Instead of Doing What I Oughta

I have a quilt to finish by Monday, to meet the Central Florida MQG "It's All About Color" Challenge.

It's an improv quilt using colors I don't normally use, or like, and I've been quilting it with several different brands of rulers - Westalee, Sariditty, and Fine Line (by Accents in Design). I have favorite rulers in each brand, so it's nice to have options.

But instead of finishing this as I should (it needs to be bound too!), last Friday morning I woke up at 4 am with a creative urge that wouldn't let go!

The previous day, on Instagram (such an inspirational place for quilters!), I'd seen Amy Friend's @duringquiettime quilt block made with selvages. She commented that she'd used all her selvages, so she wouldn't be making more blocks until she acquired more selvages.

I began to think about the huge bag of selvages that has - since bringing them from Iowa nearly seven years ago - continued to grow within my sewing room closet. I felt an overpowering urge to sew something with them, and decided to go with that feeling!

After playing for 20 minutes on EQ8, and not really liking anything, I determined two things. My quilt blocks needed to :

1) use as much of a selvage strip as possible (not be chopped into small pieces), and;
2) use scrap fabrics from my overfull scrap bins.

I began to sort colors, press, and sew. And cut.

I like that this 30-degree angle is different than many quilters' choice of a 45-degree half-square triangle, and also removes as little selvage as possible.

After making four selvage-rectangle units with one color, I chose selvages in another color.

Sorting through the messy pile of selvages, organizing them into colors, pressing, and cutting them into useable lengths was a big task. This was my Saturday morning view.

 

I made more selvage-triangle units, and put them on the design wall.

On Sunday, I auditioned colors in the center of each block. At this point, it measures about 48" X 62".

As of Monday evening, this is how it looks with Painter's Palette solid white in the block centers (rather than a variety of solid colors). I've sewn several blocks together, and that's no small feat. Blocks are assembled with a plain white square in the center, and sewn with partial seams!

And I'm lovin' this SO much! In fact, I've decided to "go big" to use-up as many selvages as possible, and am in the process of making eight more "color twirls" (my technical name). The top should end up at around 62" X 76". I'm only hoping the quilt top isn't heavy with so many heavier-than-fabric selvages.

I'm thinking to name this: "The Edge of Bright" a word play on the old TV soap opera "The Edge of Night." This quilt is pieced with "edges," but will be the opposite of "night!"

So as you see, "Instead of Doing What I Oughta" (finishing my challenge quilt), I'm on a sew-with-selvages kick.

My friend Debbie @aquilterstable told me this morning in an email:

"Motivation for the thing that isn't a priority is... all part of the process."

Don't you agree? To me, it's quite clear that Debbie's an authority on this sort of thing. Linda