Friday, January 29, 2010

'Fess Up Fridays - Beat The Babies (Wk 4)

I don't want to spend too much time 'fessing up...I'd rather be across the room sewing! :o)

And the longer I sit in this chair, the greater the probability that I will not get up.

(Maybe I shouldn't have turned on the massage function??)

(But, oh, it feels SO nice on my pregnant back!)

(I am envisioning hours upon hours zipping away from me as my aches upon aches melt away...)

Must.

Get.

Going.

Okay, then. Back to reality. So I spent all that time Tuesday night measuring, and drawing, and erasing, and coloring, and taping my mock-ups...and it turns out that I kinda didn't really need to do that. I spent the better part of Thursday night surfing the web, looking at various wonky log cabin designs and samples, and I realized that if I'm going to do this right, I need to be A LOT more improvisational than my Tuesday night plans would allow. I think I was a bit too analytical about it all. A little bit too perfectionist.

I know, shocking.

After I decided that, yes, I could do this, I got up from the computer, rearranged the stuff on my dining room table, and set about the business of improvisational quilting. Modern quilting. Scary quilting! :o)  Remember how I said I needed all that guidance? And whined about how there was very little guidance? It's just tough for me because there is pretty much NOTHING I can prepare in advance! Which, again, has to be the way it is if I am going to make this quilt honoring Angela and her baby. If I want to make something that reflects her personality, and the beauty that is Angela, then I need to leave myself behind and follow...well...nothing.  Follow my heart, I guess. Follow my impulse.

Impulse. What's that? Do I have any of that?

But to make this wonky log cabin, it's sew, then cut, then sew, then cut, then sew, then cut. Log by log. Block by block. Just like that. No plan. No stack of pre-cut strips to take from. No template. Just go with the flow.

(hurts to even type that!)

But I'm doing it!  And here's the proof.

First round of "logs", before I wonkified it:

And after I very slightly, ever so timidly wonkified it:

And here it is after the second round of logs, pre-wonkification. You can sorta-kinda start to see the wonkiness coming through:

And here it is post-wonkification.

With each level of logs, if I choose to wonkify, it will wonk the block up more and more. My plan (and hope) is to have a range of wonkiness. I'm trying to get away from symmetry and pattern and form. I know in the end this is going to be a beautiful quilt, and I will be a better person for stepping out of my comfort zone to make it unique.

But first I must step away from this computer. And away from this massage chair. Where I might or might not be planning to spend every waking moment for the next 4 months.

*********************
9:38pm Edited to add:
I have finished my first block!! (Can you hear the trumpets toot-toot-ta-ta-tooting?) :o)

Except for the part where I'm not sure how much I like the stark-white in the midst of all that off-whiteness, I think I like it! It's not nearly as wonky as I expected it to be, which is a direct result of my ultra-conservative wonkifying, but I think it might appear more wonky once I add the black border and sashing.

And I am SO glad I spent all that time researching last night because when I came up against a critical error growth opportunity, I knew how to...say it with me...IMPROVISE!!  For some of the fabrics, I'm using strips that I won in a blog contest back in April. The tiny black dot on the outside is one of those winner strips. And it's awesome, and I'm glad to have them, and I have a wonderful variety of them in a vast range of blacks and whites. Except I have mostly only one strip of each.  And when I ran too short of that one strip...
I knew just what to do! Yay! Thank you Interwebs and Bloggy Buddies!
I just inserted a piece of fabric to make the last log long enough! Brilliant, eh? I don't plan on running out every time, so I don't think this extra piece will be a recurring theme, but it might. We'll see.

I'm improvising as I go...

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