I realize that with this blog title, we are venturing into dangerous and sometimes shallow waters….
All quilters, even those that tend to stick to the pattern and assigned colors, have a creative process. I do too, although most of the times I take the pattern instructions as only a suggestion and not the gospel truth. The more I quilt the more I like to be challenged and have part of the challenge let me be the sole designer and creator. Hence, I am really loving our guild’s monthly mini-quilt challenge.
Let me first tell you that I had pretty much decided that my June block would highlight my garden. I had come up with some cute, little paper-pieced vegetables and had my fabric picked out. However, I hesitated to start on it until our vice-president definitely announced what the theme would be. But in my mind, I had a list. June would be the garden. July would be patriotic stars. August would be be vacation (I had a really cute design of a skinny dipping Sunbonnet Sue for that one…).
Then Matthew blew my neat little list completely out of the water when he said, “The theme for the month of June is your dream vacation.”
What?! How dare he?
Well he dared and he did, and that pronouncement sent me back to the proverbial drawing board. My dream vacation?
Honey, my dream vacation is anytime I can throw a suitcase in the back of the Tahoe and get the hell out of town for more than one night. So I began to think…instead of a destination, what would my dream vacation consist of? I threw around ideas and looked at EQ8 and came up with a few ideas…
First, I would have to have water. Sorry, I am just not a mountain-vacation-loving girl. Lake, beach, or creek…I love water. So a large body of liquid is a must.
And there must be some shade, because I burn easily.
What next? A quilt store of course! Can’t go on vacation without shopping in one or three or ten of these…
And then, of course, there’s the obvious.
Gotta have one of these.
And a good coffee and bagel shop.
Some tourist-y attractions. I steer away from the chotsky tourist traps, but I love historical spots.
And lastly, if I’m in good company on this vacation, I don’t care where it is, it’s pretty darn near perfect.
I played with the layout for awhile. I finally decided on this one.
The width is perfect, but the the length is a little long for my mini-quilt rack. I’ll set the legs up on a block of wood to give it more height. I also needed to sash this thing. I used a lot of color in the small blocks. With that being the case, my go-to color is gray. I like the motion in this gray that I had left over from my Firenze collection.
And last, I picked this out for the backing. I really like this fabric and wish I had more of it.
I’m not quilting this little quilt too heavily — just outlining the items in the pictures and moving on.
Meanwhile, remember all those tiny circles I made the other month?
I did get my compass ring completed for my Love Entwined.
It’s been a busy week!
Love and Stitches,
Sherri and Sam
