Monday, April 4, 2011

March Challenge Project Revealed

For March, Stephanie, of Peas in a Pod, and I were suppose to work on "narrow inset piecing." I started out making half square triangles. I had no plan, I just felt like making half square triangles.


I played with many different arrangements of these half square triangles and finally settled on the above. Then I went to work piecing them and inserting narrow bits.


It hung on my design wall like this for a while. I auditioned various borders. Below is one option.


I finally settled on just using the darkest gray from the half square triangles and quilted it using only Aurifil thread.


How cool is this!? With no prior planning on my part, I happen to own exactly the same colors of Aurifil thread as the Kona solids I chose for this project! I picked the fabrics only because these were the ones in my Kona solids scrap bag for which I had 4" squares already cut.

As I was piecing this I was thinking about what to title it and how to quilt it. The title "Best Laid Plans" came to mind.


The on point squares represent how sometimes things go exactly as planned. The gray square with the green insets represents how sometimes unexpected things can be squeezed into our plans without changing them too much. The green and white rectangular parts represent how plans can change and lead us in unexpected directions. The gray square with the blue inserts represents how we try to keep the original plan intact in spite of the big unexpected events that occur. The quilting mimics these ideas. In most of the piece the quilting is straight lines that spiral or wander but stay within a confined area. Then along the top and right hand side I quilted spirals and echos of spirals. This represents how life can sometimes spiral out of control despite all planning.

Stephanie will hopefully be posting her project soon. She has been out of town a lot recently and didn't have as much time to work on her project this month as I'm sure she would have liked. She does have some beautiful silk fabrics that she is using though and wants to embellish it with beads which is why I did the bead tutorials (part one and part two) on her blog last week.

10 comments:

Linda said...

What luck that you had the same thread???!!! It was meant to be! Love this project and the name is perfect! I love quilting. Combining the straight lines with swirls was perfect!

Gill said...

I love this!
The colours and the lines are just perfect!

Jen said...

This turned out fabulous! I'm so impressed. The quilting does amazing things to this design!

pegcollins said...

Love seeing this from start to finish! It is great!!

Mama Pea said...

Lynn, it's just great! I totally love your colors and I love all that great thread! You've inspired me on the color as well as on your design. I'm not quite as satisfied with mine. I am sorry I was late with my post. My day didn't go as planned in many ways. Here's the link to my post!

http://peasinapod.typepad.com/peas-in-a-pod/2011/04/march-intuitive-piecing-challenge-results.html

Jackie said...

That is fantastic and i love the quilting!!!

Grace said...

oh wow I love those narrow wavy strips and the difference in the quilting patterns is very clever! The colors are wonderful too.

Mary Keasler said...

That is gorgeous. I love everything about it.

West Michigan Quilter said...

I love this. The colors and the quilting are fantastic.

Wayne Kollinger said...

Lynn

The quilting on this is wonderful. It adds interest and gives the quilt character. It suits the design. I am impressed.