Sowing Seeds

It all started innocently enough. I had spotted an interesting block of the month in issue 11 of Love Patchwork and Quiting magazine. The instructions included a paper template for making small hst’s.

You sew on the red lines and cut on the blue. The idea is that it is much faster than piecing hst’s. I don’t really know if it is faster. I’m pretty slow at everything.

This is what my “Migration” block looked like.

Below you can see I added a border, mostly because I really like that print and wanted to show more of it. I think it was 17.5″ square at this point and I want to add more to it. But what ?

Meanwhile, outside the sewing room, this book I had ordered came in from the library:

Opening the book I was immediately feeling inspired and creative while looking at the visually exciting quilts pictured within.  The quilts included in the book are from the authors ( Roderick Kiracofe) personal collection and are certainly unexpected as is in the title. I didn’t feel that they are that ‘unconventional’, as many of them are recognizable patterns. I can’t say that I love all of the quilts but so many of them quite literally get my heart racing. They are the kind of quilts I want to make and I feel that there is a language here that I am unable to speak.. yet. If you have been to my blog before you will know that I haven’t been quilting very long. I have bought a few fabric collections with the intent of finding patterns and keeping the collections together in the same quilt – maybe adding a few prints and solids. I’m not so sure anymore – my quilting life has been tipped over on it’s side by this book. I look at my fabrics and it is like standing in front of my full clothes closet declaring that I have nothing to wear ! I have all these exciting quilty thoughts and don’t know where to go with them.

The book is not just pretty pictures; it has essays written by some people I have heard of  – Denyse Schmidt and Kaffe Fasset for example, and others I have not. The essays share keen personal insights and opinions and loads of information regarding quilting history and the craft movement in general.

Here are just a couple of pages from the book:

I laughed out loud when I saw this one:

I don’t know how the images in this book are going to change how I make quilts. It is certainly a different aesthetic to what I have been looking at and thinking about so far. I feel as though I want to go down a different path but don’t know how to change directions. I am still interested in traditional techniques and feel as though I have a lot of skill building to do but I love the spontaneity and depth in the quilts in this book – they are authentic, original, one of a kind, full of the makers personality.

Maybe I will take the words of Denyse Schmidt from her essay found in this book as my mantra for 2015:

“Taking inspiration from the quilts in this book we are reminded to take chances, to experiment, to be open to the opportunities inherent in mistakes, to close our ears to critics and shun expectations, to be true to our own intuition and to trust our gut instincts.”

The seed has been planted – how it will grow is yet to be determined.

Oh, and back to the WIP – the fabric on the far right is just hanging there, auditioning.  I am thinking of another border or maybe a round of blocks ?? Who knows, I have to go stare at it some more, read some more, have a conversation with my gut instincts –  best wishes.

Please comment, I’d really love to hear what you have to say about all this. The comment thingie is up at the top of this post on the left by the date.

Thanks for stopping by.

I’ll be linking up with Lee at Freshly Pieced.

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