Wednesday, April 27, 2016

it's Fling time

                                           After a few more false starts with the fish and leafy looking chunks of green
damask, I've put them away for now.

While I was looking for something else, I stumbled across one of the first flings I made a few years back "Stories in the Garden with Monkey Teeth".

Flings are lightweight quilts with no batting. There will be a new nephew coming in August so it's time to get busy.

The charm of making flings was all about ease and lack of rules. I used torn strips of random widths of muslin to build foot square base blocks on the machine. Sort of log cabin without all the fussing. Once I had enough blocks to make the size quilt needed, each on got its own little hand appliqued picture. I kept the pallet broad, used fabric that could take wash & wear use, more of the

same muslin in this case. Hand dyed. Then the blocks were arranged and the front and back machine stitched together poking the two-sided monkey teeth (think prairie points gone wild) in random location along all four sides..not too many. Snaggly.

Then the whole thing gets stitched together with some more loopy, random lines of hand quilting.

I got a peaceful, easy feeling just looking at these pictures.



5 comments:

Ms. said...

Cheerful is what I get.

Helen Percy Lystra said...

Very cheerful and comfy. I like no batting, have to try that with one for my grandson's new bedroom.

Deb Lacativa said...

If you choose cloth with a soft hand, the needle goes through like butter. You'll have to stop yourself from overquilting, the action itself is such a pleasure.

grace Forrest~Maestas said...

these forms feeeeeel so good....are a Relief from something, i don't know
what, but i experience them as Relief. a freeing feeling
maybe how very young children experience the world...in such an
Open way...free of conceptions, of all the accumulated thoughts "about"

Deb Lacativa said...

I was aiming for simplicity without resorting to symbols. For example, the blue thing is the River. Mostly, I just picked scraps from the basket and turned them round and round until they fit. A trim here and there. done. easy lines, easy stitching.