Friday, February 29, 2008

A Center

Last year, probably right when it came out, I fell in love with the Sunshine collection by April Cornell for Moda. I think a lot of people fell in love with that collection. It's a nice and cheerful one. I liked the line, but I did not know what to do with it. So I decided to buy a few of the charm packs and a little yardage to make a quick quilt. I figured when I saw the fabric in person, I would get inspired and whip up a little something.

No such luck. I got the fabric, looked through it, really liked it, drew a blank, and promptly shelved it. I have pulled it down quite a few times, but never has inspiration struck.

Not to say that 1000 designers haven't designed quilts for this line, because they have. There are tons of patterns out there featuring this line, and furthermore, featuring this line as a charm square quilt. How much easier could this have been made for me? Fabric... pattern... DONE. But none of the patterns grabbed me. So the fabric stayed on the shelf.

I have become ashamed of myself for letting it sit that long, and so I've pulled the fabric down and have started a quilt. I have no plan. This is a first for me, making it up as I go. It'll be an adventure, and I thought I'd take you with me.

This is part one:

The middle. OOOOOOOOHHHHHH!!! Middle-ish!

First thing I did was remove all the green squares from the charm packs because that green was icky. It just killed the whole flow. Really yuck. So there won't be any green in the quilt, other than what's accenting the flowers as stems and such. Once I removed the green, the quilt sort of opened up. I put the squares on point with a color arrangement that is random, but not that random (I actually have a hard time being random--it doesn't come easily for me). And now I will build it from there.

I don't know what I will do next. I have a bunch of charm squares left over to use, and a little yardage of two colors for the border. It needs punch, so that'll be the first thing. And it's really quite small right now (I think 37"), so I have to work on that too. I hope this experiment works. I'm really more of a planner than a "fly by the seat of my pants"-er, so this is going to be interesting. But you'll be able to see it every step of the way, whether it flops or not!

PS--The giveaway is still open, so please leave a comment and be entered!

1 comment:

Pumpkin said...

Ohhhhhh, I'm liking it so far :o) My mom did a quilt for me in the blue, yellow and white combo and I just LOVE it!

Can you start expanding out in darker colors? I'm not a quilter. I'm not a random person either so I'm not sure just how much help I'll be ;o)