Punch Drunk Love

Creativity represents a miraculous coming together of the uninhibited energy of the child with its apparent opposite and enemy, the sense of order imposed on the disciplined adult intelligence. –Norman Podhoretz

I've been doing a little punching cutting with my Go! Fabric Die Cutter. In October, I gave away cutting to two people. It was really fun — they sent me fabrics and told me which of my dies they wanted me to use and I cut for them. These fabrics are what Julianna sent and asked me to cut with the Drunkard's Path die. How perfect — polka dots. L♥ve it! Julianna got me her fabric the week before Halloween, but I kind of sat on it for a bit. Sorry Julianna! I finished them up over the weekend and these polka dotted beauties are on their way to Poland! I can't wait to see her layout!

While I had the Drunkard's Path die out I decided to see what I could do with the pieces of Metro Blue I had left from the Wedding Ring wall hanging. I had a ½ yard cut of each fabric and didn't use much at all on the wedding ring. I bought Kona cotton in Ivory and Chocolate and a nice Quilter's Solid in tan clear back at the end of May and had a little something planned for these fabrics. But I wasn't loving the picture in my head, so I decided to go in a different direction. Cutting with the Go! went pretty quickly and then I laid it all out on the living room floor my design wall to so I could orchestrate a little organized randomness.

What do you think? Click on it to see a closer view. While I was laying it out, LadyBug mentioned that the polka dots were her favorite. A girl after my own heart. And any suggestions for a name for this quilt? I already know how I'm going to quilt it — loopy flowers in the center of each circle and stippling in between with a variegated turquoise thread. Yeah. I kinda have a crush on loopy flowers and stippling. So much for branching out and learning new techniques .

I saved this stripey piece of Metro Blue for the binding because I love stripey bindings. I always do a bias-binding so that my stripeys are diagonal {plus bias is so fancy}. But these stripeys are printed diagonally, which presents a connundrum. Do I do a bias binding and if so, do I do it so the stripeys run the long way {horizontally, I guess} around the quilt, or go up and down {vertically} on the edge of the quilt? I've seen a lot of cute vertically striped bindings lately. Or, do I do a regular old cut-on-the-grain binding so that the stripeys stay diagonal? I am not sure if I know how to do a regular binding .

I've still got my Go! Cutter out. My other winner, Marcia, sent me lots and lots of pretty strips of fabrics to be cut into Hexies. Those got here on Monday and I've been keeping a little tally as I've worked on them this week. When I finish, I'll show a picture of all her pretty Hexies and give you a number to go with it. Fun!

Thanks to everyone who left me a little Diamond in my comments yesterday. I've been wrestling with that darn pebble {I actually think there might be more than one} and haven't had a chance to reply to each of you personally, but I so appreciate it . It really put a little sparkle into my day.