State of the Sewing Room - February 2022

How have I never had a quilt cupboard?  You know those inviting looking wardrobe/armoires you see with one door hanging open and stacks of quilts inside?  This cupboard is not deep enough, I realize, but it's a start!  A quilt maker should definitely have one of those, right?  I think I've been pretty ruthless with selling or giving away most of my quilts.  I've always felt like why would I keep them if I didn't need them.  Almost like the act of letting them go freed me up to make more.  Some have been a bit painful to part with, but for the most part, it was a good feeling to think I wasn't attached to them... now I wish I had kept a few more!  So that might change in the future.  I think it wouldn't hurt to have a few more hanging around.  I can still give them away if the moment presents itself, but at least I have the option!

And then this quilt! It was such a happy accident that I immersed myself in this week!   I happened to open my UFO drawer, which I do occasionally, just to see if I have any urge to work with anything in there.  Because of the way I quilt, there are never entire unfinished quilts in there.  I never cut out an entire quilt ahead of time.  I usually try making a few blocks to see how I like it, and then sometimes I'm just not feeling it, or something more exciting comes up.  But I've made a few blocks and can't just throw them away, so they go in this drawer.  And of course after a year I have no desire to finish them exactly as I had thought, so they're pretty hard to work with.

This time tho, inspiration struck!

Starting with the orange and blue/purple triangle blocks... this is a block from Cultural Fusion Quilts.  I love the lively look these blocks have, they're quite improv and the only reason I quit with them was because the color palette I started with overwhelmed me.  It was just looking too bright and crazy for me.  But this time I looked at them and thought they looked like a sunset.  And then I had a couple of these free form house blocks and I thought, 'I could make a scenic quilt with these together!'

And then those log cabins in green and browns would make the perfect ground beneath the houses!!

And those blue stars can fit in the sky.  I mean, stars can always fit in somewhere!

And then everything else just kind of mashed together...I tried to only use fabrics that had been partial blocks in that drawer and not add other fabrics.  I did have to add a few strips to make everything fit.

I love this quilt now though!  I think I'll add a row of blocks on the top to make it rectangular since I'm not a fan of square quilts.  I'll have to make them from scratch though because the drawer is about empty!  

Just one Gwen Marston inspired medallion quilt that I'll finish soon and show you...