Starting the Summer Out With a Finish!

 Lots going on here as usual, just not much in the quilting department. I've spent the last two weeks either getting ready to go camping, actually camping, or cleaning up from camping. Whew! So much work, especially after a year off and kind of losing sight of the tips and tricks that make things more efficient.

Rhi's dress quilt is done!

I'm talking about the annual church campout thing we do clear up in the mountains. It takes place at an old Boy Scout camp and most every structure is somewhat primitive. That's why it's so incredibly important that we take our RV, so that at the very least, we have a decent nights sleep!

Started the spiral stitching at the center of the sunflowers...

Yah, I'm not much of a camper, I admit. This year I didn't even bother to take my quilting, 'cuz it just never happens. But I walked miles and breathed in lots of fresh mountain air, got to see my grandkids and fed lots of teenagers. No cell service so of course everyone HAD to unplug. 

Really enjoying the overlay of texture

I was hoping to have this quilt done for my daughters birthday on May 28th, but alas, there was just too much going on. It's the one that I started just for her earlier in the year, based around a pretty sunflower print sundress she wore as a very young teen. 

This is probably the only area I don't like...

I started with a pile of fabrics that I thought would look good with the sunflowers and then worked up a rough draft of an improv. style quilt. {Does anyone else find the absurdity in having a rough draft of an improv. quilt?} I didn't succeed in using all of the print, though it feels like enough was used to create the happy, summer vibe feel that I was aiming for!

Love seeing the back. It's a poly/cotton
piece of fabric and feels so light!

The design of the quilt is very free flow with most fabrics cut into larger chunks wherever possible. Mostly I just cut them and then started placing them here and there, until things looked alright. The coin border was added after it became obvious that there needed to be a better transition in certain areas. Though not a super stressful project, it didn't need to look ugly!

Just a fun, cheerful looking quilt. Hope my daughter
loves it as much as I do!

So glad my daughter bought me the compass to experiment with on her quilt. All along I was crossing my fingers, hoping and praying that the spiral quilting lines would help camouflage wherever the design of the quilt lacked! I have to say that this improv. thing is quite addictive, especially when using up some of the older fabrics that don't feel particularly impressive all on their own! And yes. In the event you were wondering, all of the fabrics minus the sunflower dress fabric and the backing fabric, came straight out of the totes. Some are old, some are newish, and many have felt hopeless auditioned anywhere else. Love using them up!

Finally, a quilt with lots of green that feels 
like a success!

I thoroughly enjoyed how in-the-moment the process was and how very, very forgiving it is too. There are a couple baby quilts coming up on my horizon and I'm so very tempted to throw caution to the winds and just chunk the fabric up and then start trying to piece them back together! It's been such an odd year.I find myself making way too many cutting errors and/or finding problems with all the math. Short term memory and stress overload probably, but it is what it is.

Roman Stripes in the hoop

I wasn't getting any help moving the dining room table and so the next up 'in-the-hoop' is this smallish lap quilt from a couple years ago. All I had room on the floor for! It's kind of a boring quilt and the stitching isn't going to be impressive either. Oh well! Just need to have something in the hoop to relax my mind at the end of each day. Someday I'll get caught up again and probably end up turning to wholecloth quilting or something equally ridiculous!*wink