Lil' Retro Baby Revisit

It's time for the Blogger's Quilt Festival over at Amy's Creative Side again!  Such a pleasure to view all the wonderful entries during each quilt show.  For my second entry into the Spring 2013 Festival, I'm entering 'Lil' Retro Baby' into the Baby Quilt category.  My first entry is in the Scrap Quilt category.

Lil' Retro Baby

This is a quilt I finished up and gifted to my cousin last year, but it still holds a special place in my list of completed quilts.  Working with solid fabric was (and still is) completely out of my normal comfort zone and I admit to struggling a bit with it.

A peek inside my process

I bought a stack of fat quarters and then impulsively included a couple extra pieces that I thought would help balance out the color arrangement. You know that the very idea of working with ALL solid colors was practically guaranteed to paralyze me into indecision given that I had been taught that solid colors were the scrap quilters ultimate 'no, no'!  Eventually, after much waffling, I decided to just start cutting and sewing which resulted in a few chunky looking blocks.  My design wall is pretty small so I quickly ended up arranging the various blocks on the floor.  Ha!  I'm sure you already figured that out.

Anyway, it worked better than you might think and actually got my brain to start processing what needed to happen next. I moved the first several blocks round and round, trying to imagine the end result in my mind.  I played with my fabric bits and pieces, thinking about how to join big blocks and little ones all without ending up with funky set in seams. Finally, it occurred to me that I simply wasn't going to be happy until I added in a very few pieces of printed fabric.  Cheater, cheater, pumpkin eater!  Oh well.  So my first solid color quilt ended up with a printed fabric.  Next time I'll work harder to get it right. lol

Entering 'Sew Charming' Into the Blogger's Quilt Festival

My apologies for posting about this quilt again so quickly, but I just couldn't resist entering it into the Blogger's Quilt Festival over at Amy's Creative Side.  Next time around I should work on being more prepared for the Festival.  Maybe try the sneak approach instead of posting about every step of the process along the way?*wink

Sew Charming

I'm entering this quilt into the Scrap Quilt category.  This particular quilt came together very fast over the course of about a week.  I saw a picture of a lovely, springy looking quilt that made me remember a little stack of 9-patch blocks leftover from a previous project.

Looking very scrappy

I've devised several different quilt ideas in my head for these little orphaned quilt blocks through the last several months, but nothing ever 'took' until I got started with this project. Not that I ever really tried very hard of course!

Playing with the 9-patches

My mom generously rescued me with my border fabric dilemma (I don't have a lot of big pieces of fabric or very much bright, young or fun fabrics either) and I was able to gift it to a young friend in plenty of time for her graduation party.

My crazy bright back.

It came out to about 55" square which is a little small for a lap quilt, but I absolutely love the cheerfulness it exudes and I'm pretty sure it has found a good home.  Go ahead and click on over to the Spring 2013 Blogger's Quilt Festival for some wonderful eye candy.  You know you want to!

A Photo Trip Through the Indygo Junction Years

I was cruising around blogs the other day like I do sometimes, when I stumbled onto a picture of a quilt that looked very familiar to me!  Too funny!  I had actually made two versions of that quilt back in 2004? Anyway, I decided it was way past time to take pictures of the quilts made during my Indygo Junction phase.  For posterity you know.

Folk Art Sampler Quilt

I bought the book 'Wednesday's Best' by Indygo Junction in about 2003 after drooling over the 'Crimson in Clover' quilt at every quilt show I went to.  It was so far out of my skill level though that I ended up panicking and started with the 'Folk Art Sampler' quilt instead.  So very fun to make!  Really, really gratifying project overall even though I somehow left two pieces of freezer paper in with the appliqued pieces.*sigh  (My kids loved to climb on the back of the couch for years and years just to feel the paper wrinkle under their fingers while they giggled at mom's big mistake.)  I hand quilted the sampler very lightly in a black thread  which made me feel very adventurous.

My version of Truly Red and Green

Then I made two versions of 'Truly Red and Green', gifting my next younger sister with one of them.  My own quilt was used so much that it actually has holes in some of the fabric and I know that I touched up the applique at least three times through the years before it finally got retired. lol  One of my favorite quilts of all time, partly because there are 8 pieced girl blocks (I'm from a family of 8 girls, 4 boys).

Crimson in Clover

Finally I got brave enough to tackle the 'Crimson in Clover' quilt.  It was the very first time I had ever made bias vine which completely terrified me.  (Yes, I am easily intimidated.)  Overall, the quilt was a wonderful experience and also a magnificent flop, all at the same time.  My selection of scrappy yellows and reds were not well blended or even complementary to each other, almost enough to put my teeth on edge in places.  Basically I rushed it, didn't trust what my instincts were screaming at me.  It was a great learning experience to be honest.  And trust me, I worked hard to get as good a picture as I did!

The back of Crimson in Clover

The back was fun in it's own way too.  I used up some challenge blocks and played with a setting layout I had never attempted before.  The colors are a bit 'meh', but I enjoyed playing and got a chance to put some sentimental blocks to good use that weren't ever going to have their moment in the sun otherwise.

Indygo Junction baskets with star flowers

And last but not least, I used the applique basket pattern with star flowers on the corners of a throw-together scrap quilt.  It eventually ended up being used for camping trips and now it usually covers the back of my very ugly couch.  Hey, the entire quilt was an experiment and if the couch wear and tear ruins it, it'll be worth it just for the years of providing distraction from our biggest eyesore!

I look at all these quilts and marvel at how much these quilts taught me.  If you want to improve your quilt making skills, you have to make quilts. Plain and simple.

A Quick Little Finish

There's a fun spring blog hop going on over at Celebrate Hand Quilting this week! If you're at all interested in hand quilting, you need to check it out and cheer these wonderful quilters on.  Hand quilting is oftentimes a very s.l.o.w. process which means posting about it constantly can start feeling very repetitive! My last posts about hand quilting were on Sunday and then probably the Sunday before. I'm obviously in a rut here.*wink

'Sew Charming'

Anyway, today is the day that I finished up my scrappy little 9-patch made from orphan blocks!  All it needs is a label and then a gift bag too because I decided it really belonged to someone else instead of me. (No matter how much I would love to drool on it during car trips.)  Oh who am I kidding.  From the start it was destined to go to a very special person and I knew it all along.

Looking very cheerful!

This person doesn't even know that I have a quilt blog so it's pretty safe to blog about it now. I think! You know how some people don't even realize that quilting is a BIG DEAL in your life even though the quilts are overflowing from every corner of your house?  That's okay.  I forgive them for their disinterest if they'll forgive me my disinterest in their goat, genealogy (sorry mom), running, coupons, etc. etc. obsessions.  I totally understand where the glazed-over looks come from as I'm susceptible to them myself at times!

And a quick peek at the back.

I desperately hope think this young lady will appreciate the quilt even though she doesn't enjoy the craft herself.  I'd say a home schooling graduation party is just as important as a public high school one wouldn't you?

And once again, I'd like to link up to A Sentimental Quilter and say Thank You! for sharing pictures of the beautiful springtime quilt.  Great inspiration to me for this quilt and as always, a wonderful opportunity to see many quilts that I would otherwise never be exposed to in my little community!

Slow Stitching and Machine Quilting in the Same Weekend!

Today has been a very good day.  I got treated to a nice dinner out and a box of Dove ice cream bars too.  Seriously yummy stuff!  I wanted to link up to Kathy's Slow Sunday Stitching today because hand quilting has often been the key to helping me sort through the jungle of mothering teenage kids.

Vintage Reproduction in the hoop

So many times I sit with my hoop in my lap and try to stitch away all my worries and frustrations!  I'm a thinking person and it really helps to be stitching while I sift through life's happenings and try to put things into proper perspective. I'm not 15 anymore.  I'm 43 and a long way from the impulsive, often illogical ways of young men and women!

While my mind has been busy doing it's thing, look at what's been accomplished in my hoop!  Don't you just love all that texture that appears one little stitch at a time?  There's nothing quite like it.

Working around the corner on the solid purple
and also the red/black hst border

I was also able to spend a lot of time at my sewing machine this weekend, which is good because the closer I get to the end of the month, the less time there will be for that.  This quilt top measures out at approx. 55 inches--quite a bit smaller than what I generally do, but so very sweet.  This is the quilt that really inspired me to dig into my orphaned 9-patch blocks.  I saw the chrome yellow with the scrappy blocks and just melted.

My weekend sewing frenzy

Of course I'm not using chrome yellow because I couldn't find enough in my stash! I did find a buttery yellow print that looked like it would work though and off I went sewing up my quilt top like there was no tomorrow.  Once I got to the borders I was completely stumped, but my mom totally saved the day for me.  Let me just say that her stash is WAAAAY bigger than mine.  Now we need to work out something for trade, which I suspect will be something along the lines of sewing on the binding to all her future quilts.  lol  She's getting good about making the trades work to her advantage!

Learning to use the walking foot

This is the first quilt that I was able to use my new walking foot with and I gotta say, I have a very lot to learn!  I sewed in a simple grid using the 9-patches as my guide so I didn't have to mark the quilt at all.  Love that I didn't have to worry so much about puckers on the back of my quilt, but I am sad that the texture is so different from the hand quilting.  I always am!  The benefits of having the quilt come together so quickly is what I know is going to keep me trying to improve my skills.  I suspect that some quilts don't need to be hand quilted in order to be fully loved and appreciated.*wink

Not so very much left...

So that's my crazy Mother's Day weekend.  I only have a tiny little pile of 9-patch scraps left from all those orphan blocks and now a super sweet quilt top well on it's way to a finish. Yay me!

Basket Medallion Border Work and Orphan Block Fun

I have the Flower Pot basket border almost ready to sew onto the Basket Medallion quilt now.  All four border units are sewn together and just basically waiting on me to make a decision about the fabric for the coping border.  Maybe another striped fabric?  While it's true that I don't want all my quilts to start looking like identical twins, I am actually considering using the same sashing fabric I used in this quilt.

Flower Pot basket blocks ready for border

It's hard to see in the pictures, but these mixed brown fabrics are really rich and dreamy looking compared to the paler yellows used in the quilt.  I was a little worried about how some of the fabrics would look up next to the reds, but it's all behaving very well together.*whew  Kind of makes me want a Hershey bar for afternoon snack though!

All 4 borders ready to go...

Then I got a bright idea about those leftover 9-patches that kept catching the corner of my eye every time I ironed something.  Good tip for the future:  Keep orphan blocks in a clear Ziploc just out of plain sight, but where you can still see tiny little glimpses of them. Very alluring with all that potential greatness!

A slight diversion of plans

I somehow went a bit crazy and ended up with way too many of these blocks back when I was working on this Material Obsession quilt.  Me and 9-patches?  Well, I don't think we quite know when to quit.

36 scrappy blocks of goodness

They quickly sewed together into a nice little stack of goodness which had me positively rubbing my hands in glee!  Amazing how fast blocks can go together when you don't have to bother with cutting fabric.  Then I had to dig around and find a good fabric to frame the blocks and make sure they didn't all mush together.  Maybe I'm getting too reliant on sashing lately?  There was a time I refused to have any whatsoever in my quilts....

Going together very fast!

Anyway, I want to reassure you that I haven't forgotten any the projects on my LIST.  Those of you who like to practice project monogomy and get irritated by all this hop, skip, jumping around, this is just a very slight diversion.  Nothing important at all.*wink

Getting the Pickle Dish Figured Out

So, I finally woke up and realized that I was actually stealing from the stack of fabric reserved especially for my Pickle Dish quilt!?!  When I pull a selection of fabric out of my totes THREE different times and imagine them being used in a quilt, it's time to do something about that.  Which I did.  I started the Pickle Dish Insanity project. Remember?

Melon fabric cut and ready to go.

Anyway, it seemed like a good moment to commit more fully to the project or just go ahead and let it gently lapse into oblivion one piece of stolen fabric at a time...

Does the picture of cut up fabric say it loudly enough or do I need to say the words? I am fully committed to this project! (You know it'll be tough to back peddle now 'cuz I really, really hate to waste fabric.) The Pickle Dish quilt has been one of my favorites forever and I also want to make would love to have a New York Beauty quilt some day.  I like to view this quilt as a good warm up to a much trickier quilt.*wink

What is wrong with this picture?

It started out with a bang, with me sewing the very first piece of fabric onto the paper wrong!  Well, that piece of fabric wasn't exactly wrong, but the idea is to sew two pieces face to face.  Next I would turn the second piece of fabric (if it was sewed on where it should be) face up the in opposite direction and iron it open.  One piece of fabric after another until eventually you reach the end of the melon.  Does anybody know if you're supposed to sew left to right? or right to left?  And does it even matter?

Two pairs of melons ready to trim.

I tried both until I got into a rhythm that felt good to me.  There are 48 pairs of melon in this particular pattern from the Material Obsession 2 book, otherwise called the 'Eyelash Quilt'.  The quilt pictured in the book is absolutely gorgeous--very funky and modern.  (Unlike my quilt which will be probably be fairly mellow and somewhat old fashioned looking.)  I am such a difficult person.  Give me a antique quilt and I try to make it look new and then of course vise versa.

LOVE the scrappy ones!

Not all of my melons were planned to be scrappy, but I'm really liking the look.  Makes me wonder if I should go back through the box of cut up fabrics and mix more of the sets?  We'll see.  After today's 'oops' it did make me realize that I should plan to sew a few of these melons every single week until I get through them all.  Paper piecing isn't difficult, but it is backwards thinking in my mind.  Probably best to try and stay in good practice....