Monday, October 29, 2012

A Very 'No-Pressure' Quilt in the Works

It was a great feeling to get another quilt top finished up the other day!  But then I had to confront THE LIST.  You know the one.  It practically yells 'Don't you dare start another quilt before you focus right here missy'.  So I dutifully got the rest of the prep work done for the borders on my 9-patch series #4 quilt.  Yep.  It's ready for stitching any 'ol time I get the notion (which is obviously not right now). lol
Prep work for 9-patch series #4
Next?  Oh yes.  The Happy Geese quilt which is supposed to be full of attitude.  Hmmm.... Well, forget about that.  I'm thinking this quilt should be thrilled to pieces to still even be in the running.  It started out being rescued from certain doom and has kind of morphed into the quilt where all good rejects discards go to live.
A little 'make-it-up-as-you-go-along' applique
The geese are rescue (pieces of) blocks, the cream background fabric was a throw-away from one of my friends, the brown birds were rejected reluctantly abandoned from a long-time-ago project of mine and the hundreds of yards of bias vine were sewn for a project when I (oops!) discovered it was not nearly wide enough.  Does that ever happen to anyone but me?
The bright border
Moving along.  After I finished up on the applique bits and pieces, I decided to add on a quick border.  This loud, sparky, plaid fabric--yet another throw away fabric--seems to give this quilt a bit of life and helps dispel the sickly sweetness that comes from using way too much pink.
Trying to use up some more hst's
I only added the plaid border to three sides because I really, really don't like all of my quilts to be square.  Still not sure what I'm doing or where I'm going at this point, but hey, lets try to use up some more of those discarded hst's!  The new tan fabric is yet another rejected unwanted piece of fabric being salvaged by this quilty adopter.  Chop, chop when I get to the ends--easy peasy on the measuring.  You know I've been reading up on those funky Gwen Marston techniques.*wink
Adding on a spiky border
Now for the big dilemma: adding more length than width to the quilt without having the entire quilt radiate incompetence.  I decided to cut and sew a quick spiky border with directions from 'Collaborative Quilting' by Freddy Moran and Gwen Marston.  Yay!  Things are taking shape and this whole process has been a tremendous amount of fun!  No pressures or worrying about ruining anything.  Very little measuring and/or pinning.  Just free-wheeling through the stages and feeling good about using up the misfits of quilting.  Kinda fun really......

4 comments:

  1. I'm loving this quilt!! Very nice!
    P

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  2. Thanks for visiting my blog and leaving such a nice comment!

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  3. Hi, I just found your blog, and love this quilt! I look forward to reading your back posts!

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  4. I really love the border you have put together for you 9-patch series #4 quilt. I usually don't like borders on quilt, with the exception that they are pieced. That border makes me want to visit and spend some time quilting around those lovely circles. Your fabric choices are wonderful!

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Thanks for visiting! I love getting comments and always try to respond via email. Please leave an email in the comment to ensure a return reply! {Many of you are popping up as Anonymous for some reason, so I have no idea who it is.} Regardless, I appreciate all the comments and read every single one.