The last time I reported on my progress for my Diamond Quilt I had pieced four units which ended with a maroon repetition around the edge.  I expressed my intention to add a patterned green repetition to each of those four units.  Since then I have followed through on that goal.  In addition to that, I have completed two additional diamond units, so I now have a total of six units just like the one pictured above.

I am reporting my progress to the Monday Morning Star Count post by Jessica over at Life Under Quilts.  Since my diamonds are so huge I decided to count up the new hexagons I had added to my quilt and translate my progress so it could be measured in terms of a 25 hexagon unit star.

Adding the borders to the old diamonds plus creating two new diamonds resulted in sewing 530 new hexagons into place.  Divide 530 by 25 and you come up with the equivalent of 21.2 new stars. Not too shabby, but bear in mind that I am am retired, and also obsessed.

I am disappointed to report that the fabric that I ordered from The Fat Quarter Shop has still not arrived at my doorstep.  It took them five days to send my oder out the door, which I find very disappointing.  I am hoping that the hunter green will make a nice final border for the diamond units.

Until the new greens arrive I am going to suspend production of new diamonds.  I had planned on eight, but I might fill in with an alternate unit.  I need to take some time to arrange the diamonds that I have on my queen sized bed. I may be doing some additional planning within photoshop using colored pencil versions of the units.

I did try out an arrangement of five of my diamond shapes on the king sized bed downstairs to get an idea of how they might look together.  I have thrown in a few smaller maroon units that I am considering as an accent to finish off areas along the edges.

While blogging is a form of journaling, it is really much more public than a journal.  One feels a sense of obligation to make it interesting for the sake of the readers one hopes to attract.  To post every detail of one’s production and every idea of what might might do in the future would be tedious for the blogger, and boring for the reader.

Yet, I think that it is a good idea to reflect back, evaluate the present, and project into the future on a continuing, perhaps even a daily basis.  Therefore, I decided to keep a journal of my quilt production for my own personal use.  Initially I decided to create a notebook in Evernote, but I wasn’t following through.  I then found a universal app for iPhone and iPad called Day One.  The screen capture above from my iPad shows the timeline view of Day One.  I’ve selected an entry from February 13th  titled “Homage To My First Act Series”  This is a series of quilts I would like to create, but I’m not prepared to blog about this idea yet.  Gee, I guess the cat’s out of the bag now 🙂

Day One allows you to include one photograph with each entry if you desire, although you are free to journal without adding photos.  You can have more than one entry per day.  I find this useful when I want to write about more than one idea and have a photo for each idea.  You don’t need to journal every day, but you can get Day One to remind you to journal on a regular basis if you need encouragement. The upper most entry in the screen capture is about a ruler I found at the Fat Quarter Shop, which will be perfect for the first quilt I want to make in the “Homage” series.

I plan to use my journal to keep track of my progress, add to my bucket list, and to make note of things I would like to add to my collection of tools, such as the ruler I recently found, but have not yet purchased.  Details like that will be interesting for me to look back on later, but are unlikely to be of interest to anyone else now or in the future.

Journaling is an excellent way to reflect on what you are doing.  How do you journal?

After two cups of coffee in bed this morning I was anxious to start working on my paper piecing for my diamond hexagon quilt.  Unfortunately, when I came downstairs this is what I saw.  Just the night before I had been working on this same large diamond shape, and Lori plopped herself down on my lap on top of the piece making it impossible to work on it.  I guess she likes it, or she just wanted attention.

I will have to baste some hexagons until she is ready to move this morning.  I hate to disturb a happy kitty.

Recently I discovered that Jessica Alexandrakis the author of “Quilting on the Go” has started a weekly Monday Morning Star Count on her blog.  I linked back my Diamond Quilt post to her star count for this week.  I had never linked back to anything before.  As I was looking at the other linked back sites I noticed that some of them provided mention of Jessica’s site and a direct link back to her, so I wanted to do that here.  Her book is an inspiration and a visual delight.

When I took the time to visit the other linked back sites, I really enjoyed looking at all of the paper piecing that is being done.  I’m planning discuss my progress again on Monday and link it back to Jessica’s site.  It will be an inspiration to follow the work of all of these quilters.

For lack of a better name I am going to call the quilt I am currently working on my “Diamond Quilt”  I am planning it as a queen sized quilt, and I intend to keep it.  The project began life as two large bowls of basted hexagons.  One of the bowls held solid vivid maroon hexagons.  The other bowl held hexagons made with a polka dot fabric which reads as a solid unless you are up close to it.  It reads as either maroon or brown depending on what other colors are in the local area.  The polka dot fabric can be seen in my header graphic.  It also can be seen, along with the maroon fabric, in this Deliberate UFO. The polka dot fabric was also used in this room divider.  It also also makes an appearance in the quilt runner. The polka dot fabric is obviously a favorite.  I have sought out additional quantities of it on the internet, and what little I have left is likely to be consumed by this diamond quilt.

Originally I had planned to create a lattice of intertwined diamond shapes and do something in the spaces left behind.  I played around on the computer in Photoshop and came up with this.

I was concerned however, with the amount of work that was going to be involved in planning the overlap of the diamonds as well as planning how the remaining areas would be filled.  I wanted to work a little more spontaneously than that. I wanted some mindless stitching to do,  so I decided to create some large diamond shapes designing them from the inside out beginning with my solid maroon fabric in the center.

I have already completed four of these diamond units.

Here is a possible layout.

However, I already know that I plan to add a repeat of the green patterned fabric along the outside edge of each diamond.

So the maroon hexagons will be separated at least this much in the final quilt design.  I believe that they will be separated even farther though, since I am considering adding one more set of hexagons of a solid, darker, and more vivid green.  I am thinking that the darker green would serve as a complement to the printed green fabric in much the same way that the vivid, solid, maroon fabric acts as a complement to the polka dot fabric.

I mentioned wanting to work spontaneously.  I associate spontaneity with speed, yet there is nothing speedy about creating a quilt of hand pieced hexagons.  When I speak of spontaneity I am referring to a sense of open mindedness in the design process.  There is nothing about this design that is finalized yet except the units that have been created.  The one limiting factor in the finished design is how many maroon hexagons I have left.  Currently I have enough to make a total of eight diamond shapes.  I’m going to make a total of five to begin with, and then start to audition possible ways to flesh out the design to cover the surface of the queen sized bed and design the overhang area of the design.  I don’t think I will be doing a design that runs all the way to the edge with the large diamonds because I don’t think I will be able to make enough of them.

I have enough polka dot hexagons that I don’t think I need to worry about running out.  I can purchase more of the green printed fabric if necessary.  I can buy as much of the second green color as needed once I decide what that color will be.  I plan to order a few greens from The Fat Quarter Shop and audition them next to the patterned green fabric.

I’ll continue to blog about my design decisions on this diamond quilt as I work on it.

I am a retired public school teacher, so I can’t help but be excited when I wake up to a Winter wonderland such as I saw this morning.

During my working years such a scene would have meant a day of freedom from students and all responsibility.  It was found time… free time.  The only responsibility I had was to make my call on the district emergency phone chain.  Once that was accomplished I could do as I pleased.

Even seven years after retirement such a sight brings back fond memories and encourages me to spend extra time under the covers with coffee.

Then I will want to spend the rest of the day doing exactly as I please with no thought of practical matters aside from attending to the cats and getting dinner on the table.  Today that means joining hexagons into large diamond shaped units.

My husband is lucky enough to be semi retired with a part time job that allows some flexibility, so he called in today and moved his work day to tomorrow.  That means that I will have the pleasure of his company today.

Life is good.