BQF: once upon a forest {scrappy}

Hard to believe that half a year has already slipped away since the Spring Blogger's Quilt Festival, yet here we are :)  Last spring I opted for a little bit of glitz and bright bursts of color, so I figured I'd start off this season's show with something a little more, shall we say, subdued?

Enter "Once upon a forest," my first piece for the Fall 2013 BGF {scrappy quilt category}:

Since I've already written ad nauseum about this one, I figured I might take this opportunity to shed a little bit of light on my design process rather than rehashing all of its roots.  (Of course you can always just skip straight to the main post if you don't fancy yourself a passenger on a fellow quilter's train of thought.)

So it all started back in April with this fanciful, pink/green wildflower grove:

Then—with the exception of a couple of silver/tan feathers and a lyrical red/tan woodpecker—it all stopped.  Until August (read:  after the bar but before the Forest QAL linky deadline).

By now you've likely noticed I've been using color pairings to qualify each of these blocks.  And that's because looking at the first three blocks together, alongside the fabric pull for the yet-to-be-sewn purple/silver fox, I had absolutely no clue how all these blocks could co-exist in the same quilt and still feel like "me."

For a while I dragged my feet and kicked myself for using such (relatively) bold fabric choices for the grove; I guess its brightness struck me as inconsistent with my original low volume vision.  But at the same time, it had this magical quality that I wanted to preserve in some way.  After several failed fix ideas (one involving Joanna's chameleon pattern), I realized there simply weren't enough hours in the day to incorporate even more blocks, let alone the nine intermediate-my-arse remaining in the QAL!

So I got out my pencil and paper, sketched a simple, sash-free 3x4 grid, and tried to configure a traditional layout based on what I'd sewn thus far.  In doing so, I found I needed designs with minimal whitespace bordering the grove block to offset its otherwise bold vibe.  Of all the QAL patterns, only two fit the bill:  the roaring deer and the pine marten.  So I penciled the grove in the lower righthand corner of my sketch, and contained its color by placing the pine marten to its left, and the deer's chest just on top.  (To help facilitate the transition, I decided to extend the green in the treetops up into the deer, while overflowing the grove's floral path into the pine marten's rock.)

In that manner, I planned the blocks one-by-one, assigning each its respective palette based on some feature of a neighboring design.  And just when I thought I was ready to assemble the top, comme ça...

...my husband commented that (1) baby-size blankets are useless, and (2) we have enough of them.  Wildly untrue on both accounts, **but** admittedly, it did get me thinking about ways to make this quilt more "useful" (read:  husband-size) without compromising the intricacies of the patterns themselves.

As I was pondering my options, I started to aimlessly cut 1½" strips from the countless desaturated prints used throughout the blocks (fortunately, the three shoeboxes-ful of fabric were still quarantined from the rest of my stash).

As the print strips idled on the dining room table, I used some neutral solids to add a 1" white-ish mat around each block.

And then started strip piecing text fabrics... (oh, have I not mentioned that I cut massive amounts of 1½" strips from those as well? :D)

While I was at it, I sorted the remaining strips into color-groups by block, organized them by value (as I've yet to meet a gradient I didn't like), and then strip-pieced the heck out of those, too.  Then, somewhat arbitrarily, I decided a 2" finished frame would add the appropriate "bulk" to the quilt.  ...But just for good measure, I finished off each frame with a ¼" edge before adding the 1" text-y postage stamp sashing.

...And then, to totally shut down any possible "this doesn't even cover my feet"-esque feedback, I churned out 3"x6" wonky-stripey triangle blocks (also color-coordinated), plus a handful of 6" stars to complement the quilting concept as a final (finally!) touch.

The result?

A quilt I love so much that it's been folded up and retired to the cedar closet, where no one—not even the man who unintentionally inspired the design—can get his hands on it :)

Unless of course there's a {blogger's} quilt festival, in which case we can fluff it up for the occasion...

...The irony of a peaceful forest stretched across freshly chopped wood is not lost on me.

Speaking of, if you haven't already, be sure to take in all the other quilty inspiration over at Amy's:

baby throw {scrappy} group/bee two color roygbiv appliqué hand quilted home machine quilted professionally quilted photographer art doll/mini wall hanging bed