Friday, November 8, 2019

Never Time To Get Bored

It's been a hand work sort of week. There are now 10 out of 30 of the Autumnal tulip blocks with flowers ready for leaves. The shape, size and color of which is totally up in the air. I'm loving the sweet look to these, but wondering why I settled on 30 as the perfect number to make? Might have to ratchet it down to 20 in order to ever properly finish up.
Starting to get an idea of what the Tulip blocks are gonna look like
Still plodding along on the quilting for Blue Plumes. It seemed like it took forever to start seeing the stitching texture come alive in this quilt! Usually it starts presenting within six or more frames and this one has just been being stubborn. I'm very bemused by how the blue/white ticking fabric seems to be darkening {must be the dark brown thread} and the light cream and tan background fabrics look to be popping. There are some things that are impossible to know until we can 'see' it in front of us. Still unsure about how to quilt the darker blue thin border, but am sure something will occur to me. I never do anything majorly complicated, that's for sure.
Looking at the stitching texture on Blue Plumes
Another thing that I've been working on this week is the final touches to my daughters t-shirt quilt. I had told her that I was willing to help her figure out how to put one together, but she had to do the work herself. After dithering over it for most of a year, she finally just decided to have it commissioned. Quite the relief to me as I honestly had no interest in making one myself! When it came back {looking very professional, no complaints there}, we both felt that it needed a proper binding and perhaps a few yarn ties. Because of the addition of sweatshirts in the quilt, I ended up cutting the binding strips 3 1/4" in order to fold them in half and still have enough to fully cover the seam line everywhere. Double folded sweatshirt fabric and double folded fleece can be very thick!
My daughters Glory Days T-Shirt quilt
I only wasted a couple hundred inches of binding cut out in a different fabric, not properly thinking it through! I suppose the binding isn't truly a wasted effort as it will no doubt find a home with another quilt some other day. Still, it is so annoying to have to re-do. Thankfully I hadn't sewn very much onto the quilt before realizing the normal width of binding would never, ever work. 

My daughter also asked me to sew several patches onto the quilt which wasn't difficult except for the slippery backing. The quilt is backed with a nice, quality polar fleece {which feels good}, but managed to slip just enough for a good sized pucker behind one of the patches. Ughh.  Even though I thought it was pinned very well! Thankfully the fleece is black and so the pucker hardly shows, making it unnecessary to rip out and start over.*Whew!  Was not looking forward to digging tiny, same-colored stitches out of a fleece fabric! Oh did I mention the backing fabric was black? As was the binding fabric? As was the thread used to sew said binding down? Uh huh. Complete and total Insanity trying to see well enough to hand sew a neat looking binding.

Finishing up with the details to the t-shirt quilt cleared up the current stack of have-to's in the quilt room. Yay! I ended up spending one entire afternoon rifling through all the simmering stacks of fabric and barely started quilt projects. So much fun. It's been awhile so it felt very overdue too. There were a couple projects that ended up having quilt design ideas swapped, and several fabric stacks saw some new fabric additions incorporated into the mix. That always feels amazing--fine tuning the fabric stacks until they start 'clicking' better!

You know what that means though.... Yep. Gonna be some new quilt projects popping up here any day now! Right now I have good intentions to bring one or two already started projects up to completed quilt top status FIRST, but we'll see. No promises! Some of these fabric stacks are really starting to call out for a little play time of their own.....

14 comments:

  1. I love the blue plumes quilts - something about it - the look? the color? I don't know I just really like it

    ReplyDelete
  2. Your Blue Plumes is coming along nicely - don't know that I have seen this one before. I like the way that the applique cuts across a pieced block. And I really like the idea of you being able to start something new - that's ALWAYS a treat!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Nice to see your progress. I'm always so comforted by the look of quilting on my pieces. I try not to do anything especially complicated but sometimes the quilt really calls for it and then I know I'm in for some time consuming work. I don't blame you for not wanting to make the T-shirt quilt. That is just something that doesn't interest me at all. My creativity yearns for something more satisfying. You were good to do the binding and I wouldn't want to unpick black on black either. Look forward to seeing your new inspiration.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I see some great textures showing up in Blue Plumes and your daughter's quilt will be a treasure for her. I've never made a t-shirt quilt and fingered crossed, that I never do. I don't like having to redo either. Its frustrating because I always like that I've planned it all so well! Hahaha. Enjoy discovering and planning as you sort through those special piles.

    ReplyDelete
  5. At first glance today looking at the picture of the autumnal flowers, I thought of cocktail glasses full of some fruity drink!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Well you look as busy as ever Audrey!! Isn't Blue Plumes looking gorgeous!! Your mention of patches had me remembering that I have jeans to patch in the cupboard - better have those done for next week I think.

    ReplyDelete
  7. I think this texture on Blue Plumes is looking wonderful. Keep it up. Minky is not a favorite of mine (and I sure don't need it in Houston) but double yuck to have it in black. I wouldn't be able to see anything either. I'm glad someone younger quilted it for your daughter.
    Your tulip blocks are looking good and will look better with leaves. So interesting to see progress on this idea of yours. As always.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Your projects are beautiful, how I admire your hand quilting! When I saw the Autumn Tulips earlier on my phone's tiny screen I thought,"Champagne glasses?" lol. Need to wear my glasses, they are very sweet.

    You are so lucky that your daughter farmed out the tee shirt quilt. I am laboring over the one for my BFF's daughter. She too wants fleece for the back but I hope to talk her into cozy flannel and a puffy batting. I hope I have enuf to not need sashing, I think the all tees set up looks more modern which the young women prefer. My selection of shirts, she asked me to use fronts and backs, so I have a wildly differing selection of sizes to mess with, sigh.

    lizzy

    ReplyDelete
  9. Never bored indeed! Love how the Blue Plumes is looking. And, good for you for helping your daughter with her t-shirt quilt. I swore I would never make another one after I made my daughter one for college. Then a friend of mine lost her son and I made one for her from his favorite t-shirts. I'm sure there will be another occasion hen I will cave in again. I admire you for pulling your daughter through hers!

    ReplyDelete
  10. Nice work on your projects! Your hand quilting looks great.
    Yes, T-shirt quilts can be tricky. I made a sample size t-shirt quilt for a class.
    It was fiddly even though it was small.

    ReplyDelete
  11. I just love those tulips. Such a simple yet interesting pattern! I need some of those in my life!

    ReplyDelete
  12. The tulips are looking great ad Blue Plumes seems very lovely to me, so I'm sure it will start pleasing your again soon. I am admiring your handwork progress as mine has stopped progressing entirely.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Your projects are so pretty and I agree, we need to "see" our quilts evolve to know how to approach each stage. Nice of you to bind the T shirt quilt!

    ReplyDelete
  14. The quilting on the blue plumes looks wonderful! I have made 27 t-shirt quilts and I love making them. I have used everything from t-shirts, sweatshirts, jersey shorts, and jeans in them. I free motion quilt them - outlining the lettering and motifs then meander stitch the backgrounds. I have added hand embroidery, patches, and pins to the more arty wall t-shirt quilts. I even had to completely take apart my son's quilt after his dog ripped the sashing and binding on one end of the quilt. I replaced the damage with the matching fabric I still had in my stash, quilted it again, and re-cut the binding and got rid of the worn edges. I have two more t-shirts in que - one for a customer and one for a charity raffle. I am sure your daughter will treasure hers!

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for visiting! I love getting comments and always try to respond via email. Please leave an email in the comment to ensure a return reply! {Many of you are popping up as Anonymous for some reason, so I have no idea who it is.} Regardless, I appreciate all the comments and read every single one.