Holiday Lights Quilt Progress

It's taken some time and much cutting and pinning, but the now named "Holiday Lights" quilt has come together.  Here is the very beginning.  I had a bunch of 5 inch square snowflake blocks that I had cut from a stack of 8 1/2 x 11 inc fabrics that I had dyed and then discharged using a couple of my snowflake silk screens.  It was originally an experiment to see to which colors these small pieces of fabric would discharge.  They were all colors of the rainbow and I was determined to do something with them.  The small pieces that I hadn't discharged, I cut into 1 5/8 inch squares and 2 3/4 inch squares so when sewn together, they would make 5 inch squares.  I had to go to my stash of old dyed fabrics to add some more pieces.  I originally cut equal amounts of all the squares which was a mistake!  I used far far more of the little squares.  

To begin with, I just randomly pieced the squares together, varying the colors and making some with all 16 small squares, some with 12, some 2 with 8 and some with only 4 of the little squares and 3 of the medium sized ones.  I tried to arrange them in a pleasing way on my design wall.  

More have been added.  I tried to use the colors to make different shapes, so placing an orange square next to a big orange square to take away the "squareness".  I tried to cluster some of the colors together as well.  I am still in the process at this point of making random combinations of colors and placing them where I think they will be most appropriate.  Haven't decided yet what size to make the quilt.  Have decided it will be a "profile" arrangement though and not so big that the little squares merge together and just look like dust.

Here I have decided to go with 9 blocks wide which equates to about 40 inches.  I had thought it would be 12 long but later added another row so that it was 60 inches long.  At this point, I am making the squares specifically to go in certain spots.  You can see the white whole on the right hand side.  The blocks are up on the wall now broken into four parts and lots of moving around.  Lots of going back and forth between the design wall and the sewing machine and trying to make sure I am sewing the blocks together correctly.

Ah, its all arranged and I have sewn the vertical rows together and now for the orderly sewing of all the horizontal rows.  I must say at this point that this is the first quilt in almost forever that I really still like at this stage of the process!!! I have been spending extra time trying to get it all together.  There is a LOT of pinning to make sure everything lines up correctly!

Half of the horizontal rows are sewn and bed calls so will have to finish later!!

It's done and I am very happy with it.  It is no longer the "Snowflake Quilt" but is now the "Holiday Lights" quilt.

The only decisions left are whether I should bind or face or add any kind of border -- I am thinking not to the border and that I will face rather than bind the quilt.  I will make some snowflake templates to quilt snowflakes into the blank larger blocks.  I also will get some invisible thread and will probably have to do the invisible thread quilting on something other than my Juki which seems to rebel at this type of thread.  I will use the Juki for the freehand work though.

Will be starting another quilt son and wondered what this would look like on the diagonal.  It's okay but looks too busy this way to me for some reason.

As I was cleaning up (I always do this when the top is completed), I happened upon my very large box of molas and appliques from the Kuna Indians in Panama that I have purchased over the years from my friend Priscilla.  I think the next iteration will include some black as well and will have several of these blocks in it!!