Saturday, August 7, 2010

And now for something completely different...

The downside to the Joseph's Coat technique that I used, is that you end up with a huge pile of cut away scraps.  (This is about 1/2 of the total)
The biggest pieces are 3" wide and 9" on the long end. Smaller ones as narrow as 1.5.  I spent a lot of time last summer trying to come up with a plan for using them up.

And I came up with a crazy quilt variation that I wanted to try.  My vision was of  Spring Thaw on a frozen lake.  Chunks of ice floating on the water...just before it all sinks and disappears.

 I started by sewing the leftovers from the Double Irish Casserole to one side of the white scraps.  It was at this point that I'd read an article on Leaders & Enders, and sewed a bunch of these while I was finishing up the Pinwheel quilt.

Then yesterday, feeling inspired by posts by Quilhexle's improv project and Root Connection's Gee's Bend inspired quilt, I decided to start sewing pieces together and see what happened.

Being as how I'm no good at random, I sorted the sets into 5 piles with the intention to divide the prints up a little all over the finished quilt.  I put a pile under my chair with the goal of pulling pieces randomly & blindly, and finding a way to make it work.

So I'd test drive a piece, then cut a straight edge so I'd know where they went together.

I ended up starting a second set so I could leave one on the sewing machine while I messed with the other.

I allowed myself one do-over if the piece I grabbed didn't really work.  And as the piece got larger, decided I needed to have the option of working in a scrap or two of the blue or the white that wasn't paired up.

So this is what it is starting to look like.  I've added the pins to remind me what my top and bottom sides are (a random decision).
The goal is Crazy Strips, 12.5" high.  The width will be dictated by the pile of scraps that I'm pulling from.
It's not at all what I imagined it to look like.  But I like it.

I've taken over Skater Girl's bedroom for this project, so I better hurry and finish before she gets home Wed.

2 comments:

Oops-Lah said...

What an excellent idea! It's going to look fabulous.

quilthexle said...

It's a wonderful idea - you'll end up with a beautiful quilt. Do you have any idea how much honored I feel that you mention my blog and my work? Thank you soooo much!!!