Always Trying to Get it Figured Out

Why are you even here? Didn't you know blogging was dead? hehe Don't you just love the people who write a post after being gone for 9 months, tell us how wonderful the blogging community is and how they're recommitting? Then after another post or two they disappear forever. We're like, 'Hey, come back here! We love you!'. But it's no use, they're off over at Instagram scooping up the 'likes'.

Autumnal Tulips quilt

It does seem easier, prettier, and wowsers, so much less time consuming as per the posting. Oh well, you're probably stuck with me at Blogger for the long haul. Just too much to say! And after all, every new quilt has a story behind it, right? It doesn't make sense to wordy people like me to show off the latest fantabulous completion without giving you at least a tiny glimpse of the back story. I am dreadfully sorry for all the problems some people have experienced in trying to comment here. Have done a lot of research to fix things on my end and it appears that we're at an impasse until Blogger addresses the third party cookie issue. Basically you have to allow for cookies when commenting on a site that has threaded comments {such as mine}, and some people just don't want to do that. Or their favorite browser doesn't let them. That's okay, perfectly understandable, but I'm not moving to a site where I have to pay a monthly or yearly fee either. So yeah. Kinda stuck.

I've mentioned before about how strange it is that a bright, shiny quilt idea can occasionally, 'instantly' morph into brand new quilt start. That's what happened here with a previously unintended quilt just this past October. I think it was entirely unintended, but now I have to wonder. It all sort of fell into place so quickly! Captivated by a thought, surprisingly willing to be lead off on a tangent {so shocking}, and then, all of a sudden, there I was, cutting out the parts and pieces to an applique flower quilt. All because I fell in love with the word 'Autumnal'.

A close-up of the blocks

Of course it wasn't quite that simplistic, but you know how it is when a very vague idea, {one that's been hanging around in the shadows of our subconscious}, suddenly steps forward and demands some attention. Of course it had to be tulips, because that's my fave flower for applique. Will I ever truly have enough tulip quilts made to satisfy? Or basket quilts? The mind boggles. So many potential variations!

A finished quilt top!

And now the quilt top is finished up. Just had to plow thorough 30 blocks of applique. Why so many? I seemed to have this yearning for an old fashioned, antique-look vibe. Something like what you'd expect Lucy to take a picture of. Or make. Which means I'll probably have to do an enormous amount of hand quilting too, but we'll leave that thought for another day....

The flowers are all placed just a little wonky and it's only now that I wish that some of the flowers had been made to lean left as opposed to an enthusiastic placement of right leaning flowers. Why did that not happen? And no, we are decidedly NOT talking about politics here, but only sweet looking flowers. The leaf shapes are a tiny bit different per color, but of course the stitching there is very 'eye-balled' and organic. Did not do any of them absolutely identical. And I never, ever use a placement diagrams if a reason can be conjured up to eliminate the need. In this case, I would have had to draw up one of those fussy diagrams from scratch and honestly, I couldn't be bothered. No regrets!

Loving this simple quilt so much...

It was tough to determine the little connector square color between the sashing strips. I originally thought to use navy there. Everything auditioned looked pretty dull though, or took way from the tranquil look of the quilt and created a spotty effect. In the end I kept coming back to a fabric that was a touch deeper than the lighter gold flowers, and a lot happier {brighter} looking than the stems. Not perfect, but available in the stash. Whatever shade it ended up being, the main thing was that it not compete in any way with the flowers.

Crossing another off the list!

People often want to know about the original inspiration. Well.... here it is. A shirt worn {during the fall usually} underneath my sweaters. These flowers are a bit too chaotic to reproduce in a quilt setting, but the colors always sort of melt me. It felt like a fantastic piece of inspiration to pull the likely quilt colors from. Looking at it now, it seems obvious that there should have been more of an effort to use a sharper cheddar color as well. Mostly I was bogged down in trying to decipher the true oranges. Oh no, do I really have to use that color? Up close, some of them are almost ugly looking, but combined with the whole, give the entire color range something important. It was also from intense study of this particular floral print shirt that I came to the decision to keep all {or most} of the fabrics to a solid or very low key print. Not sure how important that was in the overall scheme of things, but for sure, it was interesting. Very nice change-up in how I normally do things and one that I will no doubt return to again in the future.

The color inspiration

Of course, I went immediately to an old book of mine, 'The Collectors Dictionary of Quilt Names and Patterns' by Yvonne M. Khin to find a likely pattern. There wasn't anything that struck my fancy right off, but after cruising Pinterest for awhile, I came back and found this middle block 'Four Tulips'. Though I didn't want the four-block look, it gave me something to start with in drawing up my own design.  

And that's how this particular tulip quilt came to be. Is there too many tulip blocks after all? My quilts usually end up with 20 blocks instead of 30, but these are 8" finished. That seemed like a better size for these blocks. Maybe it should have some sort of border, but for now I'm pleased with the simple floating frame. It feels finished.

A great quilting resource...

Also back in October, I went a little crazy and dumped out one of my scrap bin baskets. Now is a season for 'finishing' but back in the fall, apparently it was a season for chasing squirrels! I didn't dump the basket to sort everything by color and put away. No, I did it to play with all the bits and pieces. Somehow the current U&U quilt on the wall, also known as the AHIQFlowers quilt, made me think of opportunities. It was like the maker of the original quilt had dumped out her very own scrap bin and well, had a play. Like I did that very evening. Initially I just sorted fabrics that looked interesting together and grouped them into similar size piles. Then I ironed and sorted into stacks of squares, strips etc., slowly developing a more focused color palette, all the while cutting and trimming. Basically trying not to get too fixated on what the final result might end up being, and just letting the subconscious do its thing.

The start of something

On a whim, I sewed groupings of similar sized strips together and then sewed a setting of rectangles together, similar to what was in the U&U quilt. Having absolutely no idea where any of this was going, but still, somehow determined not to let this seed of an idea slip away. It was a very fragile idea indeed. The next day I impulsively sew a few 'plus' blocks together and then after several days of nothing, no ideas, nada, zip!, stacked it all up and put it away in a tote to simmer well out of the way.

Trying to figure out where to go from the middle

These sorts of Improv. quilts have always seemed the most impossible to me. How to know what length to cut the strips and if/when it was time to add a different element perhaps? How to control the chaos and make something cohesive? Working on the AHIQFlower challenge quilt {that U&U quilt again}, plus watching Kaja  for years, puzzling out her bits and pieces until she ends up with a masterpiece, had finally given me just enough courage {and insight?} to want to try my own version.

Taking pieces out and trying to puzzle them back in....

After letting it simmer for a couple months! I pulled the project out of the shelves and fondled the fabrics just a bit. Yes, I actually did think they all belonged together in the same quilt! I spent a tiny bit of time dithering over which piece to start with, and then, in total exasperation, just grabbed a length of sewn strips and slapped it on the wall. There. That's the starting place! And then I started placing different fabrics and/or sewn units around it until something eventually clicked. Okay, that looks fine. Maybe this is better? Then I did more. And more, until ending up with the first smaller pieced unit {See the very first Improv. picture above}.*Whew! That wasn't so bad!

A Wing and a Prayer Improv. quilt in the making.

The next day I found time to play a little more, focusing on the area below the initial, squarish pieced unit. It was at this time that I determined that everything was going to work better if I had something to focus on 'balancing' throughout the quilt. Otherwise, I might end up moving fabric around forever and getting absolutely nowhere!

You might think totally different than me, but when working on Random Sampler, Orphan block or these Everything-but-the-kitchen-sink sort of quilts, it helps tremendously to have a base plan. Are the pieces divisible by the same number? That can work, but no, not here. Are the colors working in a very narrow repeat? No, not at all. Is it a copy or a specific look that I'm aiming for? No, no such reference. Okay. How to get unstuck? I mean that seriously. Though just starting the quilt, my brain was already spinning in circles, considering a million directions to go! Nothing concrete you understand, but still, the possibilities seemed rather endless. So confusing. After pondering the initial pieced unit on the wall, I decided that I really, really liked the 'plus' blocks. Out of everything, they spoke to me. How about making more as the underlying theme and using that as a pathway forward? And just that easily, 'The Plan' was formed and I was ready to play again.

Not that it's all come easily. That would be ridiculous! I'm still in the learn-as-you-go stage for sure. But now the entire left side {14" wide} is sewn together now and also the centerpiece {16 1/4"} down to within about 7" from the bottom. None of the right side is sewn as yet. I'm having to partial piece here and there, but not too much as I try to avoid having to do that. Because it's being done in the Improv. method, I am definitely sewing and trimming without regard to measuring. Just making sure the outside width of each larger unit is a set number works fine. That set number becomes fixed only when I particularly like a small part of the much larger unit and say, 'Okay, that particular area doesn't need to be any wider!' So simple!

I can see a couple clunky areas in the larger piece as I look at the last picture, but we'll see if I opt to pick anything apart. The right side is of course, very fluid, as things will change marginally when the seam allowance starts to come into play. Though parts and pieces are overlapped to take into account that seam, it never ends up being totally accurate until sewn on the machine.

So far I'm having a great time playing with my own scrap bin pieces and hope to get comfortable enough to try again at a later date. I greatly admire quilters such as Kaja who have a way of making this all look very easy peasy! So gifted!  I've tried cutting all the scrap fabric down to uniform widths and lengths etc. in the past, but always end up getting burnt out on the sheer time involved. This way takes a short amount of time ironing, sorting, simple piecing, {perhaps longer amount of time simmering if you're me!}, and then it's time to play!

Another interesting thing about this quilt is that it seems to be turning into my own version of a quilt that I've long wondered about making. Never quite found enough oomph to get going on though!  Nancy made this great looking 'Primitive Crosses' quilt that caught my eye years and years ago. I've pondered and pondered making it, but always felt like it was bit more 'mourning' than what I was perhaps comfortable with at this time in my life. My Improv. attempt doesn't have cross blocks like her quilt, but the plus blocks remind me of them somewhat, somehow? It's vague I know, but connections? Quilters have some odd ones for sure! Lots of stuff going on in our life presently that require deep thinking, and I do try to be a prayerful person. For now, I'm calling this my 'Wing and a Prayer' quilt. It remains to be seen if there will also be a bird included.*wink