IT IS SUMMER, YAY!!!

I love summer...gardening, family reunions and weddings.  This has nothing to do with the picture above except that summer is very busy AND we are moving.  As a result my life is going to be CRAZY for a few months.  I won't have time to create any TUTORIALS until Fall.  I was thinking about what I would have time to post.  I started looking through my pictures and I am very EXCITED to share quilts and other projects I have created in the past.  I APOLOGIZE  IN ADVANCE for my pictures.  Most were taken with my phone which does not have a great camera. NOW on to the POST...

I was very EXCITED to acquire a pair of RED denim jeans!

I don't come across them everyday.  I kept them in my stash for several years, trying to decide exactly how I was going to use the TREASURE.  I finally decided to create HEARTS using the CRAZY QUILT method.  The picture above features one of the hearts that came out of that EXPERIMENTING.  I experimented with several shapes and sizes of hearts. They have or will eventually end up in other quilts.

Creating a HEART this way takes some mental work!  The challenge is to try and get the best over all END LOOK with all the different SHAPES and the denim HUES.  It's the manipulation of those hues that make working with recycled denim so INTERESTING. If all the blue denim in this quilt was the same color it would loose so much of its life.  Order of operation is IMPORTANT too.

The HEART CHALLENGE is well WORTH IT! 

I have aspirations to make different shapes, like trains and flowers...but for now a heart has been the extent of my experimenting with this technique.

It might come as a surprise but those of you who have tried know...

"RANDOM" isn't as easy as it looks

when it comes to "GOOD DESIGN" or design that INTRIGUES the eye.  The center heart did not become a quilt right away. I had FUN making large hearts and small hearts and then skinny hearts and fat hearts. When I was done I was tired of hearts and randomness and I put it all away for a good long while.  Every time I wanted to make a baby quilt after that I would pull them out and look at them.  Finally, I was inspired and finish this one.

CHOOSING a backing.

I love the faces and bright colors this fabric has!
You will see it in several of my baby quilts.

A TIDBIT to share...

It is OK to not finish every experiment.

It's nice if you do finish sometime, but the EDUCATION you get from experimenting can and will be useful for FUTURE projects.  Your time and effort is NOT LOST. I have several different SAMPLES I have started and have yet to FINISH.  One of them is a CHEVRON pattern I was EXPERIMENTING with a few years ago.  I WILL put it in the center of a quilt someday because it is so COOL. I need to make it a little bigger and I am not ready to put the time into it right now.

I HOPE this quilt inspires you to try creating a crazy quilt shape.

Watch for a future post, CREATING A DENIM HEART TUTORIAL.
If you are interested, tell me in a comment and I will put it at the top of the list of tutorials.