The Floating Squares Quilt and A Roundabout Way of Getting Inspired

I've been in a little bit of a funky, funk lately. Summer blues? Who really knows, but the fact is, while I'm piddling away on all my many applique projects (which I still love), I'm a bit bored. And lethargic. So I'm taking a kind of side step in the hopes of challenging my brain to wake up, not that I'm giving up the applique projects. Heaven forbid!

My Quilty Chaos quilt

A lot of little things led to this idea of mine. It usually works that way with me. Sort of a trickle down, pile it up effect. First of all, the quilt above. While we were having a boat load of company a couple weekends ago, my oldest daughter dug out this quilt and piled it on top of the little nest she makes whenever her bedroom's been taken over by our guests. It's one I worked on over a year ago for Sherri Lynn Wood's Improv. Handbook as one of the test quilters. I graded it as a big fat fail at the time, but now I'm starting to see things to actually like about it. Things that might help me get somewhere in that never ending 'personal style' quest that I seem to be on all the time.

I did buy Sherri's book recently, but I can't seem to read it. My brain kind of freezes at all the design terminology and says 'Hey! NOT imputing up here!' Anne talked recently about studying this book, working her way through the scores, {such a great idea} and then made a fun version of this same floating squares score. In an email conversation, she mentioned Stephie's version and of course I had to go take a look at that too. Wowsers, I do so admire their courage with fabric and color! Also, thanks to Lynne, I've had this interesting idea of making single color quilts from fabric that's languishing way deep in the stash. It may not be our favorite fabric today, but it's definitely worth hacking into, right? And I do so adore a frugal make-do sort of quilt.....

The first units

Oh yeah. So with all that tumbling through my busy, summer-drained, but mildly interested brain, I decided to revisit this particular experiment. Why did I think it was a fail exactly? Because there are definitely elements of this quilt that I rather like, in spite of everything I don't! Okay. For starters, the process was, to put it bluntly, quite terrifying to me. With a capital T. Very un-orderly with absolutely no clear vision of the end result. I'm not always a big fan, no matter how adventuresome you might think I am. It felt like white-knuckled winter driving to me.

Putting them together into blocks and auditioning other fabrics

I literally had to push, prod and make myself get through the process. Friends, it wasn't the least bit fun until I finally had a kind of breakthrough, allowing myself to set a few boundaries, cheat on a couple of the 'limits' and finally decide on a finishing-up plan. How improv. is that?

Settling on a design layout and where the block overlap should be....

I admit to loving the learning how to sew gentle curves and getting the chunky, funky blocks together into something less than straight line rows. That was the very best part. Because I am soooo lame. And why did I put the improv. units into blocks anyway? That still bothers me even though it's probably my default  position and the only way I could get through what felt like absolute chaos.

Learning how to cut and sew gentle curves...

But who cares if they're being lame when something starts getting fun? Just take a rotary cutter and roll it through both layers in a gentle motion, going in where the blocks go in and trying to be very organic about it all. Sew it together slowly and bingo! We've got curves! Something to store away in that bag of quilting skills we pack around. Try as I may, I had never quite got the hang of it before....

Playing with exactly where the curve should be....

I used my entire design wall and a little extra, trying to make sure the quilt was always laying flat, flat, flat. Honestly, it was the first time I was almost bitter about not having a real, honest-to-goodness sized design wall!

Starting to sew the quilt top together....

I sewed up those short, 4-block rows into a big square and then added on the others sides until Ta-da! A quilt top with raggedy edges. Which I didn't know what to do with AT ALL. Why chop off all the edges into perfectly straight cornered quilt with so much quilty chaos going on inside? I didn't want my quilt to hang completely wonky and look unkempt. {Remember, I generally make fairly traditional looking quilts and this was painful to see.}

This was another frightening moment, with me actually perspiring and getting a headache, until I made the decision to add on a solid border. Just cage it all in. {Refer to the first picture in the post.} Which again, sort of defeats the idea of WooHoo! Look at me, I'm sewing Improv. style! But it really did help me so very much to come to terms with getting an actual finish in. That felt huge even though I was pretty sure Sherri would not approve. I quickly forgave myself for imagined shortcomings and made the deadline, knowing it would never be chosen for the book.*sigh

One big quilt top, minus the border that hopped on...

It's so hard to learn new things--the anxiety, fear, almost physical drag that we feel on our body in making the attempt. Stepping out into the unknown and pushing through.*whew  I felt pretty wrung out and yes, a bit exhilarated too, believe it or not. Because I did finish. I pushed through something that felt nearly impossible for my very structured, creatively challenged brain to absorb and comprehend.

Then I left it alone except for some of that gentle curve stuff. Such a good feeling to have a good, solid grasp on that particular process at least!

My first hunt for long forgotten greens....

And now I'm thinking about doing my own sort of series, which I always find challenging and interesting no matter how appalling my fabric choices. I'm going to start out with Score #1 in 'The Improv. Handbook for Modern Quilters: A Guide to Creating, Quilting, and Living Courageously'. haha  Except for the word 'Modern', the title could have been written for me. And yes, that's the Floating Squares score. Again. Only this time done in greens from the very bottom of the big green tote. {Some of these lovelies have probably been in there since the late 90's in case you were wondering.}

Adding a bit of spark....

Maybe a bit more of the sparky greens to help? Yep, that already appears more lively even though it's utterly safe and bland looking. It's feels like a very comfortable starting point, just saying. And I need to get started. There's been something nagging away at me lately that makes me feel like this experimentation is very necessary for my continued growth as a quilter. Does that make sense? Truly, I feel better already just for having a plan to purposely hack away at some fabric. Especially because none of it's important enough to make me cry if perchance it gets ruined in the process! And don't worry. I'll play with the good stuff at a later date. A big thanks to everyone who helped inspire me in this series as it already feels fun and not nearly as scary-hairy as the last go-round. *Nobody paid me to try and persuade you to buy this book....

Finishing Up and Starting Something New, The Ongoing Cycle

Things have been pretty slow around here in regards to quilting. We jaunted off to Portland over the weekend to attend a friends wedding and I ended up doing a lot of the driving. Which means of course, no time with the hand work because we're always busy after we arrive at our destination!

Happy Flowers ready for binding

It's already been the year for weddings with our friends and family and still one more left on the schedule for August. I'm starting to think in terms of, either gift, or money in the boot, but not both! It's starting to cut into my quilting money.*wink

I have had very little motivation since returning, but I did manage to finish up the hand quilting on my Happy Flowers quilt. Wowsers, has that quilt been in the hoop for a long time considering how small the quilt is! I picked out all the cherry red binding from my leftovers tote and had enough for half the binding length. The rest came from my stash as I did not want to go shopping for fabric right now.

A new project...

I've been considering this 'Pleasantville' quilt from the book 'Making Quilts with Kathy Doughty' for some time now. I have dithered a lot over actually starting it because the twirly ball blocks have to be cut out from templates. Ughh.. I do so hate drawing them onto the fabric and then having to oh-so-carefully cut them out. Much better to cut out using a rotary cutter and ruler! First I am going to try sewing them on the machine and then if that doesn't work out, I may switch to hand sewing. 

The quilt will not be made in the correct order of sequence because I really need to find out if the twirly ball blocks are even manageable before I progress with the rest of the quilt. Honestly, I am terrible about following directions and it's been a long time since I've seriously planned on even attempting to make a quilt directly from a pattern! Which I'm not. Just parts of it. I've already decided to change a few things just in fabric choices! The layout will probably be the same though and that's where I'll really have to focus and try to get things cut out just right so as not to waste or ruin fabric. If I remember right, some of the Kathy Doughty patterns have been a bit confusing for me to follow along with...

The New Project is Vintage Red

I don't know why, but generally, the first color I look for in a background fabric is cream or something very neutral. Boring perhaps, but that's just the way it is around here. Then last summer, when we took our trip to Oklahoma, this quilt was the one I dragged around.

4 blocks of Vintage Red done

I had lots of opportunity to study it as it was always draped across my lap helping me to endure the freezing cold temps of our vehicle {my husband insists on that}. And you know what? I adore the pieced together background of the applique blocks. Even now. And even though all the pieced fabrics are cream or a variation of that, they are different. They help make the quilt so much more special to me! So why don't I do more of that I kept thinking?

You're probably thinking 'why doesn't she move away from cream as a background altogether', but hey! we all have our issues! And I've been trying to figure out how to incorporate a little more of that background piecing into my quilting ever since. Which brings us to this Vintage Red project I've started.

I've wanted to use a classic {vintage} solid red in one of my quilts for years and years. Mostly I had vague thoughts of something scrappy like the picture below, nothing too precise or studied. In anticipation of that day, I bought about 3 yards of the 'perfect' red {pretty much the first time I stumbled across some} which would be oh... about 5 yrs ago?

http://www.make-it-do.com/sew-it/oh-my-stars-mr-president/

You gotta know the perfect vintage red is not too cherry red or too tomato red and it's actually very hard to find. The sad thing is, I've stole little bits from that 3 yards of fabric until I was worried there wouldn't be enough for the real project, whatever that ended up being. I guess this 'Vintage Red' project with the funky applique is? I've already got 20 background blocks prepped and ready to go plus all the applique bits. But I may stop at 16 blocks, still undecided about that. The main thing is this, the very next time I stumble upon the perfect vintage red fabric, I need to go ahead and buy the whole bolt. There is definitely more of this color in my future.....

Giveaway Winners, Appliqued Leaves and Why I'm Not Currently a Local Guild Member

Time to announce the winners from my 5 years of blogging giveaway! Very fun that both of them are quilt bloggers who I'm already familiar with! The first winner is Quilting Babcia from Amity Quilter blog. I will be giving her 'The 1718 Coverlet' book. The second winner, Marie from Quilt Bee, will  receive 'The Farmers Wife' book. Congratulations to the winners and thank you to everyone else for joining in on my little giveaway! Emails will also be sent to the winners.

The giveaway books!

The weekend quickly developed into quite the young peoples house party as soon as my oldest son showed up on Friday evening. He brought my youngest son back home from his two week stay in Oregon along with a couple other friends. This annual city celebration always has 3-on-3 tournament that seems very popular with the younger crowd. This year two of the teams were from my very own extended family--one adult team with my son, two brothers and a cousin, plus a high school team including my youngest son, a niece, her twin brother and one of his friends. My husband ended up being one of the court monitors and I just went to cheer things on, apply sunscreen forty-two times and wonder why this could possibly be considered fun. lol   Nevertheless, we enjoyed having our house busting at the seams with all these good-natured kids.

All the leaves appliqued down on half the quilt now!

I didn't get much quilting done as I spent a lot of time at my parents house visiting with all the siblings in town for the celebration. Mostly I pulled out my hand work bag very, very late in the evenings waiting for all the teenagers to show up or making sure the kiddos were actually settling in for the night--boys upstairs, girls downstairs! Lots of late nights for sure and for some reason I was in the mood for applique instead of hand quilting. Working on so many leaves can get a bit tedious, but really, applique of any kind {unless it's letters} can be very relaxing and meditative for me. The more I work on this eagle quilt though, the more I do think it needs another border! And I'm thinking about, uhuh, the addition of words! Such as courage, strength, victory? Stop me. I just can't seem to help myself!

Showing the quilt to some of my family members who couldn't see the
details of the quilt at the show.....

Thanks so very, very much for all of your encouraging words after my last post. For those of you who wonder why I have never joined the guild in the first place, it's fairly simple {at least in my mind}. I moved back to the area in 2004 and just happily joined back up with the same quilting group I was a part of before. We were all friends and/or family, most of us from the same church. I was a very inexperienced quilter and it felt safe, plus it was a fun group! This group gradually disbanded about 2--2 1/2 yrs. or so ago due to people moving away, getting busy with life and/or being disinterested in extra quilting projects.

Ironically, I had been considering joining the local guild prior to this years quilt show. The guild definitely appears to be declining as members are getting older and less productive. They have always been very receptive to our group as far as entering quilts into the show {perhaps because they needed the extra entries?}, but obviously are more pleased with specific styles of quilts over others. In conversation with a few of them through the years, I have deduced that the greatest emphasis is placed on technical precision, long arm quilting, and a careful, 'safe' use of fabric and color--not creativity or exploring personal style. This frankly, has made me a bit wary to be pushy about becoming a member as my focus is not exactly what they take pride in.

I will probably never know the answers to what happened this past weekend but I'm going to be okay. Truly. Ironically, my sister-in-law is the city clerk and she offered to hang the quilt in the town museum for a month if (and when) I decide I want to. Too, the paperwork is already printed out and siting on my desk to apply for entering into the NCW quilt guild show in Wenatchee, Washington.  Big step for cowardly 'ol me, but this is the show that I was supposedly asked to enter my Fire Quilt into by the visiting quilter. I may just have a little steam behind me now.*wink

I also have the papers for application of the quilt into the Washington State Quilters show in Spokane, Washington?*gulp  My husband is not really into that particular idea as he says the quilt will not be quite as relevant over there. We'll see. As I've been reminded lately, quilts have a way of being relevant almost anywhere! I do have a couple weeks to consider the idea before the application deadline arrives. Again, thank you for all the very thoughtful responses to my disappointment with the local quilt show. As always, I will do my best to respond to each one of them personally as I get time and opportunity.

A Life Learning Lesson

Back from the quilt show today. I started out this morning so excited to think of the community viewing my Fire quilt, thinking of all the possible reactions. Yeah. About that. First of all, going to drop off my quilts yesterday was a bit of a stressor. My one and only email from the quilt guild informed me that drop-off for all quilts was between 5-7 pm. on Friday, July 17 or Saturday beteween 7 and 8 am.

Me and my quilts have had a very long day....

I got there by 5:15 pm on Friday and found locked doors. After awhile, I went back home and read my email. Hmm.. Yep. Right time, right place. So I made a couple phone calls {no answer} and then went back to the building to wait. This time I noticed {through the slit in the draperies} that quilts were already hanging. Uh oh. Wow. I've only been bringing quilts to their quilt show for about eight or nine years now--this has never happened! I waited a bit and then finally went back home thinking surely someone would eventually get back to one of my messages. When they did, I found out the guild had met earlier in the day to hang the quilts, but they said they would still take my entries and those I was dropping off for a friend.

Not even this much light on my quilt and the side was crumpled
into the corner.....

Okie Dokie. It's odd not to get the word out, but I'm not part of the guild so really, they have zero obligation to inform me of any change in plans. But.... when I went to view the quilt show today, I was told that 'because I was late in getting my quilts there, they didn't have any room to hang my quilts except in the very back.' The thing is, I hadn't asked and was barely in the door! I don't expect preferential treatment when I'm not part of the guild so it was just, well, odd.

My mom and I toured the entire quilt show together and then I noticed this quilt of mine in a sort of the middle to the back quilting bay. Across from that bay, but over on the side so a little harder to get full view, was one of the quilts I had brought for my friend. Okay, not too bad considering I'm not part of the guild and was 'late' getting my quilts there. Both quilts were fairly well lit and you could see every bit of each quilt.

A couple quilting bays later {one filled with Christmas quilts} I noticed that they had lined a narrow hallway area behind the main quilting area with quilts. Mom and I wandered down through there and noticed that other than one more quilting bay {filled with antique quilts} that was all the rest of the quilts in the show--a dead end! My friends second quilt was directly beside that last quilting bay and then farther on down this narrow hallway was a couple other non-showy quilts and then finally two more of my quilts--very bad lighting and no room to see anything. Turn the corner one at a time {or shove someone into a quilt} and the hallway narrowed down even further into an isosceles triangle.

Guess where the other three quilts were? Jammed into that little corner with the Fire Quilt right up at the narrow point. You can see more of the quilt in the previous picture here on my blog than you could see of it at the quilt show! Crazy huh? The light was behind all these quilts because they were directed toward the main part of the quilt show so it was very shadowy and dark. This made it completely impossible to read the bottom {almost 5" tall} letters on my quilt. The lettering on the baskets were also indecipherable and because of the fact that the quilt was crammed into a corner, we couldn't get far enough back to 'see' the quilt as a whole. Or a half? If I stood all the way against the wall across from my quilt, I could reach out my hands and touch the quilt. Wow. Just wow.

Okay. Thinking back, They said I was 'late' for the drop off. Combing local papers, I found a July 13, 2015 notice to the public, never mind an email.  'The guild is accepting entries for the show. Entries must be dropped off at the Pateros Central Building between 7 and 8 a.m. Saturday.

Check. I got there in plenty of time. Hmm... Apparently they had two empty slots for quilts in the middle/back part of the quilt show for some reason. Right? Otherwise how did they find room for two of my late arriving quilts. Oh. Maybe they actually moved a couple quilts? Rearranged some? Again. I don't expect preferential treatment, I'm just glad to see my quilts hung with other community members quilts {and guild politics can probably be brutal}. But why those two and not my fire quilt? Really?

Honestly I felt kind of shunned. It was the only 'Pateros' quilt. It was the only 'Fire' Quilt. It was the only one of its kind and it felt really in tune with the entire memorial theme of the weekend. First anniversary of the fire! Thank you everyone who helped last year! Yay! We survived! Everywhere you turned there was something about the whole fire anniversary and the guild didn't think my quilt was relevant enough to put it out where we could actually see it? My two nieces toured the quilt show and couldn't find more than my one {well lit} quilt until they came back later with my daughter, who showed them the rest of the quilts hiding in the back. How many other people didn't realize there were quilts back there? My oldest daughter told me she couldn't take my pictures, there simply wasn't room and the lighting was horrible. It just seemed pointless.

It was crazy. It was terribly disappointing and I just wanted to cry. When I picked up my quilts late in the afternoon, two different women from the guild very nicely told me to bring it back next year and they would hang it up front where more people could see it. I was just scratching my head. Why tell me that when I was saying NOTHING. I made no complaints, agreed that I was late, never made a single frowny face or asked why they HID my quilt. Seriously, I think if they had really wanted to, they could have/would have/should have? hung it where they put my other quilt {the only one of mine that you could clearly see}. I certainly wouldn't have minded. There was obviously room in that spot for largish quilt. But that's where they chose to put the fun looking floral quilt.

So.... this elephant in the room suggests that this was on purpose because, why? Honestly, I wonder if this quilt was one little veto away from being left in the bag it arrived in! Wow. This is a non juried, no awards quilt show, no guidelines whatsoever for entry. The guild, however, is very traditional and I think maybe I pushed one too many boundaries? Were they uncomfortable with the quilt? Obviously. Were they embarrassed by it being in their conventional 'safe' quilt show? I don't know. I did have one very nice guild woman inform me that a visitor from a larger town requested that I be told 'they would love to have that particular quilt displayed in their show'. And now I think--why not? That particular show makes sure that every single quilt is given respect and is well hung, plus well lit. Is that too much to ask?

It was a very disappointing day. I've always heard that you can't expect to take quilts {outside of the norm} to a traditional quilt show and feel happy about the experience. Today I learned the truth of that even though they've always treated me fairly before. There's been times that I didn't receive any feedback on my quilts--that's okay. In fact {to get a glimpse of how shaken I was}, I even asked my mom to tell me the truth of the matter. Is my quilt really that pathetic? Am I kidding myself? I personally think my craftsmanship is excellent, the story isn't offensive, crude or vulgar, the quilt has pleasing colors and more importantly, it is relevant topic right here,right now. Am I blind?  You know I can't believe any of you because you're my very best cheering squad.*wink

 And you know what they say, whomever 'they' are.... Pride goeth before a fall......

**So yeah, go ahead and weigh in on this, but please try not to bash the guild too much. They truly are nice people and I live in a very small community.

Finishing Up With the Mini Cake Stands For the Very Last Time

Every now and then I make a really big quilt top. Like this one. It finished out at 86" x 104"! I'm trying to do better about that, but sometimes a quilt just sort of explodes on me. Either that, or I just don't know when to quit?

Mini Cake Stands a completed quilt top, finally, finally, finally.....

This quilt started out in 2012 with me having a great time playing with green and blue prints, making little cake stand blocks like they were going out of style. Fast forward to a quilt top finish and I was severely deflated by the results of my efforts. Blehhhhh....

Lazy me, it's not ironed yet!

I bundled my quilt top into a drawer and hid it away. And the quilting part? Well, it never seemed to happen even though I'd pull it out occasionally and contemplate the stitching. Something about it was just all wrong. Finally, in January of this year, I made an important decision about the future of this particular quilt. It wasn't worthy of being quilted 'as is', and I sure didn't want to waste these sweet little cake stand blocks! Anyway, shortly after that mind boggling decision, you'd find me ripping my ugly quilt apart with great dedication. It was quite the conversation piece around here, let me tell you!

Mini Cake Stands fading into the background

Deciding how to put it back together was a bit challenging, but I stuck with an old fashioned, utility style look. Hard to go wrong with that! I didn't buy any extra fabric, but raided my stash in order to find the various pink, green and brown prints used for secondary blocks. Then, deep in my cream/lt. tan fabric tote, I stumbled upon the cream and green stripe fabric that I ended up choosing for the setting triangles. It's a bit bland and unexciting really, but every other color I auditioned just made some other color in the quilt start jangling and clashing. Why oh why do I always try to push the boundaries of  specific colors/hues and shades residing comfortably next to each other? lol  {I think we all probably know the answer to that....}

Obviously not going to work....

Oh well. It's a finished quilt top now and one that I'm much happier with, all things considered! On another note, this fabulous book came in the mail from JulieKQuilts! So much inspiration. I just love it!

My giveaway winnings...

Every month she has a Binding Blitz to encourage us slackers to go ahead and finish our quilts for good. Everyone is welcome to join in! And what a sweetheart. She included a little roll of cream fabric strips too! Very fun stuff and you know me, I'm always happy to be a winner. And have an opportunity to play with more fabric!*wink

Oh yeah, for those that may have missed it, my own giveaway is still open until Sunday!

The Fire Quilt is FINISHED

**My giveaway is still open! Okay, here you go. It's time for picture overload with this quilt! My quilt holders were all at work or on vacation, so I don't have a really good pic of the entire quilt yet. Maybe later in the week? The bottom of the quilt has entirely faded into the shadows so I'll apologize for that as it makes the rest look weirdly proportioned.

2014 Fire in Pateros Quilt
Things Will Never Be the Same

I have to be patient and wait until my family has time help me though. Meanwhile, I thought you might want to see some stitching detail as it really made the quilt so much better. At least to me. You might think it's an odd quilt with or without the stitching and I won't judge you for that. lol

Stitching detail to the left

I ended up using very light colors of Perle cotton on most of the quilt. So surprising as I usually would think to use a bright or contrasting color. I would try out about three or four colors before finding the 'right' look on almost every single panel, stitching and then pulling the entire thread out and starting over. It was very frustrating as it took a long time for me to feel like I was 'getting' what the quilt required. At one point I was almost in tears thinking I was clearly wasting my time making the effort to hand quilt this monster! Anyway, the primary colors of the stitching are a very light silvery gray, a light multi-colored blue, a med-light green and and med-light blue. Go figure--the only strong colors were just a touch of red and black thread in very tiny areas of the quilt!

Stitching detail to the right

In the end, I decided that the texture was what was needed, not the color as more color just seemed to busy things up. Plenty of that with this quilt already! There was absolutely no marking done on this quilt before I stitched. It's all eyeballed and a naturally uneven style of stitching, although I stitched along the line of the plaid behind the 'Pateros' letters etc. It just seemed that this quilt needed the human touch more than precisely measured stitching lines.

What the quilt is all about

Honestly, it was really difficult to decide how and where to add the stitching. I almost had a panic attack over that part until I just did what I always do. Get the quilt into a hoop and start stitching something! The point of stitching is to add depth and texture to a quilt, draw your eye in or out, right? I finally went with an echo quilting around the vague looking flower in the center {why I was attempting to use a floor hoop} and then outlined the inside of each of the baskets. On each side panel, I stitched with a red thread just outside each 'spark' or ember and then used the light silvery gray thread to stitch concentric circles until they ran into each other--but not overlapping. I didn't get it all stitched quite as smoothly as possible where they butted up against each other, but there was only so much I was willing to be fussy about. Seriously, the stitching could have taken months if I had decided to be particular about every single detail!

Middle detail

I do think the quiet look of the stitching was needed to fully bring it to life. It's hard to have an unbiased opinion about something I've poured so much of myself into though! I feel immense relief to have it finished and yet, when I laid it out on the floor to view {and lets be honest, critique as well}, I felt so much numbness that I couldn't quite take it in properly. It almost looked like a stranger to me, and here it had taken up so many hours of my time since last October!

Lower left side

 My husband insisted we show it to my parents immediately and they seemed truly touched by the quilt. They spent quite a bit of time trying to capture all the details, asking questions as they looked over it. Showing them helps me to feel a tiny bit less nervous about putting it out there before the community. It also clarifies how emotional this quilt could be for others.*gulp  I'm really hopeful there will be other quilts with a similar idea! It would be very interesting to view different perspectives of the same theme and also take the pressure off of mine.....

Can never quite get the entire bottom of quilt

I've been gathering all the quilts I intend to put in the show this weekend. It's hard to narrow it down to the four or five I generally enter, especially since last years quilt show was cancelled! So far I've narrowed it down to these six quilts, but I could change my mind.

A stack of quilts for the local quilt show

In gathering quilts together, I realized that hmm.... I haven't put labels on anything unless it was given away for oh, maybe two years? Bad girl.

Simple labels

I did my usual and used a piece of muslin with simple wording. Even on the fire quilt. I feel like the details are mine and as far as others are concerned, it's more important that they interpret the details in their own way and from their own experiences? Looks like I got the date wrong on the Fire quilt, but luckily all I have to do is add a one in front of the three! Lovely to get the guilt of not adding labels to my quilts done and over with though. One more thing checked off the list! My quilt is done. I can hardly believe it......

New Reading Material and a Giveaway!

I love quilt books. That's primarily how I learned to quilt many years ago, along with all my friends in our church quilt group. Living in a rural area, quilting classes were few and far between. Between all of us in the group, we'd devour every quilt book and magazine we could {cheaply} get our hands on, try new things out and then freely share information. Ah... we were such beginners.

My new reading material

It's still really hard to resist buying every shiny, new quilt book that catches my eye! But I am doing better these days, trying to make sure to only buy the ones that will be much appreciated. I generally put them on my Amazon wish list and then wait, and wait, and wait.....! It absolutely helps me to be sure that I'm not wasting money. The top three books are my latest acquisitions, my I-can't- resist-you-books, but thought maybe now would be a good time to share too.

On July 19th, this little quilt blog will be 5 yrs. old! Woohoo! I started out blogging about once a week and now I average two or three times that. There are highs and lows, weeks of constant progress and times of slow, more like plodding, efforts. I believe my style has changed, morphed and grown. There is a confidence emerging in what I do that feels wonderful {uhuh, in spite of all my insecurities and whining} and I honestly feel like a true-blue quilter now, not just a wanna be! Here on the blog, I've slowly figured out the details of Blogger and blog etiquette and gently developed a blogging voice, with all the terrible grammar that goes along with it.*wink  And even though it's been difficult at times, I've tried to stay very real and true to who I am, someone who just wants to share a great love of the quilting process with people who are interested in the particulars. So much fun to have any one of you check in when time permits and generously cheer me on. It's really good stuff.

The giveaway books!

So... in the interest of sharing {like I did with my friends back at the beginning} and to celebrate 5 yrs. of stick-with-it blogging! I'm having a giveaway for two winners. First I'm going to give away my brand new copy of 'The 1718 Coverlet' book. It's a fabulous book and although I've been drooling, I don't think it's affected the book at all. I can already see that this book is an 'eye-candy' book to me and it needs to go to someone who desperately wants to make the quilt. Also, I'm giving away an older book straight off of my bulging shelf,  'The Farmer's Wife Sampler Quilt'. I've flipped through it several times in the last couple years, but it also needs to move to a home where it can be well used.

If you're interested in winning either of these books, leave a comment telling me the first time you jumped onto my blog. Or tell me how you share inspiration with all your quilty friends. A second comment from my followers telling me how you follow can be a second chance to win. Don't forget to tell me if you'd prefer one book over the other! And other than my name written in the flap, I promise you the second book {cd included} is in excellent shape! The giveaway will end at midnight of July 19th! The giveaway is open to international readers too unless the shipping winds up being prohibitive! Good luck!

Applique Play

I am moving very slowly on this quilt. The repetition of doing the same thing over and over always gets to me and I don't have a specific finish date for this quilt. That and I don't even have a really solid idea of where I'm going with this one! I wonder if that's why it continually gets shoved to the back burner, because you know I still love the colors and fabrics involved in the making.

More progress on Sunburst

I did finally get all the leaves and flowers stitched down though. Finally. It pains me to start another applique quilt when this one has been so long in the making. I've already overlooked this one so very many times--am I committed to finishing it or not? Yes, I really am. Okay, prove it. hehe  Don't you just love all these internal conversations we have with ourselves?

I played around with several different ideas for more applique, drawing and cutting until I came up with a possibility that clicked. I'm not sure why as the birds seem sort of fat and sassy rather than what I thought they should like like {maybe scrawny and folksy?}. I guess my brain is stuck on simple and naive these days. Time to see how it looks in actual color and print!

Finding Some Much Needed Focus

It wouldn't be 4th of July weekend without starting a new quilt project! That seems to be my modus operandi for the last couple years, so why not this year too?

Background for the new quilt blocks

The problem is, I've been stacking up fabric and playing with all sorts of ideas for quite awhile now. Hesitating and deliberating. Second guessing and mostly just sort of wallowing in self doubt. I worry that I'm stuck in a rut, always doing the same 'ol, same 'ol--maybe it's time to branch out? uhuh  Like the Fire quilt wasn't branching out? But that doesn't count because well, that was a one time thing. That's different....

So, over the weekend, I took a little time and laid out every single one of my 28 {yes, you read that right it's 28} finished quilt tops. Checked them out, did an informal critique and mentally decided if they were worth the time and effort of hand quilting {my gold standard}. Are they interesting? Compelling? Do I connect with them, respond to them, like them? You'd be surprised how many quilts I don't like. Okay, I might like them a little, but they don't inspire me like these do. Not that I want to make those quilts either. Not exactly. And surprisingly, a little self critique {and comparison} made me okay with most of what I make these days. It also helped me regain some quilty focus.*sigh

Note to self: The quilts I love are NOT going to break any new quilting barriers, involve complex techniques or wow the judges at Paducah or QuiltCon. They will probably be fairly simple, a lot traditional, no doubt involve some repetition in color and/or pattern and most importantly, make me smile.

Yummy apricot jam!

On another note, my husband impulsively bought apricots and asked me to make jam. On our long weekend home without the kids too! Oh well. Looks like I played the adoring wife and now we both win....

My Charming Lone Star

I don't know what got into me the other day, but it must of been the heat. For some reason, I decided it was time to finish putting my lone star together and well, let's just say that I made it happen. Nothing was going to deter me from working on my summer project!

Putting the lone star together

So happy to see that it all laid fairly flat and the points where properly pointy--even in the middle! Wowsers. Did I do that? And then.... I noticed the problem. Do you see? Uh huh. Somewhere in the joining up all of the 9-pc. diamond shapes, I flip flopped the top and bottom sections on the left side. Yep, that would be me, doing what I do best.

I have points!

Oh my. And I thought I was being so very, very careful about taking them off the wall! Honestly, I just laughed and laughed. And not hysterically either. I just thought it was the perfect outcome for the conditions I was working under and it really tickled my funny bone! {Like I said, it must have been the heat, because otherwise I probably would have been having a good long melt down.} Oh wait. Maybe I was past the point of melt down? lol

While I considered the natural order of things, such as taking everything apart with my trusty seam ripper, and/or tearing out all my hair and trashing the entire project {neither of which I had energy left for}, I threw the two background fabrics up on the wall. Hmm.. If you know me, you'd understand that I'm an avid fan of good floral fabrics. The other fabric was on hand only because I thought there wasn't enough of the floral fabric and then, well, I cut my diamonds out smaller than I intended and blah, blah, blah.... I'll just say it flat out--it's been one of those quilts. {Please refer to 'Freddy & Gwen Collaborate Again' for pattern inspiration, not the problematic fallout I'm experiencing.}

Auditioning a couple backgrounds

Anyway, long story short. I left the potential backgrounds up on the wall, we got the a/c fixed with regular/normal temperatures slowly commencing inside the house and I decided to sleep on it. Surprisingly, in the morning I still felt {sheepishly}, ridiculously charmed by my big 'oops'. It makes absolutely no sense, but it just feels right for me, for the chaos of our life right at the moment.

Sewing the star into the background

So... I cut out my pieces for the background in the floral and here we be. If you have the book, you'll see that I left off the narrow strip of contrasting fabric at the outside edges of the star. I love how this star sort of disappears into the background without it, but not completely into it if you know what I mean.

Playing with some ideas...

And yes, I am charmed by the results. Delighted! The center circles are being auditioned for now. They seem to add bring more focus to the orangey/yellow at the tips of the stars and slightly mute the effect of the {discordant} arrangement of the bright red diamonds. For the record, the center of the star does not NEED to be covered up! I just think I want to. So I probably will--it's my quilt after all. And thanks to LeeAnn at nifty quilts for giving me the inspirational kick start to get going with this oh, so intriguing project that it's turning out to be! Good blogging friends are simply invaluable.*wink

p.s. A Bethlehem Star quilt is quite possibly a hundred years off if the results of this quilt are anything to go by.....