Not So Citrus Squeeze--Fall 2016 Bloggers Quilt Festival

It's so rare that a quilt gets finished up the same year as it was started around here. I'm still in shock that 'Not So Citrus Squeeze' is now a true, blue completion! ! Love that the timing coincides with Amy's Quilt Festival too. Are you like me and find yourself disappearing down the rabbit hole whenever this wonderful event crops up? 

Not So Citrus Squeeze

This particular quilt was started early on in the year as a challenge to myself to try and interpret one of Diane's quilts in her new 'Scrap Quilt Secrets' book. I wanted to see if I could keep to the integrity of one of her patterns {I'm so terrible at following along with the rules and not going my own way} and yet still end up with a quilt that genuinely looks like a 'me' quilt!

It has quite a few 'modern' looking fabrics {check out those yummy text fabrics!} incorporated into this quilt, but you know me. I also dug really deep into my stash totes and added in some oldy moldies. It does my heart so good to see them coexisting side by side in the same quilt like they have always been the greatest of friends!

Loving that texture!

I did really well with my challenge, staying on the straight and narrow right up until I reached the end of the pattern. Huh. Then, it's like I couldn't help myself any longer. I un-repentantly jumped ship and added on a smallish, nondescript border {don't you like that floating effect?} and well, of course! some of that simple applique I love to play around with. The quilt was practically begging for it, you know it was!

Such a sweet quilt....

Then I challenged myself to machine quilt the top. The organic straight lines went rather well for awhile and then my machine starting having major tension problems. The long and short of it being that it's now in the shop being completely rebuilt. Just like I thought it needed the last {three} times it's been in the shop.

Feels like a happy quilt!

I didn't like the pink thread on the outside, side borders and so had to do a little seam-ripping. Ughh.  Hate that, but after I finally settled on a dark, bluish gray thread for those borders, I fell in love all over again. So subtle, but just perfect for the overall texture. I also had to add just a smidgen of Perle Cotton around each appliqued flower. What would one of my quilts be without some lovely hand quilting?

Everything looks better in the quilt room!

It's ever so much more fun than machine quilting, but each to their own. I'm still quite, quite terrified or ruining one of my quilts with horrible machine quilting if you want to know the truth of it. I always have to psyche myself up and keep telling myself 'You can do this!'  And to be honest, this one could use some ripping out here and there if I wanted to be a perfectionist about things. But I'm not. It is what it is and I refuse to lose any more sleep over it!

This quilt has been entered into the small quilts category over at Bloggers Quilt Festival if you have time to peruse the whole lineup. I also entered a larger, more, shall we say, infamous! quilt into the applique category as well.