shaken AND stirred (up)

Beginning a new quilt was the last thing on my mind today, but hey...and once I stepped into the spare room to open the curtains, my Sunday morning just disappeared!!! 
Each new quilt really seems to be a mystery these days, but I do love that I learn a few things along the way each time!  Take my latest project today for example..... a simple Hour Glass quilt, using mainly Anna Maria Horner fabrics  -

I pulled out what I had left of my AMH fabrics & cut up lots of large squares, separated them & popped them into two paper bags, one warm colours, the other cool. Then I just shook them all up, pulled out one from each bag & began sewing the pairs together. Then I cut each joined pair across the diagonal to get largish 1/2 square triangles. I carried on making a variety of pairs.  Once I had quite a few, I began pairing them up again, sewing across the oppersite diagonal, recutting, and then joining them together into the hour glass pattern.   No planning, no co-ordinating, just random scrappy piecing (such fun!!! ), but here's the thing....

Firstly, because I have been using my AMH stash a bit lately, there were several pieces that just weren't big enough, so I had to join them...

Next, while I didn't particulary want to include any solid fabrics, I did find that by throwing in a couple of tone-on-tone fabrics now & then, the overall "hourglass" shape seemed more defined and gave the eye a bit of a resting place inbetween all the lovely prints ...

And, I also found that adding a few smaller scale "itty- bitty" type prints helped create interest & a bit more definition. I do have a tendancy to stir things up a wee bit.....you know, combining different designer ranges, different colour combos, etc. I've noticed that AMH doesn't have too many "itty - bitties" in her ranges but I used 3 of hers that worked well, plus a few more ..........

And here's how my Sunday morning sewing ended up ....