Some Things I've Been Working On

Life has been craaaazy for us lately, I think it's been mentioned once before here on the blog. We've had company something like every weekend but two? out of the last 8 or 9 weeks? Yeah. Fun stuff. Anyhoo--hand quilting and applique have been the go-to stress relief for yours truly.

Next up in the hoop

Immediately after dumping the last quilt out of the hoop, then it was on to the next. This one is a decidedly fall colored quilt which makes me just sigh in complete and total satisfaction. It's been awhile since I attempted any Baptist fan stitching, and this one seemed like a perfect match for that. Because this is such an 'imperfect' quilt, it seemed wildly appropriate to stitch freehand fans, right? Well, like I said, it's been awhile.

The first two frames were stressing me out so much that I almost ripped ALL the stitching out. The blue perle cotton thread was getting lost in the piecing and I couldn't see anything. What a disaster. After I slept a night or two and did lots of contemplating, I decided to keep going. But from now on use a blue wash-out pen to mark my fans as I came to each particular frame. Still a freehand look as I'm not using any sort of template, just drawing the 5-arc sets prior to stitching.*whew!  Glad to get that figured out! And now I'm happy as can be and things are going swimmingly. I am loving the sweet texture and am so very glad I didn't default back to a more formal look. This quilt definitely needs stitching with the look and feel of 'the human touch'.

Peachy Cameo Medallion

And my Peachy Cameo Medallion quilt got a good fixer-upper this week. I was a little unhappy with the top and bottom borders and in fact, got out my seam ripper and took the bottom one off, flipped it upside down and then just sat there and sighed with exasperation. I knew it. Even though it makes everything wonderfully balanced, I don't like the look. Not with this quilt! So while that border was off I did a quick measurement and sure enough, it needed trimmed about 1/4". Hmm... I thought the two borders looked a little out of whack. So I went ahead and ripped off the top border and hello? it was 1/2" too long. Working too fast because of time crunch issues and just not paying enough attention.

The long and short of it is that in trimming both of those borders, I had to take off a couple of those green leaves there on the sides of the quilt and move them over. Which made my brain spin and next thing I knew, there was a great solution to my borders making itself known. Yep! I quickly picked some fabric out and mocked up some simple little flower pots to put my vines in--elongate those side borders down into the bottom border. Problem solved! So yeah... all that 'fixing' took a couple hours, but it was so worth it. Now it looks right and good. Ready to move on to the next border!

Vintage Lillies

And I warned you that I was probably going to start 3 new projects? I was serious about that. This one is a project I've been deliberating about since Kaja started this quilt much earlier in the year. The colors were so intriguing that I couldn't help but start pulling fabrics. Yum... Various fabrics have migrated over to that stack in the last couple months, but I just couldn't pin down where and how to start the quilt. Finally, after the quilt show in September, the starting place hit me like a bolt out of the blue. What about a Lily block centerpiece? And from there it's just been a matter of finding the time.

A fabric pull

I cheated on the lillies, and just drew up a simplified version, totally skipping the diamond piecing. Who cares about that? I just want the look! All the pieces need to applique stitched down and then I'll probably have to cut the top of the block down for reasons of proportion. My daughters were less than impressed, but I am really excited about this new start. It feels really good. Maybe some improv. can be incorporated into this quilt too?

Trying to take the Family Pic

And just as a side note in the interest of keeping things real. My plan has been {all year} to get a family picture sometime this fall. One good picture of my mostly adult children with their dad and mom--it's gonna be blown up pretty big and will hang on our wall forever. My parents always had a big pic of their huge family and I loved it, always wanted my own. So... plans were made, schedules were checked and finally we had a date where everyone could be in town, not working, no company, yada yada yada. It was a beautiful day, but my oh my, were the family members grumpy. Normally I'd have made meticulous plans to make sure we all had new, spiffy clothes and, no. 

We totally lost track of time. Okay. What colors do we ALL have in our closets? It seems that we are a casual, blue-jean sort of clan. There was a football game in which cell phones were making their way into pictures on a regular basic. NO! This is picture day! My oldest son was on call with his work. Don't answer your phone! This is important! My husband has been sick off and on all summer. He looked tired, desperately needed a nap. Eyes open everyone! He's lost almost 60 pounds in the last two years. Yay! Good for him. Apparently I picked up 15 or 20 of them.*Ugghh  Was I not planning the picture for over six months? Seriously. How hard is it to stay away from the desserts? and so on and so forth. I'm depending on my amazing photographer sister to make US all look amazing. That's not too much to ask, right?