Sitting quietly,
doing nothing, spring comes
and the grass grows by itself.
–Basho
OK, it’s not exactly quilting, but this is one of my favorite haiku, and we certainly need spring. Enough said.
On to quilting…
We’re presently in transitional housing while our new home is being built, and I’m putting nothing on the walls. Here are a couple of improvised design wall alternatives as well as a report on the progress of a couple of quilts.
The Temperature Quilt
I love the idea of a temperature quilt and started this one early in 2020. Then we got going on the new house and my attention was elsewhere for several months. Finally I got back to the temperature quilt and hung the first 6 strips (January-June) on my improvised design wall. FYI, this beige flannel backing fabric (108″ wide) makes a great design wall when hung over the stair rail.
Unfortunately, I found it tedious and not every interesting to carefully transcribe temperatures to colors and arrange them in order. Therefore, this quilt has been abandoned. I have no idea what I’ll do with these strips, but the remaining yardage has been repurposed already 😀
The 9″ Swap Blocks
One of my quilt groups has been exchanging swap blocks each month and we now have more than enough for a quilt or two. Here’s a layout for my first quilt, shown on the design floor.
The design floor has been a feature of several of our houses. As long as there’s a loft on the second floor that overlooks the first floor (usually the living room) I can get both a design floor and an exercise plan. Here’s how it works:
Lay out blocks on floor
Run up the stairs and look down to evaluate the layout
Run down and move some blocks
Run up and re-evaluate
Run down and move some blocks
Repeat, repeat, repeat…
So you see, having a design floor is a great exercise tool 😀
And here’s the quilt top sewn together:
Anyone else have quilting exercise programs to suggest? 😀