A 2023 Finish!

 It's the first finish of the year! Yoohoo! All washed up and nicely crinkled, just like I prefer them.

#AHIQStringTulipQAL

This was an Adhoc Improv. challenge involving string piecing and tulips. I didn't actually do much string piecing {only in the tulips}, but challenged myself to use a difficult stack of fabric instead. There's something about these particular tones of blue that I've always balked at using and they were starting to pile up!

First completed quilt for 2023!

That's the problem with me and challenges. Sometimes the challenge itself doesn't end up being what kickstarts my brain and I end up having to do a little end run around it to even get started.

Loving the outside border

Oh well. This stack of fabric had been simmering on my counters for a long time and needed some tender loving care. I ended up having to go back into the totes and add more of the blue just to make the quilt large enough. Nice way to pare down the problem fabric though. Don't you like all the odd fabrics that I've thrown into this quilt?

Looking across

If you were to ask me, I'd say the quilt has purple in it, but no... it really doesn't. The periwinkle blues mixed with the pink just trick my mind into thinking there's purple included. I set out thinking this was a guaranteed 'give-away' quilt, but somehow while working on it, I sort of fell in love. There's just something so sweet and spicy about the orange, pink and blue together.

A close up of the border stitching and binding

That last applique addition of the mixed salmon pink basket handles wrapped the quilt up so nicely! And the pink and white Hawaiian print fabric used in the border makes me smile so big. How could I have found anything else that would have worked better?

The 25-Patch top is done!

On a different note, the 25-Patch HST quilt top is finally sewn into a top now. It looks better to me after adding on the sashing strips to the outside.

Got a slightly childish vibe

Though I intended to use a lot of cheddar on the outside, the quilt had other ideas. Boohoo.

Must be the crayon colors!

I'm satisfied overall with the random placement of hst's, but I can't say this was an easy quilt to put together. Mostly I tried to balance overall instead of block by block.

Does it look vintage-y at all? Hmm.. Maybe not.

Whether this ends up being the front of a quilt or the back is the real question! We'll see. I'm super happy to have used up some of these languishing fabrics in such a carefree looking top, so there's that. Over and over I find myself amazed by how much potential the stash totes truly have. Still. After a couple years now of digging and digging and digging through them....