Radiance

Quilts often just 'place' their names inside my head.  Others I kind of have to extract.  I looked up "glow", the first name that just came to me, because it seemed a little "not enough" for this quilt; I was looking for connections.  I came across incandescence and luminescence.  Luminescence, basically where the glow comes from within, nearly became the name.  However, I see rays here, especially if you look down at the photo of the orange block (Bella lolling about on top of it).  It wasn't much of a jump to have Radiance pop in my head.  Perfect.  More on that a bit later.

This was a sidenote OMG goal, to complete the flimsy.  I did complete (already!!) my main goal of getting the cat mats all done.

If you are on Instagram, you saw this little collage I posted yesterday (that got so many likes!)

From trimmings, to stretching cat approval, to half done flimsy

On Yvonne's Quilting Jetgirl pattern, Triangle Transparency, available here, she has several colour options, both sketched and actual quilts.  When I saw her orange version with two opposing gradations, I knew that this was going to be the quilt for Aidan.  Orange is his favourite colour, and I knew he would like the graphic nature of the design.

Bella approved the second gradation order block

I spied this wildflower on one of my walks with Rocco a few days ago.  The vibrant colours Mother Nature orchestrates just literally took my breath away.

Feel the glow, in this case, the luminescence of this example of perfection?

I have a time-saving and money-saving tip I thought I'd quickly share with you here:

Time-saver:  I put two HSTs atop each other, RST. With the diagonal seams pressed to the darker side, it is easy to butt them up against each other so they are nicely aligned, and then you can trim two at once.  The full tutorial is here, also featured on Totally Tutorials. :-)

Moneysaver:  Notice the small 5X7" Olfa cutting mat is on top of my larger one?  This way I don't touch the layered HSTs; I simply rotate the little mat 180 degrees, and do the second trim.  You can pay around $35 or more for the rotating Olfa mat; I think I paid around $5 several years ago for my Olfa mini mat, and one is always going to have a larger mat to set the mini mat upon, right?

Rotated and ready for the second trim

I had figured on pointing the triangles out, but this morning when I laid them down, I had to try them pointing in just to see:

And, photo-bombed, as per usual.

New stuff on the floor!! For ME!!  Is in her little kitty brain; her little fuzzy body vibrates with glee.

Just placing myself right ...  h-e-e-r-r-e  ... ahh! Okay you can take the photo now, Sandra.

Sorry Bella, adorable as you are, I do like the rays of sunlight streaming through the blinds on the quilt.  Rays.  Radiance.  For Aidan.  I love plays on words and symbolism, so I'm not going to ruin this quilt's name by spelling out how both figure in its name.  (hint: say "radiance" and say "Aidan"; think "glow" and "luminescence" ergo rays.)

Hmm, so on the layout, I asked for a couple of opinions.  MacGyver gave the thumbs-up for layout 2, well one thumb, the other hand was busy holding his iPad (shocker I know right, Brianne and Dayna?!) and/or coffee cup.  We both love the illusion of squares each layout provides.  Judy of Quilt Paradigm threw me not one but two curve balls, but when I saw her response, I'd already sewn up the top.  Ripper?  Nope.  But I might play with iPhoto and the Layout App I got for Instagram to see how her suggestions would play out...

I took it outside to, you know, do what I always do with finished quilts and flimsies, throw them around on the ground.

Florida orange, of course amongst the palm trees!

Don't worry; this time I put a sheet down first!  Don't want a repeat performance of what happened to Tish's pillow.  The quilt is 60.5" at this point, and, according to the pattern, done.  However, Aidan's brother, Callum's quilt, Shift, finished at 60X75", and so I'm going to make Radiance into a rectangular quilt by adding to it on the top and bottom.  Stay tuned.  I have lots of the Grunge fabrics left (oh are they fabulous!), but not very much of the Kona Cheddar....Oh I know that can be remedied!
Speaking of money-saving remedies, haha, er tips, have you been taking advantage of any of Connecting Threads' sales this week?  I know, I'm enabling you again.  I need company in my shopping madness glee.  No affiliation either, just plain adoration.  One word for today over there:  THREAD!!

Watch this spot tomorrow for more money-saving tips, well one big one coming from Craftsy! For now I'm off to buy thread!

Linking up with Let's Bee Social.