Spring Will Come

 How do you turn this...

and this 

into springtime?

 By playing a mental game

of imagining these colors and

fields of tulips

and then sewing

Fields of Tulips
50" x 64"

2014

these rows of

spring time colors.

I stitched on the binding Saturday 

as the snow continued to fall.

It may not be tulip weather here yet,

but my rows of colors are done.

I started this simple springtime mood enhancer

a few weeks ago, HERE, using 

strips of fabrics rather than triangles.

The backing fabric
was no gray winter day either,

This is a great print by Riley Blake
called Sidewalks by October Afternoon.
It definitely made me feel happy.

This fast and easy quilt was the 

perfect positive image 

I needed to push the winter doldrums away.
 I'm starting to feel like spring isn't too far off.

Until Next Time-

Rows of Tulips

 Several springs ago,

Running Man and I went to

La Conner, Washington

to admire and be awestruck

by the beauty of  millions
 of  blooming tulips.

There are thousands of rows

of colorful tulips filling the landscape.

It's like looking at a 

row by row quilt made up
of wonderful fresh spring time colors.

That was my inspiration when I 

gathered some quarter yard pieces

of  bright cheerful fabrics

and decided to make a chevron patterned

"get me out of the gloom of winter" quilt.

We all know, there can be many ways to get 

to the same conclusion.

In this case, in making a chevron design,

I chose to use only strips of fabrics,

no half square triangles 

to get a zig zag pattern.

I cut 2 strips of each of the 19 fabrics,
 each 3 inches wide.

Then arranged them in an order
to achieve some balance

between the colors.

Then it was simple straight strip sewing.

 Crazy Mom quilts

has a great tutorial on how to do use

this variation of a rail fence
to create a chevron.

You can see how the  duplicate strips were 

matched up. 

 

 Each strip was subcut into 5.5" squares

(Don't mix up the order of the strips or 

it gets WAY to confusing.)

Then on my design floor

the first set of blocks were laid out.
By turning set 1 one direction

and the second set turned the other direction

you create a chevron pattern.

I added an extra piece at the beginning of each

row so I wouldn't have to cut off so much

when it came time to straighten the edges.

The  diagonal rows of blocks
 were simply sewn together,

 then the rows were sewn,

and finally the jagged edges straightened.

The quilt top is finished

looking like colorful bands

of springtime tulips.

Until Next Time-