Fall Colors Win The Coin Toss

Which one do I choose...........

I used to have a system of first quilt top finished, first to get quilted, but that has apparently fell by the wayside of late.  In my stack of quilt tops, I have two quilt tops that need quilted on a long arm machine (for which I have no immediate funds for).  I also have two projected baby quilts that I can blow out whenever the need arises, one quilt top that is essentially just a camper quilt (why hand quilt that?) and then, I have everything else.  It pretty much comes down to what I'm in the mood to work on--heads, tails--these lovely, lovely fall colors apparently.:)

Getting another quilt ready for the hoop....

The main part of this quilt is from the Better Homes & Gardens Quilt Sampler Fall/Winter 2007 magazine.  I had to change up the vines and leaves from the original pattern because they felt a little too structured for me, going completely around the blocks like they did and being so perfectly perfect if you know what I mean.  I borrowed leaf designs from Blackbird Designs 'Midnight Silhouette' pattern because I felt that these sprawling, free flowing leaves suited my improv border so much better.  I took the funky leaf blocks on the bottom of the quilt from Sue Spargos' book 'Contemporary Folk' and somewhere along the way, the owl from the end of her book went ahead and jumped onto my quilt too.  Isn't he adorable?  I almost hesitated to use him because the owl thing is such a fad thing right now and I don't want to obviously 'date' my quilt.  Oh well, this has been such a fun quilt for me, being able to use so many of my reproduction fabrics plus an 80's reject fabric my sister gave to me many long years ago.  It's not a perfect design, as once again I let my enthusiasm for additional border work get the best of me, but it makes me smile and that seems to be a wonderful reason to keep right on quilting.

All Good Things Have to Come to an End Eventually

Hand quilting is a fascinating process.  It starts out slowly (usually from the center of a quilt) and does not gain momentum very quickly at all.  Needle in, needle out day by day, week by week, until suddenly! I realize that all I have left to do is the outside blocks or border of the quilt.  Hmmm, In many cases, such as this particular quilt, there are actually more total outside blocks than total inner blocks.*wink  Yeah, that can be a little bit of a letdown.  Thankfully, us hand quilty people are a stalwart bunch.  So, needle in, needle out and one day I realize I'm stitching the very last border.  Ta da!  The light at the end of the tunnel!  After endless evenings of questioning my sanity and wondering if I'll even be alive to see the finish of my quilt, why then, the bittersweet feeling that often comes with an ending?  It's a weird and wonderful thing.  Probably why I find myself wanting to delay the binding part for a while.  You know, I think I need to focus more on the benefits of the process.  Quilting happens in three important stages for me: a completed quilt top, a quilt top with the hand quilting completed, and  finally, a quilt that is bound and ready to move on.  Hand quilting delays the entire start-to-finish process, making it feel like a SERIOUS accomplishment.  If I manage the time element for binding my quilt with a little more care and attention to detail, I can make the completed binding feel pretty important too.:)  Then I'll get a three-fer with every quilt.  Easy peasy.  Now I'll just go eat another piece of pie and contemplate my delaying tactics.  

The ending of any relationship can be so bittersweet.

I had to go bake apple pies to recover my equilibrium.

I'm a Wizard at Math

Let's just say that there is a very good reason I haven't attempted mitered corners since the year 2007.  

I had BARELY enough of the red to cut my original strips.

Except that hmmm, I seem to have made a mistake....

This is the UNnecessary part of the strips I had to cut off.

Which would make the Pepsi in the background less of a prop.

Proof that I was determined to get something right before the day was done.

Although I kept referring to my book, I spaced off an important step.  Natch!  If ever I'm going to have issues, it'll be with something that in the finished product would make it look like I actually know what I'm doing.:)  (This is not Harriet Hargrave and Sharyn Craigs fault!)  Still, being the determined quilty person I love to be, I persevered, and after a quick break to guzzle the Pepsi my lovely husband brought me, I made it through to the part where I can finally sew those rotten strips together.  *Tip--if you cut your original strips correctly, you won't have those mile long edges to deal with! I carefully folded the extra strips up and put them into a ziplock bag to keep for a future project.  Trust me, those will show up in another quilt some day just because.:)

Series #4

This project is seriously making my eyes cross and my brain matter go on the fritz.  I probably better go clear back to the beginning.  Our 'Pieceable Souls' quilting group had a four part series challenge last Fall/Winter.  #1 started with a basic block pattern (I chose a nine-patch) which could not be made with more than 2 fabrics and had to be set together in a simple design.  Each new series had to be made with the same basic block pattern, but the challenge elements changed.  This would be the project from series #4 in which I still (obviously) use nine-patch blocks, but they are incorporated into a much bigger block.  Which would be the main source of my frustration.  What did I think I could accomplish with 20 inch blocks???  I found this particular quilt in Sharyn Craigs' wonderful book called 'Great Sets', although I think it was actually made by Sally Collins plus it was a much, much smaller quilt.  Regardless, that quilt had a fantastic border that totally made the quilt.*smirk.  Enter my gynormous quilt blocks and queue the music for total depression.*sigh  I won't tell you how much time I have spent trying to add cute little bits of applique or how many fat quarters I've wrecked auditioning fabric for said applique.  On to the border! Because I am determined it needs something.:)

I didn't know I was going to turn out an 'almost' Amish look

The discarded border candidates & lots of lint and thread

On a different note, I will say that I thoroughly enjoyed whacking away at the edges of each big block, (blunting the edges of random triangles) as I squared them up to an even steven 20 1/2".  The right side of my brain was positively dancing with glee.  Maybe that's why it's seems to be so frazzled trying to figure out what to do next?

Funny What Makes a Quilt a Favorite

I just love it when hunting season arrives, don't you?

This is quite possibly my favorite quilt and it completely amuses me that my husband would mis-abuse it so badly when he knows how much I cherish it.*snort  It's just one of many to him!  I started this quilt in November of 2006 when all my sisters and I took my mom to Bandon, Oregon for her 60th birthday.  Including one sister-in-law, we were a party of 8 women (and 3 babies who were deemed too young to be left with daddy).  I asked everyone to please write something about our weekend on a small cream piece of fabric.  No big, right?  It was a special weekend, we were having fun, etc. etc.  NO, not my sisters.  Grumbles, moans and sniveling, and in some cases outright rebellion.  Too cheesy, mushy and too much opportunity for embarrassment!  In the end I resorted to begging them to please, PLEase at the very least sign their name and write in 'Bandon, OR' and the date.  So, my little keepsake quilt idea had been blown to pieces.  Arrghhh!  It took me another year or so before I came up with another plan, which cracked me up the entire time I was working on it, because I knew my sisters would not be happy with me for forging ahead.  I carefully cut up each of the cream squares that I had to work with and incorporated them into a new and (quite by chance, although I'd never admit that to them) better plan.  If you look closely, you'll see that the little cream berries are filled with handwritten names, dates and other words.  I laugh every time I think about taking their stingily given words and cutting them up! I love my mom and sisters to pieces and this just adds an extra dollop of sentiment to the quilt for me of course.

Thanks for being so stubborn girls!  You're the best.:)

*By the way, this quilt pattern is actually two 'Whimsical' patterns (one for layout design and the other had an applique pattern I liked better) plus an extra border I thought the quilt needed at the last minute.

Selected Fabric Stash Revisited

This color combination doesn't mean much to most people, but for me, it's a challenge because I NEVER use gray.  Ever.  Although, now that I look at the pictures, it becomes obvious to me that somehow I have managed to weaken the gray with a browny gray.  Which means I'm actually working with taupe. Groan.....  

Revisiting a stash of hopefuls--because this intrigues me.

Adding in the bright prints in the wrong proportion--OBVIOUSLY.

Getting my ideas down on paper and doing the calculations.

I'm a planner.  I like to know where my quilt is going before I make my first cut, even if I'm pretty sure it won't actually get there in one piece.  (No pun intended.)*wink  Sometimes it takes me ages to make up my mind and occasionally I even dump a selected stash of fabric into yet another quilt altogether because, lo and behold, it's a color palette that I seem to be working on all over the place.  So I guess what I'm telling you is that I'm also a plodder.  A planner and a plodder, that's me.  Getting quilts sewn together one little stitch at a time.

A Little Hand Quilting

Been doing a little hand quilting in the evenings while the house is settling in for the night.  It seems like such a slooooow method of finishing a quilt sometimes.  I look online at all the quilts that are whipped out in a day or two with fancy schmancy stitching and I'm just pea green with jealousy.  Then I compare the two styles side by side and there is no real contest for me.  While the long-arm stitching is beautiful and eye-catching, it's the hand quilting that truly fascinates me at a cellular level.  It's rather like looking into the face of a newborn I think, I'm that fascinated with it.  I do have a rhythm that works well for me and it also pays off as in 'time-out' for my brain.  It must, as this will be about the 20th quilt I've hand quilted in the last several years.:)

Figuring It Out, One Step At a Time

So, I waited until my husband went back to work after lunch and then, I launched a full-sale assault on my quilt.  I know it looks totally random and scrappy, but everyone knows that it takes TIME to get it looking that way.  I have to pay attention, make sure the same fabric isn't represented five times in one row, divide and conquer the lights from the darks, squint, flip blocks ad nauseam, squint some more etc., etc.  Finally, it comes together and looks mostly the way I always thought it should.*wink

Basic layout done, now for the fun part in the middle....

1st border picks--red good, yellow not so much.

Reverse the borders-- meh....

6th yellow choice & it works! Just don't ask me how today.

I have come to an agreement with my quilt.  We (it) decided to repeat the red stripey fabric one more time so the border will actually be three strips--red, yellow, red, which is also more in keeping with the style I was originally aiming for.  I'm thinking I will need to do mitered corners to Really get the look I want and frankly, that does not impress me.  Uggh.  Do I have to?  Let me just have a little moment to whine about it and then I will do what is probably the only right thing to do.  But I don't have to like it.:)

NCW Quilt Guild Quilting Show

The NCW Quilt Guild puts on an annual quilt show in Wenatchee every fall.  I haven't been in probably close to five years because I usually spend my money and time to go to the Buggy Barn Quilt Show earlier in the fall instead--much more inspirational to me as a rule!  Anyway, I got up early on Saturday morning and decided to make the trek to Wenatchee to check out the quilt show (and maybe find some good vendors).  Ha!  Now you know the real reason why I went.  Whatever.  It was a great show, with lots of wonderful quilts, great talent and lots to think about.  What struck me most was how different the experience was for me this time as opposed to going, what, five years ago?  I've traveled down the road a little since then in my quilting experiences.  Intimidation was still a big factor back then.  I walked around thinking, 'Wow, I love that, but I could NEVER do that!', etc. etc.  Now I'm completely fearless.  Huh, right.  Liar, liar, pants on fire!!  However, I am beginning to think LESS about how challenging certain things in quilting could be and MORE about what I want and need to make happen--for my own satisfaction in the completion of my quilts.  Lets just say that it was a very liberating moment to suddenly understand how very much I have grown in my quilting, plus I got to bring home about 26 old Quilting Newsletter magazines from a thrifty vendor.  Score!!

Easily my favorite quilt in the entire show.  Pure loveliness.

This quilt was breathtakingly rich and sumptious.

I DON'T want to do one of these, but my eyes, they feast on these quilts.:)

I'm a sucker for baskets & flower quilts, every single time!

It's wool & that's so not my thing, but this quilt simply charmed me.

A Walk-back Through My Process

My latest quilting effort.  I really wanted to make more of an effort to explain 'The Process' which of course is why I joined 'The Process Pledge' awhile back.  Let's just say that sometimes it aint gonna happen while it's happening if you know what I mean.  Some brains are not meant to be pulled open and intently examined.  Nonetheless, I will try to give a walk-back through this particular project.  Naturally, it will be the edited version.*wink

Way back in Spring, I bought some yellow fabric, brought it home and drooled over it.  I placed it in a little stack and every now and then I added in some other fabrics from my stash--reds, coral, salmon and a very few pinks just because.

While my pile of drool-worthy fabrics grew (thank you my dear stash), various patterns buzzed through my brain, only to be rapidly dismissed .   The floral fabrics demanded something that I couldn't quite get ahold of and pin down.

Then came the long 'change-of-plans' 4th of July weekend.  Time  to settle on a pattern!  Both of these patterns are from  2006 American Patchwork & Quilting Magazine--my subscription that has more than paid for itself all these years.  I decided on old fashioned, beachy--cottage, blendy, & somewhat traditional & structured, plus EASY, did I mention EASY?

While I loved the applique look of the first pattern, I wanted (really needed) instant gratification.   Sometimes you know the only thing to do is start cutting and sewing.  Everything else will fall into place later--you hope.

Thus, my hybridized quilt began to take shape.  It's all so difficult to explain 'during' the process.  Hindsight makes it all sound and look more rational than it ever really is.  Ideas can be so wispy and terribly hard to put into action--for me.

My trusty binder of applique patterns.  This has been a life-saver.  All my applique patterns from every magazine I've ever bought all organized into one big binder--it's the bomb.

Prep work for the applique.  I decided not to use template plastic this time for some reason only I know or understand.  Probably because I only intended to do one block?

The centerpiece of my new quilt.  (I tweaked the pattern of course.)  Oh the joy of getting the look and style of a certain quilt without having to do ALL the applique work that goes with it.  Hey!  It used to be stylish to do the one-applique block quilts way back a hundred years ago or so.

Little Stuff

A little grungy, but I thought it re-purposed rather well.

Did I over-stuff it?  My kids will take care of that eventually!

 So....., back to the quilt room.*sigh  Why oh why does the pile of mending multiply and grow on me when I'm not around to whack it into shape?  I girded up my loins and attacked it with single-mindedness, promising myself that I could pretend to be creative AFTER.  You know, after I sweated through all that hemming, mending and sewing on of buttons stuff.  Uggh.  It never gets more appealing.

So..., After?  I didn't have much time left and my brain was feeling a little resistant to um, structured work.  I've had some little re-purposey projects on my mind of late--the results of haunting the second hand stores I'm sure.  The burlap bag was very functional, but with a cute little raw-edge applique, I thought it could be very sweet.   A few free-hand cuts into some scrap fabric and my idea was taking shape wonderfully, but then halfway through, the pillow idea redirected my focus.  The poorly matted (oldish) cross-stitch piece needed to be removed from a picture frame and it needed to be done now.  I impulsively decided to add on a red border fabric, then I sewed the backing fabric onto the front and filled it with pillow-stuffing lickety split.  Just as I thought, I was running out of time.  About then, my oldest son asked if I could go with him into town, not our town but the one approx. 40 miles away.  What?  I'm in a groove here!  I bundled up my goodies, my needle and thread AND, while he drove, I finished my raw-edge applique and sewed the open seam on my new pillow closed.  I was so enthralled with my new endeavors that I did not look at the speedometer once (or even mention the fact that I noticed when he tried to drive with his knee).