WOYWW 5

After my smocking frenzy a couple months ago I took some time off from sewing, but now that school's out, I'm back in a big way.  In the last week, I've finished a quilt top (it was strips before) and started a new project.

Finished quilt top

I've been in the mood to produce something really complicated, with lots of little pieces.  I haven't done much complex piecing in years, as I have spent a lot of time on heirloom smocking and sewing and less on quilting, and the quilts I have made have tended to be the easy-piecing, spectacular-fabric kind.  Now I suddenly have four complicated quilts in my head!  So I went through my stash and planned 3 of them, and picked a Lori Smith pattern to start with.  I've been saving up fabric for years to do an antique-style quilt with repro fabrics, and now I'm finally getting around to it.  It's a medallion pattern, and I've done the central 18" block (the scary part!) and now I'm working on a myriad of little 3" blocks in various patterns to go around it.

Center medallion

Tiny pieces

 This is very different than the kind of quilting I've done lately, and it's very interesting--I've got this pile of fabrics, many of which are quite hideous to my taste, but once you cut them up and put them together, they look neat.  Value is most important, color after that, and an ugly pattern just becomes interesting.  An awful color perks it up or melts into the background.  So this is a really nice exercise for me.

What really put me in the mood for complex piecing was a new quilting book I found last week on my trip, but I'm going to tell about that in my next booky post--tomorrow probably.