Calendar Update

 The 2016 Calendar Quilt is coming along, I am still in the process of cutting new pieces out and have been playing with arranging them. I've been noticing that some of these fabrics Do Not play well with others or are very fussy, even hard to blend in with the rest. Specifically the Sashing fabrics which are such a big scale print and pretty much have the ultimate contrast possible (black/white, red/cream). The first picture shows how it looks with those super-contrasty fabrics scattered around.

And here's how it looks before I added them in (along with a whole lot of other different fabrics). Comparing the two pictures I find I overall do like the look of the super-contrasty Sashing triangles. But, having them scattered around I find they really stop the eye, so maybe I'll use them as an intentional design feature. (A feature not a bug!)  Or maybe I'll only use a few of them just in the corners, or even to make a star appear. Lots of possibilities and nothing is sewn together yet.

Calendar Quilt 2016

My first new project of the year is all about last year. I'm calling it Calendar Quilt 2016, it's inspired by the calendar towels that I made for holiday gifts.

And also by friend Jaye's series of Fabric of the Year quilts. She usually chooses a shape and cuts one from every piece of fabric she buys during a year.  

So those are my starting points or inspirations, the idea of a calendar and the fabric that came into my studio during that year represented on the calendar.

Taking off from there, I accumulated fabric last year, and didn't sort it into the rest of my stash. It's all in one (or more honestly, two, ahem) boxes. So, I'm taking a cut of each piece and running it through the Sizzix to cut some triangles to piece some blocks.

 I'm cutting the larger piece into two that will fit on the triangle die, flipping one of them over. So I get two isosceles triangles,  two right-hand and two left-hand triangles.

 Here's the waste left over though :( That's a lot to me, definitely some bits that are worth using.

 Some of the excess pieces are ending up in my scrap basket.

 I am keeping these big chunks out of the scrap basket though. I think I'll piece them together for some sort of a border for this quilt.

 And the other triangular waste piece is run back through to get another set of the small triangles.

 After cutting a few fabrics and having a stack of triangle pieces to play with, I started trying out different designs.

 Kind of tempting, but I'm not sure I'm up for doing this kind of piecing for a whole quilt.

 This seems like the kind of pointless piecing that doesn't show up or have an impact that I'm not into putting that much energy into. Plus piecing the two small triangles messes up the patterns of the prints too much for me.

 I really like the look of this one, so this is the one I'm going with. It highlights the prints really well and will be easy enough to make a whole quilt out of. And since I was trying to get the look of a calendar square, but not just have squares this will work best.

As I cut more fabric, the whole look of it changes. It's going to be a fun project, stay tuned for more updates.