to be a pincushion!
I did get my pin cushion :)

making it personal...showing you my door ;)
408 Half Square Triangles later.... :)
I fancy that the "column" element was loosely inspired by Jayne's Cool Waters quilt...it was much on my mind around the time. I did say "loosely"!

I needed to come up with a way to use these littles in a usable sized quilt, without having to make tiny hsts for the rest of my life! Thus, all the negative space and the columns, using alternating rectangles of white, and the occasional gray or lightest blue. Hopefully we toned down the "dizzying" effect of all those wee triangles!

When I had finished the larger column, I didn't think it had enough "umph" to stand on it's own in a lap sized quilt, so I made more HSTs, thinking I would place 3 random-ish strips with it...but then the strips didn't have enough "umph", either, so I put the three of them together in their own column.
in fact, my whole back porch!
 (the sign on the window reads:"NO loaded firearms in the house!" yep, it is necessary!)
I also thought early on, that I would need some kind of color for the background...again with the "umph"...I thought all my littles would be swallowed up with more white. 
Long story short, through a myriad of cross weave/cross hatch searches through a myriad of online shops...I happily came across* this sweet aqua cross hatch from Allison Harris' Oh Clementine collection! It is so perfect, and makes me so happy...it is a "tidy" little crosshatch, just perfect with my tidy little triangles :)

each triangle unit measures a wee 2"x 3"
I must revel here a bit...the layout of the bigger column? TOTALLY random! 
I started pulling from my basket, and placing from the bottom right corner, across, then up, right to left as I went up! It was a bit surreal how much I enjoyed that bit...I did not rearrange one little unit, or peek as I went!
To my mind, the color groups flow up and together in a way I never could have intentionally come up with, I'm sure!
the top finishes at approx. 50"x 65"

So now we are waiting for yardages to arrive in shops...
I will back it in that wonderful navy/mint green/baby blue "flying geese" geometric print that has easily claimed top spot as my favorite print in the uber wonderful Tucker Prairie line :)





*I found the cross hatch fabric @ another etsy shop, Warm Kitty Quilts :)

Of course I am linking up with Lorna and Let's Bee Social!
Also linking up, for the first time, with Beth@Cooking Up Quilts Main Crush Mondays!!!
This top definitely qualifies as my latest crush!!!

10 comments:

Gina said...

What a great quilt. I've never seen a pincushion that big :)

Miss Alissa said...

Oh, I love it! Isn't it nice when you don't actually intentionally place colors and they just work!

Kate said...

Lots of gorgeous colors, including the use of the aqua for the main quilt. Beautifully done!

Gina said...

I can not i agine how much time was spent squaring all of those little hst's!!!! But what a pretty quilt!!! I need some of that pretty crosshatch you used for back ground!!

Sandra Walker said...

Isn't it amazing and quite wonderful how: 1) a quilt takes on a life of its own, 2) how the perfect fabric appears, 3) how truly delightful and freeing just throwing blocks together without peeking or planning can lead to a fabulous quilt top? Love this quilt, and loved reading about the process you went through to get to it. :-)

Cut&Alter said...

What a lovely quilt - all those little triangles would drive me mad but I really love seeing other people's creations with them!

mell-meyer said...

The columns are great and the light blue background is a great choice. It will be a beautiful quilt - totally can understand your "crush".

the zen quilter said...

WEll, it seems to me that every decision you made on this was dead on -it's pretty fabulous, I must say. I can totally understand not wanting to make an entire quilt's worth, but really I love the column better anyway. FINE work.

JanineMarie said...

Ooh, I love how that little aqua crosshatch looks with the rest of the quilt. And your little HSTs are so cute! I'm really impressed that you were able to do that placement totally randomly. That, to me, is so hard to do--I'm always fiddling so that it becomes planned random when I really do want random.

Beth @ Cooking Up Quilts said...

You are a HST wonder woman!! They are so small and look so great! The background fabric you found is a perfect match for this top. It's always so fun to find just the perfect fabric! Thanks so much for linking up to Main Crush Monday. :)