#floatingcolors

The longer I quilt, the more I find that hand-piecing is my true love.  I love the rhythm of it - having a bunch of teeny pieces of beautiful fabric always near, the feeling of the fabric and the needle in my hand, my little leather thimble...

When I first started quilting, hand-piecing took too long.  I needed to make, to complete, to finish.  I would find inspiration in beautiful hand-sewn quilts, but I didn't see how I could possibly spend so much time on just one top!

But now... well now I am sewing these teeny tiny pieces of fabric together with the plan of making a king-sized quilt.  Because I love them.  And because not everything in life needs to be rushed.

my new obsession

Recently on Instagram Paper Pieces posted a photo of "Floating Colors" by Willyne Hammerstein and I knew it would be my next quilt.  Since I finished HexyMF, and since I'm almost ready to piece the top of my liberty hexy stars quilt, I figured it was ok to start another hand-pieced top.  I like to have things in various stages of progress so that I can switch between projects as the mood strikes.  And then of course a day later paper pieces had a 30% off sale... so I bought the pack, made some templates, and got started fussy-cutting my AMH stash.

These pieces are TINY!  My plan for the quilt is to use the AMH prints for the flowers and to make them "float" by setting them with low-volume crosses.  Fussy cutting is really fun but really time-consuming, so I'm cutting a bunch of the flowers in one sitting, working through my AMH in color order.

it is SO FUN to see the patterns emerge as I sew the flowers together.  I haven't done much fussy cutting, and it's fascinating how some of the fabrics that I like least end up making designs that I completely love.  It's definitely changing the way I look at fabric!

Once they are cut, these flowers come together fast!  Hah I guess that's the advantage of tiny pieces -- tiny seams!