Never Enough Time

How about a good long catch up post? First off, the HST Medallion quilt has been front and center for well over a week. I made the determination that nothing was going to get between this project and the sewing machine until all the small hst rows were sewn on. Two hundred breaks later for hand work or changing out the laundry or whatever else I could invent and....

More progress on HST Medallion!

Here we are, finally, at hst row #10. Woohoo! That's three more row sets added onto this quilt since the last time I posted any progress! I was pretty sure if I didn't do all three of them, one right after the other, this quilt would just die a slow death. It took days longer than I expected. It's all just so very tedious. Made me want to pull my hair out sometimes. Scream. Run away. What is it about excessive repetition?

10 rows finished

I mean, look at how innocuous these hst's are. So simple and unassuming. Ugghh... Who's idea was this anyway? The last round brought the total count up to just over 1300 hsts. Which is a lot. But honestly, it feels like about 5000! All that's left now are the last two rounds {if I follow thru}, which are larger. That should help, larger is good.

The last light pink border was a calculated risk. I totally know you've been eyeballing that one and wondering....  Audrey? Hmm.. What?  I'm still using fabric from the stash and thought maybe a 'disappearing' border would be interesting in the big picture of things. Taking a look at what fabric was left helped to make the final decision. If the quilt would have stopped off at that round, then yeah, it would have been a huge mistake. So far I'm perfectly okay with the look. It's not like I do polished looking quilts. Gotta have some quirks!

So...  accuracy? I'm within an inch or less of where its supposed to be, no matter if I measure directly through the center or along any particular side. That's pretty impressive {for me} considering how many, many, many seams there are. Sometimes I pay more attention to accuracy than others, but seriously, who has the time? Mostly I fudge if its close and the black single fabric sashing rows tidy things up before the next round. The saving grace has been that my cutting efforts have been more precise and careful. Daylight hours only!

Doesn't look like much

Lots of hand work to choose from when I'm fleeing the quilt room. I've really been enjoying do some hand stitching on my Dried Flowers {squirrel} project. The colors are particularly soothing right now--spot on for early fall.  At this point I'm stalled on what kind of leaves to add on though. Maybe I'll just have to do some of both!

Auditioning leaf shapes...

The project below is one that was started from leftover quarter circle pieces cut out from the back of a long ago quilt. It's been keeping me company as well. Instead of some complicated piecing thing that would be driving me bonkers, I decided to do an applique version of a simple New York Beauty block. After all the chunky spikes are sewn down, then I will probably stitch on an arc of gold fabric, over the bottom part of the spikes and covering the edges of the curve. These colors still make me very happy, which I find interesting as I've been playing with this particular color palette off and on for years now.

Getting started on a pile of 64 blocks total

And then there is the Off On a Tangent quilt. All the hand work is finished up and yep!, I made a mistake that always makes me feel a little twitchy. All the letters are in green fabrics that blend well with the quilt, but do not show up very emphatically when all is said and done.

Got the hand stitching done

Much too late to take them off now and start over and I don't want to anyway. They look just fine up close so that is that. Don't know why I keep making this same mistake after all this time. If you're gonna go to the trouble of adding words, for goodness sakes, do them in a color that has some impact!

It's not the best color, but it'll probably do

I guess I was thinking of serenity and peaceful feeling vibes? This quilt has already jumped to the head of the line for sandwiching and quilting. Very fast turn around for me, but this quilt is determined to go live with someone else.

Ughh... Sandwiching and pinning

In fact, I already machine quilted {stitched in the ditch} thru the inside of the quilt. Now that Basket Love, shown below, is out of the hoop, I can do some quick, big stitch quilting around the borders and move it on down the line. Oh how I wish that every quilt was as easy and rewarding to stitch as the quilt below. I adore hand quilting on string quilts! I'm sure it would get boring though if that's all that ever passed thru the hoop.

Ready for binding work!

Because the HST Medallion quilt took so long to work through sewing on the rows, I totally blinked on getting to the AHIQ work this month. That kind of annoys me 'cuz I love the improv. stuff, but there will be time for that later. Right now, things are happening that are a bit beyond my control. My sewing machine is scheduled to go in for a maintenance {in order to keep up with the warranty}, and that totally rearranged my priorities as well. The only machine quilting I do these days is on that particular machine 'cuz it has a bigger harp! Quick, what needs done before I have to do without! The quilt store where I drop the sewing machine off is three hours away so that means I'll be using a back-up machine for quite awhile, maybe even a month.*sigh  Not going to tackle big quilt work on the smaller machine.

I managed to arrange the initial drop off with the same timing as taking my kids to the airport and also an Apple store appointment. My phone desperately needs a new battery and apparently we can't do that without their help. If Bloglovin' gets any slower, the phone will be in total meltdown. Or maybe I will? Anyway, when you live out in the boondocks, these sorts of trips take some strategic planning. There is usually shopping involved. Things like that.

**Per the question asked after my last post, referring to the days when I said I would never, ever hand quilt? Well, that was 20-25 years ago, when I first started quilting. A lot has changed since then, including the fact that I don't have littles hanging on to my ankles and demanding every second of my attention. Also, I don't like doing machine quilting. Really, really don't care for it at all and in fact, when I attempt anything close to free-motion, it feels like the top of my head is going to come off. I push myself learn a lot of techniques and things that feel important to further expand my ability to make unique and personal looking quilts. Someday that may come to lessons in free motion quilting, but for now, hand quilting is as essential to me as air, both in the doing and the seeing. Quite simply, it's now part of my quilting voice, regardless of the time it may take... What elements of this craft are important to you and your quilting?