Vintage Lily is A Lovely Finish

Here we go with another good finish! Vintage Lily is all wrapped up except for the label and I only do those once a year. Make a nice big stack and just attack them all at once! A little surprising, but there's just something about this quilt that makes me feel a little bit possessive of it.

Vintage Lily is a completion!

My oldest daughter has already been making noises about taking off with this one and I'm like, 'No, this is MY quilt, back off already!' Which is so funny because I know good and well how as time goes by, there will be others that I like just a wee bit better. Isn't that how it works? Always assuming that I keep quilting of course!

Loving the different red values

This quilt was made with one of Sujata Shah's free-pieced block formula's from her 'Cultural Fusion' book. I took the square-in-a-square block and cut the corners smaller so as to have the look of a snowball block instead. The thing about making the snowballs with this method, is that all the blocks will have the same four fabric corner triangles instead of mixing them up per block. With this quilt, it probably helps tone down any extra busyness, so I don't mind at all.

Lily centerpiece

I did try to orient some of the conversation print blocks 'right side up', but didn't get too obsessive about it. There is one of the larger tulip print blocks in the far left corner {don't think I caught any pics of it tho} that does drive me a little crazy. Yep, my perfectionist traits still pop up even though I've been trying to stomp them out for years and years now. At least in regards to quilting. Ha!

Looking across the quilt

I second guessed adding in the few black blocks but thought the quilt needed the depth. Antique quilt often have an unexpected color that for whatever reason seems to emphasize the main color scheme. You might not even 'see' the random color when first looking at the quilt, but upon studying it, think, 'Hmm... that's an interesting color addition!'. Though this particular mix of colors is not the traditional red, white and blue, it does tend to read that way at a quick glance and the black, in my opinion, keeps the quilt from looking shallow.

Can quilts actually look shallow? They can definitely look uninteresting or one dimensional. I always look for a combination of ideas/elements that will draw someone into {or over} to my quilt. Something that makes them want to take a deeper, longer look than they otherwise would be inclined to. See, it's a compliment even if non-quilters say things like, 'Hey, she's really obsessed about quilting, but you know, her quilts do look pretty cool'. As for quilters, I will never mind things like, 'Her stuff really isn't my style, but I like her quilts regardless.' Interest is interest is interest, right? The best comments are the sincerely given 'I love it, looks amazing etc.,' but we gotta be realistic. Not everyone is as fascinated by quilting as we are!

The side of the quilt

I'm very happy with the way the edges of the quilt look. Cutting all those snowball blocks in half at the edge of the quilt was a very good decision. There's just something about this quilt that still makes me question the proportions. Could it have used another row at the bottom of the quilt to elongate the quilt and give it a slightly better feel? I did play around with that idea and could never 100% decide that it was a better choice. Ended up accidentally sewing extra rows onto the sides of the quilt, knowing for sure that was a bad move immediately after viewing it! Chopping off the sides {to scale?}, was the best that I could come up with other than adding on a border, and that just didn't seem necessary. Though I love and adore borders, not every quilt actually needs one and I'm so relieved to have gained the maturity to finally recognize that particularly important insight.*wink

Loving this one so much!

Just because I'm me and it's fruit season. Had to brag about our first real taste of fresh peaches for the summer! My sister texted me yesterday evening with a cryptic line of  'have some peaches, biscuits and whip'. Okay. Not a huge fan of biscuits with fresh fruit, but this was my sister who has been known to make some amazing desserts. Mouth watering, drool worthy desserts barely being mentioned and off we went hoping to get there before it was all demolished.

How many times can I 'Like' it? lol

I stole this picture off of her later Instagram post just to tease you a little. The biscuits were some kind of dessert biscuit, loaded with real butter and chopped pecans. The peaches were very fresh, the taste so rich and flavorful, it was actually a bit mind boggling! Everyone knows that the first crops in our area aren't usually the best of the best, but wowsers! So yummy! The whip was her famous, sorta-secret recipe for whipped cream that includes a little bit of yogurt mixed in, and well...., lets just say the entire concoction was a huge hit! Yay for peach season! 'Course now I'm thinking about fresh peach cobbler. You'd never know I have been earnestly striving to NOT gain weight this whole year! Yikes! Don't know how I'm ever gonna survive this years fruit harvest without some ridiculous backsliding.