Licensed to Cut Loose--post 7

Progress at the end of the 11 weeks

At the end of the tenth week of working on this project, I had a good amount of the yellow background in place. I raided the scraps I've sorted from Martha's stash and pulled all the yellow and blue ones. I barely had enough scraps to fill the yellow space! 

In fact, I decided to move to working on the blue background and fine tune the lower part of the yellow background later because I couldn't envision how it would work with the blue background. 

I placed a few blue scraps next to the yellow. I had a hard time determining where to start. Eventually, I decided to begin in the  top center.

Progress at the end of 12 weeks

As I placed the scraps, I made an effort to distribute scraps of the same fabric somewhat evenly around the open space. I also started to place the dark fabrics outside of the light fabrics. 

While I liked how I was progressing with the light blue fabrics. The dark blue fabric wasn't working for me. I placed pieces. I stepped back to look. I didn't like what I saw. I removed the pieces. I began again. I repeated the process. At the end of the week, I had made little progress.

I was stuck. I decided to do a test. I placed a bunch of dark pieces as well as the turquoise pieces on the background to see if the vision I had in my head was viable. I stepped back full of anticipation.What I saw wasn't even close to  my vision. I was disappointed.

Test of dark blue and turquoise scraps

The dark was too dark. It competed with the dark in the butterfly wings. I didn't have many light scraps so I had added the turquoise scraps to extend my options. I thought that the turquoise would make the background sparkle; but, I found that it was too bright.

I realized I was stuck. I realized I needed a consult. I FacedTimed my granddaughters to ask for their help. Fortunately, they agreed. They like it when I ask for their opinions! 

Progress at the end of 13 weeks

Miss J took one look and said that the fabric on the side of the quilt was too dark and not like "sky" at all. She suggested that I remove it. Miss K agreed with her sister's dark assessment. She then said that the turquoise didn't fit the sky. She suggested that I remove the dark pieces and fill in the space with light fabrics. Miss K said the turquoise fabric was too sparkly. How interesting that she and I both used the term "sparkly!"

I tried their suggestions. I liked what I saw. I FaceTimed them again to find out to ask if they liked the direction of the fabric choices. They both agreed I was building a much better sky! They liked that the sky had different blues in it. 

Cloudless blue sky

Our conversation got me to thinking about the sky. At first, I thought of the sky as a bright blue without any clouds. I had limited amounts of blue scraps so I switched my thinking to include fluffy white clouds in the sky. Then a friend sent me a photo of a dark sky. I started studying the sky during the day. I took a photo of a cloudless sky. I took a photo of fluffy white clouds in the sky. I liked the interest in the dark cloudy sky in my friend's photo. I wondered if I could create that feeling without using a lighter shade. 

I started placing blue fabrics on the background. Right away, I noticed that my pile of blue scraps was decreasing faster than the spaces were filling. To get more mileage out of the blue scraps, I decided to add more sunlight to the piece. While adding more sun, I got stuck again. 

The bottom area wasn't working for me. About this time, the fire threat had us in a level where we needed to pack up our important stuff and I stopped working on the project. It took me about a month after the fire threat to get this project back on the design wall. 

Sky with fluffy white clouds

Once there, I looked at it for another couple weeks. I was stuck with the yellow at the base of the butterfly.I liked the way the fabrics blended at the top of the butterfly. I thought about taking off the yellow bottom fabrics off and orienting the pieces differently.

Instead of making any changes, I decided to let my thoughts ponder the changes while I filled in more blue fabrics. I did try placing white fabric to stand in for fluffy clouds; but, that try resulted in the white fabric drawing my eye from the butterfly. 

I did use a larger range of blue shaded fabrics. I liked the feeing of the result. The background was much more

My friend's photo of the dark clouded sky

interesting to my eye. Because I am working with strips and bonus triangle units, I wanted the background shapes to create an interesting texture. Claude Monet's impressionist style of painting inspired me to place the pieces in a way that reminded me of what it looks like when oil paint is applied thickly. My mom has some painting that her great grandmother painted with a palette knife. 

Studying the sky helped me make choices when I searched through my "chunks" of blue scraps. I showed a friend my small bag of remaining blue scraps and the space on the wall left to fill. Her reply was that she wished she lived closer so she could gift me some of her blue scraps! Friends are precious!

Progress at the end of 14 weeks

At the end of 14 weeks, I had made visible progress which excited me enough to continue the process. I'm linking to "Quilting is More Fun Than Housework" and her Oh Scrap linkey. 

Regarding Covid:

Worldwide: 49.7M cases; 1.25M deaths

United States: 9.95M cases; 238K deaths

Oregon: 48, 608 cases; 716 deaths

Thursday, Boris Johnson locked down the UK a second time. This lockdown will last four weeks.  The goal is to reduce the spread of COVID. Thursday, more than 100,000 cases were we reported in the United States which not only was a record; but a record worldwide. In Oregon, yesterday, 1000 cases were reported in a single day.  Oregon saw the largest death toll in a week since the pandemic began. 

Regarding the protests:

Downtown businesses boarded up their windows expecting violent protests after the Tuesday elections. Protests that night were peaceful. The following night one of the two protests was not peaceful. The National Guard was employed to restore order. Eleven arrests were made.

Regarding the fire recovery:

Some areas still don't have access to water and access to power remains intermittent. Recovery is going to take a long time. I can't imagine trying to clean up a damaged property without access to power and water let alone dealing with permit issues with ash removal, etc.

Regarding the election:

May the winners not gloat over the losers. May the losers graciously acknowledge defeat. May working together rather than fighting against each other become the norm. May office holders agree to disagree with each other.  May office holders agree to figure out solutions with help from one another. May office holders agree to put the solutions into practice with hope. May office holders cooperate and work together to create a greater and kinder good for all.