Urban Planning using quilts.

I'm sure you can all relate.  I've got to sew labels and sleeves on to two quilts by tomorrow morning.  I need to sandwich and quilt 3 quilts in the next week/ week and a half.  I'm drawing up two more creations that I've been pulling fabric for...  Yet.... I was compelled to finish this quilt (which has no deadline nor purpose other than to satisfy my creativity sweet tooth).  

So I found a photo of a city in Sweden from which I could not pry my eyes away.  The colors grabbed me first but then the shapes and patterns completely drug me into the rabbit hole.  It's from IG and t's a site called Daily Overview (here's the link:  Daily Overview).  I am obsessed now.  Seriously - I have so many ideas flowing...I've got to throttle myself back to keep from overdosing on marker fumes.

I felt like this lent itself so well to a quilt...I got out my trusty graph paper and went to town.  Not finding my markers....I had to settle for a highlighter and a pencil and just labeled where I wanted each color.  I decided it use 1.5 inch raw edges to make gridding this out a bit easier.   While it somewhat follows this photo - I took artistic license with it to make it doable for me.

That's right - I own a pen that is... an eraser.  And I use it A LOT...

Of course, as soon as I finished this process, I nearly tripped over my markers.  But I wasn't going back and redoing this - it works fine the way I colored and labeled it.  I used that eraser marker a lot in this process before I colored in the blocks.

Once I got to putting it all together, I was glad I selected the 1.5 inch size.  It made putting everything together much more simple and clean.  I don't usually sweat matching points but this needed that precision.  Once I kept adding to it - I realized I would make some bigger changes to the bottom left quadrant.  I just wasn't feeling the layout on my paper.  Laziness?  Maybe.  I am just dying to get it sandwiched up and quilt it...  I think I will add a border of the darker gray around the quilt to finish it off.  It's approximately 42 inches by 30 inches before anything else.

This was before I used the grid work.  I thought I could improv it but when these went together, I felt the more rigid grid would look better and give it more uniformity.

Building streets and buildings...

I'm really pleased with the results so far....  But...now back to the sweat shop.  Those sleeves are sewing themselves on!!

I'm going to link up to several Linky parties this week - look at my side bar to join in.  Here are some posts from some of those Linky parties that I especially loved:

Rainbow mini swap progress

A gift for a 90 year old

Winning!!!

7200 Hexies

Elna Supermatic

Spell it with Moda

Brown sofa

Gorgeous Eye Quilt

Quilted Lanyard Tutorial

The scene of the crime- gory quilting photos...

I rearranged my sewing room and wound up moving my design wall.  It's close to perfect only I can't take a photograph directly in front of it.  Despite that little issue -  I love my design wall.  

I'm not the only one who seems to love the wall.  Three times now, I have entered my quilting sanctuary to find it vandalized.  What miscreant would desecrate my design wall...AND take the time to come back to the scene of the crime a total of three times?  Who would risk that?

Look at that guilty face....

Rub my belly or the wall gets it...AGAIN!

Is it boredom?  Loneliness?  Despondent?   No, she's just a bad seed....

Hahahaha - what you gonna do about it???

Seriously....three times?

If you stop rubbing...that wall is coming down!

What can I say.  I love that hairy hooligan....

Demo'ing walls makes you very tired.....

I love LOBSTAH!

So here's my latest project.  I wanted to create something modern looking and using three colors.  I'm in this quilt gang... the Quilt Sluts (southern ladies under tremendous stress) and each year we meet for a week at the ocean.  We have a theme (Mardi Gras this year) and some quilty challenges.  

The Paint Chip Challenge is what I'm focused on right now.  One of us went to the local big box hardware store  and nabbed a boat load of paint chip samples. At our monthly soiree, a ceremonial paper bag was passed around and each person pulled 3 chips out.  You could toss one chip and reselect - but then you had to live with that choice.  I was INCREDIBLY lucky...I got turquoise, aqua, and orange.  They have no idea the creature of creativity they unleashed....

This is the back side of the lobster - he still has the fusible web silicone sheet attached.

I had to let the ideas and colors simmer for a couple of months and just as I suspected.... the inspiration was found!  Some random thing I saw made me think - Orange +Lobster.  And then of course, the blues took care of water.  

I drew out the lobster on paper (many, many times) and then transferred that onto clear plastic.  I picked up an old school projector many years ago (quilting tools come from many sources) so then I projected that onto my wall.  I was able to enlarge it to a size I thought I'd like (he's about 36 inches tall).  

From there I sewed 1.5 inch strips of orange fabric and recut and resewed.  I wound up with gorgeous tiny little squares of scrappy orange fabric to use for my lobster.

After that...I struggled with how to create a background that wouldn't be terribly distracting.  Even though I wound up making 4.5 inch HST's, I think it doesn't read too busy.  I added the strips of solid to the side and bottom to create a more modern look.

I've only got him pinned on right now but I've got fusible web on the orange so I"ll fuse all of that down next.  I think I have my quilting design in my head...but I am a pretty organic quilter so that may all change by the time the needle hits the fabric.  Hoping to start quilting in a day or two...  

And for the record, how do you pronounce lobster?  I'm from the south - so "lob - stir" is how I say it.

Linking up with several fabulous Linky parties  - check them all out!  Here are some of the quilts in progress I loved this week:

Valentine quilt with no name

Gooseberry Secret Garden

Rowing along

No more bunny ears

Maryse Makes Things

Quilty Habit

Has it really been almost 2 months??

Sorry for the long absence.  Christmas, family, cooking, wrapping, traveling, parties, Santa, writing cards, napping, cooking, cleaning, birthdays, putting away decor, cleaning attics, etc., etc., etc.   I think you understand.  I'm just leaving a small post today...but I've got lots of catching up to do ...so, more soon.  Until then, here are some photos to whet your quilt appetite:

Ping is doing just fine, in case you were wondering.  She had a great holiday and is dreaming about all the quilts we are going to make in 2016.