The Creative Process, IV

I actually did what is described here on Monday, but it's been a busy week, with several days on which my list of things to try to do included "blog post(s)." Note that I said "things to try to do," not "things to do." If I didn't recognize the difference, I'd be even crazier than I am.

Having introduced the sons to the classic movie Harold and Maude the night before, I set Mr. Mac to shuffle on the music of Cat Stevens. (Note: I also have the CD he did as Yusef Islam, but I was in a mood for the music of his past life.) It set an apt atmosphere for what proved to be an up-and-down session at the sewing machine.

Here's the second story unit I'd finished when last we met here. In the time since then, I'd decided that I really should extend the white roof edges out beyond the sides of the walls, as they appeared in the original photograph. So I started to play around with how to do that. First, the white roof edges. Then, the black of the roof itself.
Then the blue of the sky. Both the black and the blue will need to line up with the black and blue in the main piece; it looks here as if I've done that. The trick will be sewing the two units together keeping both the diagonal and straight lines lined up. If you're at all prescient, you see where this is going. I tried once. I tried twice. I tried a third time. I thought about it logically, and I just tried winging it. I was unable to get a seam sewn that lined all the lines up in a visually pleasing manner. But remember! This is liberated quiltmaking. Would I rather liberate myself from lines that match or from fancy roof edges? I decided on the latter.

First, since the second story unit sits on a background of roof, I had to add a strip of the black roof fabric to the cabin side I'd already made. Then I did the roof and sky to the right of the second story unit. Then I did the roof and sky on the other side, remembering to add the chimney even if I did make it a good bit narrower than it really was.
Finally, I started to play around with what to do on the sides of the cabin, whether to put the red railing in, what sort of trees to add, etc. You may have caught on that this goes much more easily if one can think in rectangles that get added to one side or the other, and the more things that must match up, the more swear words you might hear me muttering under or over the musical accompaniment. Here's the first thing I looked at. And the second. As you can see, this one has the white sides to the main cabin roof, the red railing to the left of the cabin wall, and the white roof edge on the sauna that sits behind the cabin. It also has some grass in front and a different colorway on the pine trees to the sides. At this point, I thought I was getting somewhere. It just needed a bit more sky. This is how it's all sitting, on the sewing table, even as I type. If I still like it when I start working on it again (which I hope will be over this weekend), then I'll start piecing a rectangle for each side. Once those are on, I'll probably put strips on each side of whatever width(s) might be needed to get each side of the cabin unit to a number of inches that's easily divisible. Since the plan is to do liberated log cabins and/or stars around the cabin unit, I need to know what size to make those blocks. Something evenly divisible by 3, I think, or, failing that, then 4.