Here's my Modern Half Square Triangle, "Diamond in the Forest." My plan was to make a Random Half Square Triangle (HST) quilt. It turns out that I am too much of a control freak to go random!

The loss of randomness started with the initial piecing.

I couldn't bring myself to put the pieces in a paper bag which would have insured the HSTs were really random. Instead I intentionally picked fabrics which complemented each other for the HSTs.

When I put the HSTs on the design wall any attempt at randomness ended.

As I put the blocks on the design wall, I made sure that the fabrics in adjacent blocks weren't the same.
Then my eye caught the beginning of a pattern in the blocks…and I went for it. Good-bye Random HST quilt! Can you see the diamond shape slightly left of middle in the lower half of the blocks on the design wall? Just one block on the right side needs to be turned to close the diamond. This photo is fuzzy… it was a quick snap in case a dog ran by and the blocks flew off the design wall. Yes… it has happened. Not good!

Here's a detail of that focus diamond in the finished top.

The inspiration for this project came from a quilt made by Kali Zirkle which was posted on the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Facebook page on Happy Huesday. Kali's quilt was made with Kona Cotton solid fabrics and her quilt is a Random HST quilt.

The actual planning for this quilt started when I found the "Sweet as Honey" fabric with the cut tree stumps. It is an Art Gallery Fabric and was designed by Bonnie Christine. I found in the shop at J.P. Knit & Stitch. I collected yellow, brown, tan and grey fabrics to complement it. My intention was to make the quilt with just those 4 colors.

Art Gallery Fabrics "Sweet as Honey"

However, one afternoon I had a DYI home improvement show on in the background while I was sewing. I wasn't really paying attention to it so I don't know what the show was nor the cable channel airing it. I looked up to see one of the finished rooms. The walls were painted a soft orange yellow with turquoise and white throw pillows on the two setting areas on either side of the fireplace.

The proverbial lightbulb over my head flashed on. This quilt would be so much more interesting with a couple of accent colors. I added a bit of turquoise, yellow green and bright green. That was just what this quilt needed.

I put the block with the reverse circle in the quilt to echo round tree stumps in the "Sweet as Honey" fabric. The background fabric of that block is Kona Cotton Cheddar yellow! For those of you who have been following my blog for a while…yes, cheddar yellow fabric has finally made it into one of my quilts!

This quilt which started out in one direction morphed into something different in the process of sewing it. Could that be called Random Designing?