Tuesday, March 19, 2019

Hourglass Solids

What gives dignity to death is the dignity of the life that preceded it.
~Sherwin Nuland~


Still in recovery. This is a quilt I made but didn't blog because I wanted to make a video. Haven't done that; probably won't now.  Still, it's a pretty quilt to share.

When I reorganized/cleaned my sewing room last year, all threads and sewing supplies went back in their respective drawers. That's not much but makes the room neater. The biggest decision was to put all the "pulled" fabric back in the stash. The partially sewn blocks are still kept together but no more endless collections of fabrics for future quilt that didn't even get cut.

Just when the stash seemed to be decreasing, I find I've simply hidden it in "plain brown wrapping." Like a naughty book or an accounting shell game, only with fabric. Ha!

A rainbow array of solid fabrics in two rows.
Solid fabric choices

For someone with few solids, I unearthed a small trove. Most are medium. This photo contains only three lights: pink, pale green, and yellow - and they look washed out.  However, they are needed to add value change. Can you imagine how badly a quilt would look with only medium values? Tucked in with these  pieces was a charm pack of solids; the perfect way to stretch this limited color range.

I cut one WOF of each fabric whatever that width was; some were fat quarters or less. Then cross-cut into five-inch squares. Then cut each into four QSTs. That took a couple of days.

Laid on the living room rug instead of the design wall.
Solid Hourglass quilt blocks

Next I matched up each of the remnant squares with one of fabrics I had in abundance {for example, the blue, lavender, and pinky-red} in order to scatter the colors as widely as possible. When that was done, I matched the remaining fabrics into pairs and started sewing hourglasses.

This time I laid them out right in front of the television. DH said he could tell it was mine because it was so colorful.

Enjoy the day, Ann