A Hand Work Update and a Finish

Lots of hand work in the last several weeks. I finally picked the 'Melon Patch' applique back up and just slogged my way through. Why am I doing this? What in the world was I thinking? And then... Oh my, I just love these colors and fabrics. This is gonna be great! And that's generally the gist of this quilt every single time. 

Melon Patch petals all ready to sew onto the background now

There are 20 sets of 4 pieces each and I figured it takes me approximately one hour to stitch the petals for each block. Ouch. That's a lot of time spent on this project alone in the past six weeks or so, not to mention the stitching time taken just to get to this starting point! Absolutely a forever type of quilt project which makes it easy to 'back burner' again after each additional layer gets some needed attention.

The pattern is based on a quilt that I saw in an old quilt book. It was pictured in black and white but the templates were included so I just went with it. Turns out the picture was very deceptive. The melon petals were much wider and shorter in the picture and these ended up being kind of skinny and gangly looking. Plus, they don't leave enough room at the edges for the additional medallions to be stitched  down over the corner seams!

Auditioning the petals on the background. Hm... needs a little more?

I don't know why it took me so long to wise up to the problem, but now I'm a little grumpy about the entire look. So much time and it's not exactly turning out as planned! I'll probably just stitch these down to the main block and see if adding some little red buds to the center will help with the overall look. Not exactly wanting to dump all this effort just because there will probably have to be a detour from initial plans. What a waste that would be!

Prepping for some new basket blocks

For this newest project, I've had these fabrics pulled for almost three years and just could not figure out how to start. Lots of colors There's also some blues and deep violet reds included in the mix and initially it seemed like the obvious choice was to use blue fabrics for the baskets.

Looking very traditional!

But no matter how much I played with the fabrics, it always got stalled. This was the year that the project was going to move forward or all the fabrics were going straight back into the totes. After much deliberation one day last week, I finally, finally knuckled down and to my surprise, decided all the baskets need to be green and the backgrounds were going to be yellow. Okay then. That's that. Eventually these four basket blocks will be the center of a medallion style quilt just because it's time. Love playing around with potential borders!

Ormes Inspired ready for the next layer!

I also found the time to finish stitching down all the leaves on the upper right corner of the 'Ormes Inspired' quilt. I've mostly determined the colors/fabrics for the next layer of applique and just need to finish getting it cut out and ready to go. Which means that my applique projects are down to the measly number of three! No worries though. I have another one or two or three? applique projects anxiously awaiting their turn to be started too. Of course. Regular readers know good and well that it never really ends around here....

Home Sweet Home is finished!

In other hand work news, my Home Sweet Home quilt is all finished up and ready for a label. I machine sewed some straight lines across the quilt in strategic places and then hand quilted everywhere else. At first I was annoyed to be spending my 'quality' hand quilting time working on this impulse, came-from-out-of-the-blue quilt, but then I settled down and just enjoyed the process. Hand quilting is never, ever about the time. Not really. It it was, no-one would ever finish anything!

Lots of impulse and leftover applique pieces...

So very glad now that this quilt spent the time in the hoop because it's a much, much better quilt now. I adore hand quilting with homespun fabrics as they are amazingly receptive to the texture achieved from stitching. They just soak it up like a sponge and then wrinkle up so nicely after being washed and dried.

So simple

It's an odd, ugly duckling sort of quilt and I definitely don't expect everyone to join in my love for it. My girls are my greatest fans and they're still very ambivalent about the use of the green/gold color in the background position, though they do appreciate that the quilt has some good qualities now. It's not a show quilt whatsoever, and I'm very okay with that.

Very happy with the range of purples used....

I scrounged around and found some great purple fabrics that had just a touch of pink in them for use as binding. So happy with how it boxes the quilt in and gives it a sweet little spark. One of my favorite things about this quilt is the very wide range of purples used. They go from royal purple to a deep blue-purple to a lovely violet then to a brownish purple and then clear back again to a pink-purple {orchid?}. Yes! Pushing the boundaries of color and creating depth. Makes it ever so much more fun!

Finally a good use for the cream/pink/green petal fabric!

Because I'm not entirely sure what colors the recipient of this quilt prefers {other than purple}, I decided to use a girly, peachy-pink fabric on the back. When the backing is folded over against the top of the quilt, it definitely elevates the overall feeling to a more light-hearted and happy vibe.

Crossing my fingers this one will be loved too!

Hopefully she will appreciate all the love that went into this quilt and smile at the {six} birdies. With the recent addition of her sixth{!} child, I decided that the momma needed a new quilt probably more than the newest baby did. Some quilts are not at all about impactful design, but strive merely to convey love and comfort. As experienced quilters, we should all be able recognize that important difference and not make light of the fact when/if have the skills to make it happen. I can so make a better comfort quilt these days than I could have 10-15 years ago! Though I wouldn't want to make comfort quilts ALL of the time, it feels pretty wonderful to touch a heart here or there in the course of my journey. So far we have had enough family and friends to not have to start making/gifting comfort type quilts to complete strangers though I applaud the ones who do that. Giving is good...