quilt in progress: hexed

finished this quilt top at the beginning of december!  woohoo!  truth be told, this quilt has been about 1-2 years in the making.

i learned how to english paper piece a few years ago, maybe the beginning of 2014?...with the help of my CMQG friend holly, and katy jones on her QNN show quilt monkey (episode link).  i spent many a night on my couch (or parent's couch, when i was there visiting), or at stitch, bitch and brew, over the last few years, diligently hand sewing each hexie diamond you see here.  

my idea from the outset was to join random hexies together, not overthinking the pairings, combining what some might deem as "mismatched" or "ugly" fabrics, and see what the results might be.  i grabbed a bunch of disparate fabrics from my scrap bins and cut out 6 inch squares with the help of my trusty GO! cutter, and then machine appliquéd each diamond, set on a diagonal, on to the 6 inch squares with a rainbow of threads, including some neon threads.

and then i joined all the blocks, at least taking care to at least not let any two similar 6 inch squares touch.

that's it, really.  

i'm REALLY pleased with how it turned out.  controlled crazy!  i'm all about the controlled crazy.  about setting some limits or parameters but not overthinking everything to death.  it's very liberating.  try it!

my plan for quilting this beast has not been finalized, but i'm thinking i'll probably echo quilt the seams, maybe in neon thread (because i like me some neon, dammit), and then hand tie each diamond in the center with wool yarn, and face the quilt (rather than bind it, because i'm all about that right now too).  and then wash the quilt so i can get felted doodleballs!  because why not, and how fun would that be?!  DOODLEBALLS, y'all.  (h/t to sherri lynn)

stay tuned, i'll update when it's finally finished!

catching up!

it's been quite a year!  lots of high points, and low points.

-we bought a condo in chicago!  in april 2015.  it's the first home peter and i have ever bought, after about 17 years together.  we had moved ceaselessly throughout the last decade and a half, and after coming to chicago in 2011, we decided to finally put down permanent roots.  we picked a winner:  we have the bottom two floors of a brand new 3-unit building, with lots of space for our little family, space for visitors, and even a nice little white and bright studio for yours truly, tucked away in the basement.  it's right smack in the city, on a fairly quiet street, accessible to and minutes from pretty much everything, and close to work for peter, and school for poppy.  it even has a cute park about 5 minutes away, a perfect place to play and enjoy the weather, when it's pleasant.  it's my urban oasis, and i am so happy with the choice we made.  let's ignore the fact that it's still in the process of being decorated...oy, that takes a while, doesn't it?  i hope to get the house more shaped up as we ease into 2016.  i promise photos when i get off my can and get around to getting things to fruition!

-my little girl turned seven, and i turned 40.  what the WHAT??  i am still trying to wrap my brain around that number.  where does the time go??

-my dad, paul, passed away in mid-october, after a year long battle with pancreatic cancer.  his loss is still fresh for myself, and my whole family. i can hardly believe he is gone, though i was there with my mom and brothers when he passed.  

dad was one of my life-long inspirations and a fantastic role model:  a hard worker, an honest man with strong values.  he was also a fantastic chef and extremely stylish person with a penchant for bright color and bold, yet classic clothing, in the preppy, ivy-league vein.  my love of color, my utter fearlessness with it, is but one of the traits i inherited from my father.  he showed me how it was DONE.  before he died, we had a short conversation on the phone (before i was able to go down to florida to be with him and the rest of my family in his last days), and he told me he loved me and that i was a "creative treasure."     i'll treasure those words forever, and of course, mourn his loss forever as well.  a piece of my heart is now gone, and a hole remains.  rest in peace, dad.

-on a happier note:  i managed to get a bunch of quilts finished this year!  so even with all the upheavals (moves, dad's passing), i managed to find time to be creative.  it's been quite a balm for my soul, really, through it all.  i'll post images of this years' efforts in the weeks to come....stay tuned!

stella's log cabin

if you follow me on pinterest (particularly my colorful amazingness board), or have just been following me for a good long while, you might be aware that i am very inspired and influenced by 20th and 21st century abstract/geometric art.  i love learning about and enjoying that visual art subspecialty to enjoy the works as they are, but i also find there's a lot of fodder in the annals of that aesthetic to loosely inform an infinite number of my quilts or other artistic expressions.

on the long list of artists whom i admire is the painter/printmaker frank stella.  i love his exuberant use of intense, saturated color coupled with minimal form; the coupling creates a maximal visual impact.  a couple years back i found a few books about him and his work at a local library, and fixated upon a series he did that included this work of his, concentric squares, that's has rainbow bands of color that in one half go from red to violet on one half, and bands going from violet back to red on the other half.  very impactful in it's bold simplicity.

very log cabin-esque, right??  of course.  so i figured i'd make a quilt based off of this work (and the others very similar to it in his body of work), but in a way that suited me and my tastes:  it's four giant log cabin blocks in a simple grid format, and there's some texture and visual interest in the way of the fabric choices, as i used dupioni silk for some of the concentric squares, and subtle striped and polka dotted fabrics for others.  binding is a flaming hot pink dupioni.  i did diagonal straight line quilting across the body of the quilt, in bright yellow 40wt. aurafil thread.  

with regards to the quilting thread color choice: i've come to think of yellow as a great unifier, kind of a neutral, when quilting a quilt that's got a healthy amount of bright, saturated colors, often the best choice.  using white or off white or something else just wouldn't work nearly as well, i'd posit, at least with this quilt.

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does your taste in art influence the quilts you make?  in what way?