"Motion" Reveal: After the Storm

Good morning, my friends. Today I can reveal my “Motion” quilt for The Endeavourers art quilt group, but before I do, lets catch up on what happened yesterday, shall we? And let me just tell you, we made good on our goal to do nothing for the entire day. It's good to attain one's goals, wouldn't you agree?

I spent some time on my slow-stitching, finishing off the right side of the turtle.

Now, I've moved my hoop down. The bottom triangle is the turtle's tail, and so I'll be moving up the left side of the turtle now. Probably I have at least another couple of days before I'm finished.

This is the first time the kitties have been able to enjoy the morning sunshine. We were shaded by trees in Escondido. Sadie enjoyed it from the back of the couch.

Smitty settled down on one of the quilts.

Later in the day, I got outside for a walk. One of the things I love most about Boulder City is the sound of the grackles.

On my walk, I had a good view of the "BC" on the hillside behind the RV park.

And that was pretty much the sum total of my day. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. But it was good to relax and do nothing.

So let's just talk about this reveal quilt. Since I had just a short time to work on my project before leaving on this trip, I wanted to find something I could do quickly. Often when I’m looking for ideas, I consult The Google. After typing “motion in quilts” into my search bar, I came up with “bargello.” Cool! I’d never made a bargello quilt before, and I didn’t even know how to get started. So I spent a little more time searching, and came up with an idea from Quilt Inspiration for a free bargello pillow pattern. 

I’ll admit to feeling a little guilty about using a pattern for this, but since I had limited time, and it was a technique completely new to me, I cut myself a break this time. Pawing through my stash, I came up with these fabrics.

The first step was to cut strips all the same width and then sew them together in order. Here’s how that looked.

Next, I was to sew the two ends together to form a tube.

Next, I was to cut strips perpendicular to what I had already. Those were cut in variable widths. To get the feeling of motion, the tubes were “unsewn” at different color changes until I had a pattern of strips that looked like this:

It made sense to sew the strips together using the quilt as you go method. I created a large-enough back and batting, and then sewed the quilt top together quilting each strip to the ones that came before.

Then, I squared it up, gave it a red binding, and my quilt was finished.

Here’s how it looks from the back.

And since you can’t have a rainbow without some stormy weather, I’m calling my quilt “After the Storm.” It ends up 20 x 20 inches. To see more “Motion” quilts, please visit The Endeavourers blog right here. I hope you like my quilt. Having made this one little bargello quilt, I’d like to try another one…larger this time.

Today will probably look a lot like yesterday. We want to head up to the grocery store for a few things, but we don't have much else on the agenda. There are some hikes we want to do in this area, and I'll be consulting a hiking book this morning to see if there's anything a little farther from the city. We don't like hiking with the Sunday crowds. 

So, off I go. It's time for our Sunday morning pancakes. It's the first day of the shortest month of the year. That seems like something to celebrate.