IT HAS HAPPENED.......CHUCK HAS TAKEN CONTROL OF MY QUILT!!! and I am so glad!
All I look at now are Chuck Nohara's blocks and find I am inspired to whimsey. I am having so much fun with this and it has pushed future quilts out of my mind. You remember how I told you that I was rushing onwards on this quilt as I have several beautiful things waiting in the wings. No longer!! All my focus is on these blocks and where they are taking me. I am so excited!
Last week I showed Chuck's blocks beside the ones I adapted from them. This was a big hit so I thought I would do it again this week explaining what adaptations I made and why.
I followed the original on this one using my colors. I like that it is simple and bold.
How funny is this block? Chuck's success in the interest of her blocks is in part because of the unique fabric choices she makes. I do not have this knack to her degree-to see a fabric and know how it will enliven the story of the block. So, in this case, whimsey to the rescue. "Sleep, perchance to dream". And so it is with kitty who dreams of mice. I know kitties dream-mine always do. You can tell my their twitching paws and wiggling whiskers. I can only imagine mice inhabit their dream stories.
See how great the fabric choices are on the above block! I adapted this one a bit. You can see I followed the stems and leaves but substituted twigs for leaves as my block is on a small scale. I was searching my fabric some good circle material when I saw these flowers and decided to use them in broderie perse.
Quite a few changes here. You can see that Chuck relied on her fabric choices to make this block come alive. I had to improvise and hence more whimsey. My vines capture the trailing flowers in the original and birds have moved into my birdhouse. Please note the birds as I will have something more to say about them later.
I like all the blocks I made this week. They add so much to my quilt. Here is a photo of where we stand so far in what used to be the stonefields quilt-maybe now called "Chuck, Susan and Me". My husband groans at my lousy grammar.
Okay...we have 9 rows of 12 blocks = 108 blocks. I want 13 rows of 11 across = 143, so i have 35 to make though I may not stop but instead replace some of the existing blocks that I'm not to crazy about.
MACHINE QUILTING UPDATE:
Mctavishing, the funnest one so far.
You remember the birds mentioned earlier. These birds are actual birds called Painted Buntings. Our part of Missouri is the northern most breeding area. I used to see these exotic birds when we lived on our zen farm and now my husband sees them eating partridge peas while he is walking in the woods. This photo is of the male. He is unbelievable with indigo, red, and yellow.
Copied from cutest.com
and the female-just a pretty little chartreuse bird!
Copied for Audubon.com
They are the birds who have moved into my birdhouse!That's all for today. I have not forgotten that I promised to display my Caswell quilt blocks and I will soon. Hope all goes well with you and
HAPPY QUILTING!
Linking up with Slow Stitching Sunday, Whoop-Whoop, Esther's WOW, Patchwork Times, NTT-great links with great quilts!
