Red to black -jamming a quilt

Last weekend I failed to go on a quilting shop hop, and so I decided to dedicate most of my weekend to making a quilt. I really wanted to do something creative and not entirely preordained, but this is really tricky in quilt making, which is ultimately an exercise in repetitive geometry, and accuracy is important.
I realised that I simply HAD to overcome the limitations of this in order to satisfy my need to "jam" with my stash. Jamming in the musical sense, where one uses only techniques and experience to make things up as you go along. This and the need to make a throw for the couch, and use up some of that darn trophy wife quilting stash.
So, I auditioned a range of fabrics from reds to black,(second and third shelves) with a warmly brown and olive oriented back story, and cut some strips off each, ranging in width from 1 inch to 2.5 inches.

 The line up. A few more got subbed in at the last minute too

I arranged them into groups that would equal about 10 inches wide when sewn together, from the lightest red to the darkest dark. When the first one was sewn up and pressed, I finally thought, hmm, what to do with you now?  

 So, I cut it into four "on point blocks", 7.5 inches across, which was the biggest I could make.

 Cutting the top...

 Reversing the ruler and cutting the bottom... 

The resulting blocks. Squee, so pretty!

This left a bunch of half square triangles, either all red or all dark. What to do with you lot, I thought to myself. I know, I'll add a triangle plus a bit to each one of a whole print from the range of fabrics used. Done.

 Darks with darks

 reds with reds

Repeat four more times. Result is an amazing effect of movement, nothing like I could have planned. I love how the reds seem to bleed through - not yukky blood bleeding but paint on wet paper bleeding. The darks create points that intervene almost like mountains in a Japanese landscape. Phew! Who knew! LOL!

The blocks so far.

I WAS going to sash the whole thing with a 3/4 inch wide sash in the same almost black sprig I used on the edge bits of the colourwash quilt. (Which I just realised I never blogged about as a finished quilt and must do so as it is gorgeous!) but because I had used it on that project, I now don't have enough. And I cannot find anything like it. So it may come together without sashing.

More jamming.

More later...