I've been posting progress on my sober little Mile-a-Minute quilt, but it's not the first Mile-a-Minute I've made. I was intrigued with the technique when I first saw it outlined in an issue of American Quilter about five years ago and filed the idea away for future reference. It looked like a great way to use up scraps. Mile-a-Minute is nothing more than process-sewing--an assembly line method for producing Crazy-type blocksA couple years ago, I was headed to a quilt retreat, and was in the mood for a project that would require no thinking. So I took along a big Rubbermaid bin of scraps and got busy. You see the end result above. My determination to make the entire quilt out of stash was my tragic flaw in this quilt. I realized the scrappy blocks would benefit from some unifying but the only fabric I had in sufficient quantity to use for sashing and borders was a busy blue batik, and I went with it.
It makes for a quilt that, while looking well-organized in theory, is really on the verge of being totally out of control. There's nowhere for the eye to rest and no real focal point either. I should have put a bit more thought into the sashing and borders. Let that be a lesson to me...
Still, it's a finished project and that's always something to celebrate. And I learn more about color and design with every quilt I make.
Last post, I was considering moving way out of my comfort zone and experimenting with Lutradur as a way to make a tree branch element to include in my Ephemera quilt, which has been in process for about four years now. No ready access to Lutradur around here so I went with something readily available--polyester kunin felt and a heat gun. I've been playing with the effects all day. This isn't quite ready for photogrpahy yet, but so far, so good.
Trust me to get the bright idea to fire up the heat gun in mid-July.
3 comments:
I think this is an absolutely GORGEOUS quilt and the blue batik--to my eye, anyway--looks perfect!
Hi Kathie, love the quilt, and so glad to see someone else can bear witness to the fact the directions were a magazine artice. I've been making them off and on since about the time frame you mention. Sharon Hurtleson(or something like that) has published it as a book, by that title and has been using other people for even using the phrase...just weird I think!!
Anyway, I don't think that I think about whether or not there is a place for the eye to rest...and maybe that comes from my years of painting. My focus then was "is there a place to enter(the painting) or is it static and merely "observible". I've recently put together #4 or 5. If you want to see mine(and haven't) it's my June 21st post...and it's a 4 picture post which leads you to the top..which is still borderless.
I've both used lattice and not, and done strippy(once)So far all but one have been utiity quilted. IT's alot of fun to quilt this craziness in various colors of perle cotton.
Speaking of your retreat and your reason for taking that paricular tub of scraps....my favorite reason is there is no pre-cutting. You can just reach in work with the size the scrap is already..*VBS* Cutting makes me tired...LOL
I think it's gorgeous, yet I can see your point that a calmer sashing might have helped. I bet it's great to nap under this quilt and enjoy the fabrics.
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