Using Up the Leftovers Any Way I Can!

Tried all day to get a post in and it was just too busy around here. My daughter tells me that it's pointless to blog on Wednesday or Friday, that nobody will read the posts! Oh well. Just keeping up with the flow of creativity around here.

Auditioning the borders....

First of all, I wasn't satisfied with a simple red border for the abandoned 'Patchwork Triangles' quilt after all. Oh no, Must do something more complicated. I figured out all the measurements and then drew out a basic sawtooth border attachment.

Cutting the sawtooth borders before applique

Not really all that simple and basic when you consider that it probably took me almost two hours start to finish just getting ready for stitching. But still. I love the process. That's what makes the time fly by. And I've done these sorts of borders so often now, the most time consuming part of the process is the measuring, measuring, measuring. And then drawing and/or adjusting all the lines before it's time to iron the freezer paper onto the border length. It doesn't feel hard anymore though, and that makes all the difference in the world.

Looking at these circles for possible applique....

And then once I laid out the borders next to the quilt, I didn't like them. Uggh.. I just sighed in exasperation and stared. How does this happen? It took a little creative thinking, but finally it occurred to me to flip the borders upside down. Oh yeah. Much better with the red on the outside of the quilt! Why didn't I 'see' that initially, before I went to all the time and trouble?

Moving the yellow to the inside changed things. For one thing, it helped keep the vertical look going instead of boxing it in. Yep, good thing. But now I saw an area that was crying out for applique. Because of course that's the way my brain thinks. A sawtooth border without added circles or flowers or something is very rare around here. It's insane how my mind goes straight there and will not be budged until convinced it might be detrimental to the quilt!

So to the parts and pieces applique tote I went, looking for something left behind by another project. Luckily I found these fussy cut circles in the perfect colors. So much better than what I had imagined in my head! Loving how this seems to soften the almost busy, 'circus' feel to this quilt and downgrades that boldness to a much more vintage looking vibe. And I never even thought for one moment about fussy cut circles before coming upon these! Yay for the parts and pieces totes!

Off On a Tangent

This 'Off On a Tangent' quilt top had been shaping up rather quickly too. If you remember, the triangles were leftover from the HaHa quilt and seemed too good to toss aside forever. For right now the borders on the top and bottom of the quilt are not sewn on. It's hard to tell from these pictures, but all the cream fabrics are text prints too. It was something that really made me smile when I was contemplating how to put together this particular border.

Should look better with some more color added on!

And I love how it looks close up. The problem is, any real distance and the text prints read 'gray' and tend to dull the quilt down to a rather disappointing degree. Meh!  Every single time I think something is going to be whipped up super fast, my quilts talk back and tell me, 'Nope, not today!' Okay. Fine then. After a couple days contemplating possible easy fixes {without scrapping the border altogether}, I've decided to add words to the top and bottom. There have been a couple options running through my head including song lyrics or maybe even a humorous phrase. {My fave is 'Good quilts don't have to match the couch!', but Ultimately I settled on the phrase 'It is well with my soul', which I'm planning to cut out in various green fabrics. The letters have already been freehand drawn {my go-to method} in an appropriate size, cut out, and ready to trace onto those fabrics.

It's funny how we can be playing with a project and then from out of the blue, it seems like the quilt has suddenly become someone else's quilt. What? When? But that's exactly what has happened here, thus the more thoughtful wording. It just needs to be. There is this friend whom I've contemplated gifting a quilt to for quite awhile {for various and assorted reasons} and it just seems to be the right time. How ironic and actually kinda wonderful, that this random, just-wanna-play-type-of-quilt, has quietly morphed into something that now, speaks to me of her! So yeah, it totally makes sense to just go with that and not fight against. Make it even more her if that's even possible!

On a different note, this week makes for 8 years of quilty blogging! Wowsers!  I've almost given up on this blog several times throughout the years, but there's just something about journaling the quilting experience that helps to connect all the dots. I honestly feel that it's made for better quilts along the way. And it doesn't take long reading through my posts, to understand that I am a process quilter through and through. In some ways {much as I hate to admit it}, that part is as much or more fun than the finished product! Too, blogging is a great way to share my story with like-minded people and maybe encourage others along the way? This was the very first line, of my very first post, on Quilty Folk:  'It's boring to talk quilts with the uninterested, tacky to talk to yourself, and I'm too old for an imaginary friend.' Hhmmm... I'm thinking that all still holds true today.....