For the past month, I’ve been grabbing as much time to work in my sewing studio as I could grab away from working at DG – not much time – but it’s a step in the right direction. What got me started was a conversation at WOW, a small group of art quilters that I’ve been privileged to join.
On October 12, I had no idea what I was going to do at the WOW meeting – so I brought 3 bags of scraps, my sewing machine and an idea that I would start making Journal Quilts. I think most people who do this use a particular size and keep their journal quilts together as a reminder of how they have progressed. I am not set on a particular size yet.
At WOW, I pulled out a few pieces of purple, orange and yellow and began sewing them together in strips, sort of randomly, letting the pieces tell me what to do – no idea where it was headed. I put strips of similar sizes together into two blocks, sliced them and sewed pieces of one to the other with both blocks, trimmed them and lined them up in two ways:
October 12, 2019
The next time in my studio, I experimented with piecing strips as they came out of the scrap bag and trying to fit crosscuts into the pieces so that the strips matched on either side of the cross cuts:
October 24, 2019
Next, I planned the pieces a little more and added a crosscut:
October 25, 2019
Moving on to more crosscuts on one piece with my own hand dyed fabrics:
October 28, 2019
And finally, today, curved crosscuts and insets:
November 3, 2019
I am showing all the cuts on this experiment, because I like the direction it was going until the 3rd cut. At that point, it seemed like it needed something brighter – spots of color or some balance to the drab crosscuts. So I added the colored pieces at the top. Then I realized that they just didn’t fit with the rest of the piece.
At this point, I thought I knew how to add the color and wanted to contrast straight lines with the curved piecing. But what I did was not the way — the top does not relate to the rest of the piecing. I’ll work on that: curved crosscuts with colorful straight-line insets to balance those curves.
So this ends my second Journal Quilts project.
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4 responses to “Journal Quilting #2”
This morning is the first time I read your blog, after our get together at our home a few weeks ago. I have now read all your blog posts…….and look forward to more. You are a wonderful writer….and a lovely friend! XO, Barbara
Thank you, Barb, for your comment. We had such a nice weekend in Stowe with you all two weekends ago. Let’s plan more this winter! Take care, Peggy
Thanks for your comment, Jeanne. It’s an adventure!
WOW!!!