Moda Blog Hop: Day 5

Welcome to my day of the Moda Fabrics "Size Matters" blog hop! Today i'm posting alongside Barb and Mary of Me and My Sister Designs. I'm sure they have some laughs awaiting you so please be sure to hop on over to their blog too.

 The theme for the Moda Schoolhouse at Quilt Market last spring was "Size Matters" and we were each given a quilt block design to explore with regard to scale. What a fun challenge! I don't know if the block i was given has an official "name", but here it is along with a link to the free pattern download.

When i first looked at this block after seeing some of the others, i thought, "humph, that's a pretty boring looking little thing." But i very quickly learned that looks can be deceiving! We'll get back to that in a minute...

So, i thought about the way size and scale play with our perception. Sometimes big things definitely draw our attention because, well, they're BIG! This sculpture, "Untitled" by Anish Kapoor was irresistible to me for just that reason. This big intriguing shiny metal disc got me to walk closer to it and then...

...it revealed all sorts of surprising little things to me.

Both vantage points were totally unique. Pretty neat, huh?

And then there's this nice looking red door. I love when people paint doors different colors and i happen to like this rosy shade of red. Nice details too. Looks like a regular door, right?

Think again!

Fun, huh? You can see how something that's very familiar can change significantly depending on our perspective...and the scale relative to other familiar things.

And then there's composition. You have to figure out how to arrange everything and what you're going to focus on. Take this cat for example. Pete and i were taking an evening stroll when we crossed in front of its window. In this first photo, the cat is only a small part of the bigger scene...so there's more of a story to tell because you get a little more visual information that enables your imagination to wander.

Look how much the "story" changes after Pete took a few steps closer. Now it's pretty much all about that adorable fluffy cat! Get it?

There's a wonderful picture book by Istvan Banyai called Zoom. It really plays around with all these ideas of perception/scale/zooming in/zooming out/focus etc. Someone made a video of it that you may want to watch — but you might want to turn the volume off...it's just as good without the sound. I guess in a nutshell, if you start thinking of every visual frame as a potential quilt...there’s no end to your imagination or the possibilities!

Which brings me back to my boring little block. Let's have a look at it again, shall we?

It's four half-square triangles. That's it. It kind of reminded me of a paper fortune teller from my childhood or like one of the great pyramids seen from 30,000 feet! I started to play around and before i knew it, constellations of designs and patterns were appearing before my eyes with each turn. First, i just wanted to see what this block did if i took it and repeated it as is: 

Aha! I always wondered how that spinning pinwheelie quilt pattern was made! But then i thought i needed something to focus on and some contrast in scale, so i made a border for each block at 1/2 scale. When they came together they looked like this: 

Ok, i'm hooked! Next, i made one of those whole blocks with border at 1/2 scale and doubled the size of the biggest one. It looked like this: 

Then i went back to that original block and started rotating it around a few times and landed on this:

So...i got out some fabric and started to make the blocks using my newest fabric collection, Sunnyside (which should be shipping any day now! yippee!). Instead of just opting for a light and dark colored fabric, i threw in a mid-tone as well just to see how that changed things. Here's what that looked like:

And then here's how the whole block went together:

and then i just couldn't stop! I flipped the darks and this happened:

and then this!

And yes, before i knew it, i was head-over-heels for this little block and well on my way to making it into a whole quilt. Photos to come...soon.

Oh, and one other way that "Size Matters" is in the size of the pile of fabric! And we're giving away a gigantic Fat Quarter Bundle of Sunnyside! Thank you, Moda! Uh, i don't have a photo of the actual FQB, but here's a look at the whole collection.

To enter this random drawing, just leave a comment. That's it. Only one entry per person, please. Winners will be announced on September 16th. Good luck! Don't forget to visit Kathy Schmitz, Minick & Simpson and Primitive Gatherings tomorrow.

PS: On a more solemn note, tomorrow we'll be remembering all the people and families who lost friends, colleagues and loved ones on September 11th. It's truly the size of our hearts that matters most.