All the Hiccups in the Process

The Big Kiss quilt is totally finished up now! This one was started back in 2020 mostly because I could not resist the siren call of the simple, graphic design. 

The Big Kiss quilt is finished!

The top was complete {I thought} in about June of that year, but then, it just wasn't. I fiddled around with idea during the following January and then, finally got to true-blue quilt top stage by April. 

A little applique can go a very long ways!

Anyone who knows me understands that a quilt top has to be 'just right' before I can rest easy. And now it has a lot more of ME in it, I totally can.

Keeping the stitching simple as usual

I went with a very basic stitching pattern in those long strips. Totally copied Clare because it just made sense to keep things simple. The more that I stitched, the more I fell in love with this cheerful, happy quilt.

It definitely has the cozy vibe I usually shoot for

It always seemed kind of like a step-quilt instead of the real deal if you know what I mean, but now? I'm thinking it's all coming together just the way it was always meant to be.

Can't even hardly tell where the fabric was pieced

It's been really challenging over the past couple years to pull fabrics just from the stash totes and hardly ever buy anything new. Sometimes I feel like I'm thriving in this make-it-up, make-it-work sort of effort. The creativity is going gangbusters and good quilts are being made.

Using it up on the back

Then, at other times, I look at the available fabric and sort of die inside. What in the world is this garbage and what possibly good can come from that? But yeah. I'm sort of digging in and definitely not giving up. For instance, that batik fabric really did get used on the backside of the Big Kiss quilt. Uh huh. On over half the back in fact. Yep, I did soak it in boiling water {thanks for the tip!} and that helped soften the fibers. Also bled out a whole lotta black dye so now it looks more purple {in the soaking water thank goodness}. Whoopsie daisy! Now it doesn't match and blend quite so wonderful anymore.

AHIQ Hourglass quilt top

I'm sure the people using the quilt in the future will totally turn up their nose at the quilt and think it's 'not good enough'. 'Cuz that's clearly what all users of awesome quilts do.... And I'm still gonna make awesome quilts even if they are a different kind of awesome because of those self imposed limitations. Can you tell that I was a teenager in the 80's?

Time for the quilting stitches to commence!

The AHIQ Hourglass Tulips quilt is the next up for quilting. I am so loving the raspberry pink in the hoop! Just makes me feel happy to be stitching on it. It seems so basic, I should be able to plow through this one in a week or so, right? But no. It will probably be a good three weeks to a month like all the others. 

The strangely appealing blend of green blues, pink and olive

Kind of funny that I'm doing the hand applique for the cut-out tulip shapes from behind that AHIQ quilt right now. Kind of a compare and contrast thing. It's a really interesting color palette that I'm experimenting with, all the funny, old green/blues. I took the stack of fabrics and tried to use all the bits that I could in the block backgrounds. So much work but always something that I enjoy seeing in the finished product. These lanky tulips will obviously have their very own vibe and that's a relief. I can tell you that I'm still consciously {and unconsciously} dreaming up ideas for other tulip quilts, and actively working on them only makes it worse. It's probably starting to be a condition.

Still working at the applique ideas

Still playing with the possible applique for the Improv. Strip Quilt #2 Blue too. I know what some of you were saying about it looking fine without the applique, the quilting stitches filling in texture later on etc. Uh huh. Yep. I totally agree. But the thing is, it just doesn't feel like a me quilt for some inexplicable reason so I can't leave it alone. Just can't. 

Putting the flower shape inside an oval shape and then shortening the stem helped a lot, as did flipping the leaves so the tips were pointing down. Then it looked like it was sort of plopped onto the quilt top and soooo of course I had to make scallop shapes to over-compensate. And now we're cooking with Crisco! Totally feeling that glimmer of satisfaction of an idea starting to bloom. Such a hideous fabric with all the starfish and other fishy things on it. Uggh. Can't even believe it will do the trick, but the color was perfection for what was needed. Am thinking this is the real deal but we'll see after some more time spent simmering.

Kind of a county fair look

Got the main part of A Tisket-A Tasket quilt top put together. Now I will be pursuing borders. I mean, look at it? It doesn't have that I-am-completed look at all yet. Terribly hard to get a good picture of this one as the colors are so yellow-brownish it looks dull very easily. In actuality, it has a soft, down to earth vibe that feels somehow restful but cheery. I know, totally contradictory. Gonna have to trust me on this one.

Putting the quilts out there for stitching inspiration

And that's it for the quilt wrap-up for the last week or so. The bags of quilts are what I took to the last quilt meeting for people to look at in terms of quilting stitches and also, thread colors in use. One of the younger gals asked me to bring examples and it was a lot harder to put together than you might think. Once I started pulling quilts off of shelves it seemed that they all just sort of looked alike. At one point I threw my hands up in despair and told my daughter it seemed that all my quilts were practically identical! 

Hmm.. Maybe that's because I tend to use the same color palettes over and over until I get it 'just right'. Or I continually play with limited color palettes or softer hues. Maybe because I take the cast offs and cut outs from previous projects and dive right into the next quilt? Do basic hand quilting on all the finished quilts? Or perhaps it's because I've worked and worked for years, trying to get my voice inserted into every single part of my quilts. Yeah. It could really be just that simple.*whew! I was starting to think things were getting starting to get boring around here.

Seriously though, as crazy as it seems, it took me a couple days to work through that conundrum. It didn't help that I was right in the middle of perusing all my gathered stacks of fabric and trying to assign quilt design/ideas to many of them.  Coming up very empty. Feeling antsy and disconnected as a result of all this time spent directing my time to strippy quilts and planning directions and demos for quilt meetings. It took several days of fondling fabric and rearranging the stacks, looking through the inspiration binders, Pinterest boards, and even the quilt top drawers! until I found my center again. What is it that I truly want to make? Am I doing that? Or am I just going through the motions? Why is it that I use so much cream/green/gray/brown whatever fabric and can never find a piece of fabric large enough for good background flow? Does everything have to have applique? Silly, silly questions like that.

If you know anything about me, it's that I LOVE making quilts. Passionately, scarily laser-like focused in on what's coming next. When I start questioning what it is I'm actually producing and if it's any good? Well... it can get a little hairy around here. Okay, quilty meltdown all over, crisis has been averted. Time to get quilting!