Finding My Muse

In an attempt to get my creative juices flowing earlier this month, I paged through a couple of my favorite books by my favorite authors, Jean Wells and Rayna Gilman. Over the last few years, both seem to have been on a similar path that includes freeform cutting and stitching small strips of fabric to create abstract, quilted wall hangings. One major difference...Jean Wells uses solid colored fabrics, while everything goes with Rayna. According to Rayna, she has a basket of fabric strips next to her machine and uses times when she needs to relax or rediscover her muse to sew the random strips together. The strip-sets are later cut into blocks. So far, it's a no-brainer. The creative part comes (after her muse has returned) when she artfully places the different blocks together on a design wall, adding more strips and accents as needed. Her work takes my breath away, as does Jean's! 

I decided to give it a try! The strip piecing is so simple. Everything is cut/sewn at wonky angles, or not, and very little consideration is given to colors or prints while piecing. I didn't say "none", I said "little", as I believe color has to be considered if a piece is going to be effective. I started by taking a bag full of leftover scraps from a quilt I made a year ago. So, it follows that the fabrics all went together nicely just as they had when I selected them for the quilt. I spent a day or two stitching strips together, initially making an effort to get that wonky look (it's tough for us traditional quilters who are borderline anal!), but by mid-day had found my groove and fell into a zen-like state as I made wonky blocks. All I can say is WOW! It's so freeing! It's so calming! It's so conducive to finding your muse!

A few days later, I began stitching blocks together, adding additional strips, and the piece began to take shape. I thought about making a long narrow wall hanging from my creation, but I'm beginning to run out of wall space. I realized the long narrow shape was just like the Ultimate Market Totes we made last fall, so I proceeded to turn my artful creation into something useful (actually, by the end of the week I had pieced enough to create three totes of varying sizes). I've now finished quilting the panels and plan to further embellish them with...hmmmmm...maybe a bit of embroidery stitches or beading or stamping and free-motion stitching. I'm not sure where my muse will take me, but so far I'm thrilled with the journey. 

Here's one that's ready to embellish...

And here's another that's ready to quilt...