eight by eight

Dear Daria,

You’re probably amazed at how ahead of our deadline I am this month (I know I’m amazed!). I think this one is my favorite so far. Paper bag piecing is so fun! For readers who may not know what I’m talking about, as I cut strips out of the individual fabrics, I put them in a bag and pulled them out in pairs- without peeking- and sewed them together. Then those pairs were put back into the bag, pulled out in pairs, sewn together, and so on. What you end up with is something like the idea of my finished pieced. I put a few pictures of the process over on Flickr. There was not a bit of thought as to how these were going together, I really followed the rule of no peeking!

What is really freeing about a process like this is that the colors just come together on their own, there’s no planning and wondering if there’s too much of one color here or a pair that doesn’t work over there. And its so quick! Because there is not much planning and contemplating, I completed this in one rainy afternoon, from start to finish.

The handquilting is rather, um, rustic. But I actually tried to do that (you believe me, don’t you D?). I bought some various colors of orange and blue thread and just played around with stitching different shapes. The muslin piece you sent worked perfectly as a neutral border and the twill tape became the top and bottom edge. I *love* the way the colors came together in this, and how they are framed by the neutral border. I plan to play around with this whole technique some more. Its so simple to think by just putting the strips in a paper bag and not actually looking at them when choosing could inspire me, but I often go through periods of overthinking color combinations.

OK, Daria, we are three months into this and I couldn’t be happy with where this project has taken me. It has not been daunting, it has not felt like a burden (well, except for when I was knee-deep in school auctions, but at that point sleeping was a bit of a burden too.) Quite the contrary, it has inspired me and gotten me thinking in new directions creatively. Hope you think so too.

Blair