Beauty From Ashes

I had the honor of selecting the challenge topic for my "Challenging Ourselves" Quilt Group.  We have 2-3 months to create a piece of fiber art/quilt based on a theme selected by one of our members.  It was my turn.  The phrase I selected was:  "Beauty From Ashes".  The story behind my quilt follows.  

I have fallen in love with dying fabric.  Yes, it takes a lot of time and energy.  Yes, it is hard to actually cut that fabric after all you've invested in it.  This fall I found what I believed to be the PERFECT project for my hand-dyed fabrics.  It was a mystery quilt for the Carol Doak Yahoo! Group.  Here is the quilt (only a top to date) that I created following her mystery:

This quilt top is 42" square.  It is my own hand-dyed fabrics combined with Kona black.  

When I was foundation piecing, I cut away a lot of pieces of fabric.  I just couldn't bear to toss out even a tiny piece that had been trimmed off.  So I saved all those pieces, large and small, in a gallon ziplock bag.  This was my challenge.  What could I do with these "ashes" from the above mystery project?

I played and played and thought.  I pieced, or crumbed, together the four small blocks.  I liked them, but they just didn't speak to me.  Then I remembered that I had made all of the blocks per Carol Doak's instructions, but decided I wanted to change the color in one patch on the four corner blocks.  So I remade them, swapping the orange out for a pink.  So technically, my original four blocks would be considered more "ashes" from the first project.  Here they are:

These four corner blocks became the center of my "Beauty From Ashes" quilt.  I set it on point, placed my four crumb blocks in the corners.  I then filled in again from my precious ashes to create setting triangles between the 4 crumb blocks and the center star.   For the border and binding, I went to a small yardage "ash" from the mystery quilt.  The backing is the only thing not related to the original quilt.

This quilt is about 19.5" square.  It will join my rotating "welcome" quilts on my front door.

I am happy that I accepted the challenge to make something from my precious scraps, which are now meager, but not exhausted.