Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Debbie Designs A Quilt!

Last summer I started a wall quilt with gold fish swimming around on it. During my move it got packed up and put away... somewhere. So until I can find it I have to move on to another project. I have joined an Internet Quilt Along!!! Let me explain...

One person signs on as 'host' and hundreds of quilters all around the globe follow the weekly posted instructions. All participants join a FLICKR GROUP and post their progress. The main objective is to STASH BUST... meaning you should use fabric you already own and NOT purchase any more. This is a quilt that fits my budget!!!

So far the instructions seem simple enough. Since it's a scrap quilt I get to cut up all the smaller pieces of fabric I have been hoarding over the years. Believe it or not I won a raffle and the 'host' of this Quilt A Long sent me a large gallon baggie of her scraps!! Too funny!!!

As I was slicing random colors the quilt began to form in my head. Dot dot dot - dash dash dash - dot dot dot.  SOS... Share Our Scraps. Dot dot dot - dash dash dash - dot dot dot. SOS... Share Our Scraps. Quickly my rotary cutter produced hundreds of 2 inch squares and 2 inch by 4 inch rectangles. Simple... right??? Ahhh... No.

When I began to lay out the scraps I realized I had OPTIONS. Out came the pen and graph paper. Next I began to play around with my options and took photos to compare. As I sleep tonight I assume the correct option will pop in my dreams. I'm already leaning in one direction... any one want to take a guess which one I like the best?
Controlled Chaos - Dots and Dashes in order and match.

Haywire - Still has all dots and dashes, but each 3 are different fabrics.

Scrappy Chaos - Creative license taken on signal by only using 3 dots and 3 dashes, each a different fabric.  Wondering if the SOS message will get lost without unification. Could possibly insert a solid square at the end of each segment.

Which one do YOU like best??? Why???

4 comments:

  1. I like the "coded quilt" idea! I lean toward keeping each group of three (dot dot dot / dash dash dash / dot dot dot) alike. Let's say one dot is green, the dash is blue, the other dot
    is yellow.

    green green green blue blue blue yellow yellow yellow

    I would use the same fabric for the green, the blue, the yellow. AND I'd put a little spacer of the sashing fabric between each of the greens,
    each of the blues, each of the yellows WITH a somewhat larger spacer between the three greens/three blues and three
    blues/three yellows.

    To add variety, I would make the subsequent dot-dash-dot units out of the same colors (green, blue, yellow) but use a different fabric.

    I hope that makes sense.

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  2. I like the Haywire version. Are you going to applique them or have them with sashing. You could raw edge applique them which would be quite quick or use some decorative stitches on the edges.
    Louisa from London

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  3. Thanks for the advice! Nann... Great idea about the spacers, and Louisa They will be raw edged appliqued. It's so nice to have other's opinions.

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  4. Clever idea! I think I like Haywire best :)

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