Friday, January 22, 2021

Moving Love Apples To the Finished Quilt Top Drawers

So Love Apples is a finished quilt top now! It was a bit difficult to photograph because the peachy pinks keep reflecting back a dingy vibe that isn't nearly as apparent in person. Overall, I'm quite relieved and happy to see this one come about as well as it did. This is a block that I always thought should have another go-round after I finished with my first effort back in 2015. Just took awhile to get back to the idea!

Love Apples is a finished quilt top!

This time around I made the love apples a little fatter with squat little stems. Such a fun, antique-look block to stitch on, you really should try your own variation some day! If you plan of doing any hand quilting at the end of the project, I recommend cutting out the excess fabric on the back of each layer. Will makes stitching much, much easier later on.

It wasn't very fun pinning and sewing all the long rows together, but it definitely wasn't hard to do. I love that this quilt was started from the remnants of a previous border attempt. One that failed spectacularly, but also one that tugged on my heartstrings and begged for yet another chance.

A little bit retro looking perhaps?

The fabrics all came together from a marinating stack that somehow had just never clicked into place. Keeping to the original challenge of using up the improv. peachy pink strips proved to be a struggle at times. Often, I pondered simply kicking those pieces out and doing something completely different, but why? They were the point of the entire exercise! 

Happy vibes...

There are several stacks of fabric sitting about in my quilt room with various amounts of old yellow fabrics included. I have lots and lots of yellow and it's not something that I tend to use oodles of, though apparently I tend to buy and/or acquire? So... this was also a great project to see some of them find a good home. I like that.

Always fun to work with a new
color palette!

My energy has felt very low ebb in the last couple weeks so it's been easy to wander in and out of the quilt room and ignore all the lists. I pick up a project here, set one down and just generally gain very little ground on anything. So imagine my surprise when I found myself starting a brand new project?

Starting a brand new project!

Yah. Not sure how that happens, but I'm not gonna hide it away like a guilty secret. Around Christmas one of my daughters approached me about making a quilt with one of her old Summer dresses. It's a lovely, lovely floral fabric that really could/should shine in a quilt, but honestly, I'm feeling a bit inadequate for the task these days.

The first thing I did was gather a group of fabrics together and then I just sort of eyeballed them once in awhile when I passed through the quilt room. Hmm... Eventually I did a quick pass through Pinterest and subconsciously gathered ideas for quilts with large pieces of intact fabric. Oh, did I mention that we'd like to keep the floral pieces as large and uncut as possible? A couple rough sketches and finally one day I found myself trying to get started on the centerpiece. I ended up hand stitching the blue striped fabric over the top of the other fabrics, just so the floral didn't get cut into any more than necessary. There's still one more large piece of that floral left and several smaller strips. We'll see where the quilt goes from here, but I'm leaning hard towards a border of improv. strippy coins. Can't hardly go wrong with that, right? Thankfully I have 100% design control other than the 'keep the florals large please!'


19 comments:

  1. I am not much of a quilter but love to see what you are doing. I really like the start of this new quilt.

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  2. Love apples came out beautifully--I like those little squat stems a lot nice work hugs, Julierose

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  3. I love the Love Apples - it looks great I like that you say you fattened the up because they sure look good

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  4. Audrey me encantan estas manzanas
    Cuídate

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  5. Yes! More Love Apples. They were wonderful before and these are, too... and a completely different setting. {I tend to repeat designs so this is something for me to ponder seriously.}
    And yellow. It's starting to appear in more of my quilts but I haven't worn it in the past or collected much. It sure brightens and lightens our quilts, doesn't it?
    The large pieces of large floral are wonderful and full of meaning. How loving of your daughter to ask you to use something that holds many memories.

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  6. What a unique setting for your love apples- very unexpected but so bright and happy.

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  7. Your love apples quilt top turned out great. I'm always fascinated by what you put together and it always works out. Our minds work so differently and I enjoy seeing things from your perspective that are frequently unexpected. Interesting start on using the lovely dress fabric. I don't blame your daughter for not wanting it cut up in little pieces.

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  8. Your improv pink border has been a very good low key companion for the happy vibrant colors in the Love Apple quilt. Your new project has a great color combo going and keeping that big print big is a fabulous idea.

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  9. Your Love Apples is fantastic. It's going to be fun to see what you create with your daughters dress. Looks great so far.

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  10. Your new project is looking enticing, wonder where you will go next with it! A 'big patch' quilt has been on my radar for sometime now too!

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  11. Love, love, love the Love Apples. Yum! Looking forward to seeing what comes of your daughter's dress too.

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  12. Love Apples - what a splendid finish for this gorgeous quilt!
    Wondering what we're going to see with your next project.

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  13. I'm another who used not to like yellow much but have come to use it a lot in my quilts. It adds such a cheery note. I also like how you revisit ideas without repeating - as Ann said, it's something for the rest of us to ponder. I'm looking forward to seeing where the new project goes.

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  14. Love the Love apples and the new quilt look interesting.

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  15. Un trabajo explendido!¡me encanta!
    El proyecto del vestido de su hija promete.

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  16. Love Apples-just love the name, Audrey. So beautiful. Your Christmas Bearpaws is a wonderful top and the appliqued pieces a perfect touch. You just have to wait a minute and the ideas meld perfectly.

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