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Tuesday, February 12, 2013

The Long Awaited Return of My Sanity

These past few weeks, I have been in my happy place.
 
You guessed it. I've been in my studio. My writing has taken a backseat for a while as I have been feeding my other inner artist. I've been long arming a bit, but more importantly, I've been piecing.
 
I am working on a Rapid Fire Hunter's Star Quilt. I am taking a class at Along Came Quilting with my good friends Deb and Wendy. Our instructor Kim M. is fabulous. She is a great teacher and puts up with our antics and smart comments very patiently. I am ecstatic that I decided to take this class. Not so much for the class itself, more for the companionship and the piecing. Having lots of homework due for the next class means many, many hours in the studio and I love it.
 
I love how there are so many options of how to put this together and how it looks so different in each layout. I have not shown all of the options here. Just the ones I like the best. Most are just a fraction of the quilt, as it takes too long to layout the entire design. I can easily picture myself making many color combinations for this pattern.
 

The fabrics. 20 Fabulous Batiks.
Blues, teals, turquoises and purples.
 
Possible layout #1.
Not too bad.
 
#2 Too Ziggy.
 
#3. Didn't care for the light
Center. This is for My Man's
Bed.
 
#4 Too stop-sign-ish. Yes
I know that stop signs
have eight sides!
 
#5 The stars don't pop.
 
#6 Looks like a target.
 
#7 Nice curving edges,
but again too light in the
ceter.

#8 This is the layout I decided on. Sewing the units together has begun.

I am a little disappointed in my color choices. There are a few light blues that are too light and one of the purples is too dark. However, overall it reads okay.
 
This will be the center of Dave's small queen sized quilt. I am planning on adding dark blue borders. The outside edge star points will extend into the borders. (If all goes as planned.) I am optomistic that the dark blue added to the borders will make this more masculine. It isn't exactly feminine now, more gender neutral-ish, but I had hoped for more masculine.
 
Hope you enjoyed this peek at my current work in progress.
 
Cath