Sunday 24 July 2016

Playing with Solid HST's

     I just finished up a one week staycation which I bookended with this little project.



      I've always admired the work that Jayne at Twiggy and Opal and Carrie at Zenquilter do, playing around with geometric shapes. This is something I have wanted to do for some time and I decided that now was the time to do it.  I love bright solid fabrics and I've been accumulating quite a few over the last year, but this being my first go at this practise I started out with these strips: three yellows, two greens, two blues and two purples.



     These are left over strips from a block of the month that I joined a few years ago and never kept up with.  I saw a post for random grey half square triangles on the Stash Bee blog.  Sorry you have to scroll quite far down the page to see it.
The post was by Amanda who blogs at Fabric Engineer and I thought I would give this method a shot.

     The fabric cut down nicely to 3 1/2 inch squares.





     I put the squares into a bag and pulled them out without looking at them.  As long as the two pieces I pulled were not identical I sewed them into half square triangles.  Here's a shot where I put some up on the design wall to get an idea of what was going on before I trimmed them.




     At this point I wasn't too sure how I felt about this process because there seemed to be an awful lot going on with this grouping, but as I was trimming the blocks down to 3 inches I started dividing them into piles by colour.





     I could see that I had only two blocks with both green and blue in them.  I had a lot with blue, a lot with green and a few with neither green or blue.  I decided to go with the blue grouping and to arrange them on the design wall in a way that I found pleasing to my eye.  I started out with this.



Then winnowed it down to this.





I sewed it together with my trusty little machine and when my better machine came back from servicing I quilted it with straight line quilting using a golden orange Aurifil 50 wt thread which I believe is number 2135.



          I had a great time working through this process and I love the little mini quilt that resulted and just in case you are wondering what happened to the other blocks.  I counted the green blocks and put them back in the bag.  I then took them out of the bag drew them out without looking at them, then placed them in order on the design wall.  This is the result.


     What do you think?  Should I sew them together as is or shift them about?

     While you are contemplating that I'll leave you here with a picture of Benni just incase you missed him.  I'll be linking up with Beth of  Cooking Up Quilts for Main Crush Monday and with Lorna of Sew Fresh Quilts for Let's Bee Social,  and because this was made from strips that I consider to be scraps I'll link it up to the next Scraptastic Tuesday link up with Leanne of She Can Quilt.


     And then it's back to work.

22 comments:

Yvonne from Quilting Jetgirl said...

I am going to have to give the pull some fabric out of a bag trick a try one day; I like the end result of your mini! It does have a very Jayne and Carrie vibe to it. :) As for the greens, it feels a bit dark green heavy on the left and light green heavy on the right to me. It could definitely work as it, though.

Chantal said...

So lovely, Lisa. Removing the row on the right was a very good call, in my opinion. I love it. As for the second one, it looks good but could be better I think. Some more shuffling is needed, but that's just my humble opinion. It is your little mini, after all. Enjoy! ;^)

Paige said...

Lisa, what a great mini and love the straight line quilting. If I rearranged anything, it would be the two darks and lights that are mirror images on the left and right sides at the top. Looks great!

Mary said...

Lisa, I love this HST mini and the glimpse of Benni. I have two orange and white cats that we can creamsicles! I certainly have enough leftover HSTs from my Terra Australis quilt. I might have to make a mini quilt with them. Or a pillow. Or leave them alone for now because as much as I like the Terra Australis fabric collection, I'm kind of sick of it!!!

Tish Stemple said...

Love how this little mini turned out. I just may have to give the process a try. I really like the layout of the green, purple and yellow one as well.

Kate @ Smiles From Kate said...

You did great Lisa. I have never made a quilt using the put your hand in a bag method before, but it does save on the agonising choices of choosing fabrics. Words that sprang to mind at first glance were bright, happy cheerful and modern. What's not to love.
Smiles
Kate

Jayne said...

You did a great job on this mini Lisa!! You have got to be happy with the end results! The colors are gorgeous and the quilting made it that much better! I can't wait to see what you do with the green one! Keep going and thanks for the 'shout out'!!

Jayne said...

By the way, when I saw your quilt in a link up...I was drawn to it like a bug to light!

Cut&Alter said...

Oh Lisa I love this!! Great to hear how you went about it - I have always wanted to see what a 'pull it out the bag' top looks like and it is great. Will definitely try this technique for myself - maybe even get some squares precut so that it can be 'mindless' sewing!

Kitty | Night Quilter said...

This is gorgeous!! The put your hand in a bag method is terrifying to me, but this looks great! I may have to try it. I think solid HST is a perfect method for it!

Rosa said...

Great job.It`s just fantastic!

Anja @ Anja Quilts said...

Great job! I need to start doing things like this. I need to let go of the pattern and just be free.

Unknown said...

Great job and your green one looks good the way it is

Diana @ Red Delicious Life said...

I love how this mini turned out. I really struggle with improv piecing but I think I can handle something like this. Picking random fabrics out of a bag would definitely push me out of my OCD comfort zone, something that I sometimes need.

Bonnie said...

great mini. It looks fresh and modern to me. I also like what you've done with the left overs. I am inclined to leave it as it is. Fun way of doing a mini quilt.

The Cozy Quilter said...

I think I need to try this! I love your mini and the one you have in progress.

Vicki in MN said...

I love how cute this one is! Great colors and you have them placed just right!

Lena Pugacheva said...

So vibrant and so well-balanced! Great job!

Kaja said...

Lovely - I like the clean lines and the colours a lot. Hand in the bag is fine, as long as you jump in and make the decisions when they're needed, which you seem to have gauged perfectly.

Jen said...

What a great mini! Love the straight quilting on it. I had the same thought as Yvonne. The greens are too one-sided. I would do another blind draw and see what you get.

Sandra Walker said...

I should try this! I LOVE how yours turned out, and how you quilted it. I also realy liked reading about the process, and referring back to the photos to understand it all. Very cool. As for the other, my eye was immediately drawn to the tumbling rich berry triangles...ha, I'm going to disagree with the green thought because the yellow seems to balance it out..maybe on the 3rd row switch the two end ones and that will bring some darker green to the right and send the lighter green to the left side. I'm sure you've come to a decision by now!

Nicky said...

It looks lovely! Great colours - you are great at this! The second one looks fab to me too but then I love green. Thanks for linking up to #scraptastictuesday