Some Creative Thoughts

Five days ago, I posted a picture on my Instagram feed and declared my intention for the week as part of the #onethingwithamy hashtag -- "turn this motley group of leftover y-seam demo units into a cute baby quilt flimsy as I continue to clear out the aftermath of 35 years of teaching quiltmaking". 

This is where it was a couple days ago when last you saw me!

I finished setting it together and then . . . . how am I going to make this "cute"???

It needed to be a bit longer and so I fell back onto my often used strategy of adding a pieced band top and bottom plus more of the "float" bands of fabric.  There were leftover diamonds I could use.

Taking time to trim the points of the diamonds with Marti Michell's Point Trimmer make assembling a row of these diamonds easy and accurate.

Perfect alignment every time. 

And a straight band of pieced diamonds. 

The ends ones were cut on the angle at just the end being joined to the band so they could be trimmed straight on the outside end. 

That was easy!!  But now what?

Nothing to be done but pull out anything with lots of color that might say "cute" loudly!!

(I didn't photograph the rejects, but I did put them away.)

And the winner is . . . 

this cute farm print I grabbed at an end-of-bolt sale!!

I needed to piece the upper and lower borders to make the best use of the fabric I had.

To make the joining seam less obvious and eliminate "cow-butts" and "headless cows"

I folded back the end of the right hand strip until I found a less obvious area for the seam. 

Then I cut off sections at the correct ends of the strips being joined. 

The seam isn't a perfect match but it is less obvious! 

And here is the "cute" quilt!!!

So here's the "creative thought" for the day -- if I had not defined the look I wanted this quilt to have before I started working on it, I think I would still be stuck up in the studio trying to figure out how to border this piece.  It's not just a jumble of colors, it's a jumble of print styles and while that makes it a true scrap quilt, it can also make it harder to unify the finished look of the quilt.  

When I started pulling potential borders fabrics, "cute" defined where I started -- if it was a cute, multi-colored print, I auditioned it!  The moment I laid this hunk of fabric next to the pieced center, I knew immediately it was the right piece because it was colorful and "cute".

So thank goodness, I defined my creative goal for this motley stack of pieces.

I'm not sure I always do that but I'll pay more attention in the future because it certainly made this project come together easier and more successfully than I imagined!

This quilt is destined to become one of my charity makes.

It measures 44" by 58".

I even pulled the backing together today!

Check out the hashtag #onethingwithamy to see what other quilters are doing!

Mary