September Progress

The past week has found me tackling the ongoing project list. With only six open ended projects, I figured it would be an easy task to make forward progress on most of them!

Peace Always Medallion progress

First off, the 'Peace Always Medallion' center needed a smallish border. I've been dithering over the colors for this, but when finally settling on the very light pink and darker blues? Yummm.... Love it so much! It was super tempting to leave it in the rough, slapped up on the wall, make-do look, but I resisted and tried to sharpen it up a bit. After the border was sewn on, the basket looked way too plain. Had to dig through the orphaned applique tote to see what might help! Now it has a much, much better presence and feels ready for the next go-round. Which is intended to be baskets, because, why not?

Looking a lot better!

I put my fingers to the grindstone and managed to get all the hand stitching taken care of for the petals on the 'Melon Patch Blossom' quilt. These units are going to be used as sashing. The orange rectangles and squares plus lighter peach triangles are the cut-out pieces for the blocks in the quilt. They will be a chubby X looking thing. Very simple, leaving the sashing to convey the vibe of the quilt. I'm also in the process of figuring out the cornerstone units. Will probably be little pomegranates, mostly because I adore the look of them! Have the cherry red fabric soaking as we speak! 

Happy to see these petals moving on

Another quilt that I've been having great fun playing with is 'Tatterdemalion'. It's the orphan parts and pieces quilt that quickly captured my attention after getting back from so much time away from home.

Will have to do something good with this fabric

The improv. 9-patch blocks had already been determined on, cut-out and sewn up. Then I stumbled on the older Ana Marie Horner floral in the totes. Yeah, it briefly got my hopes up with the lovely, moody, look and feel and the almost haunting combination of utility and large floral. You probably can't see it, but it almost gave me the shivers.

Gonna have to go with these colors!

Then I threw the 9-patch blocks at the quilt and delighted in the lighter, easier look to the whole thing. It's like it lifted the quilt to a whole 'nother level of happy and I just don't want go down the road of moody and broody right now. Don't wanna at all! Feeling all kinds of pangs about this decision, but I know it's the right thing to do.*sigh

Have to cut new units

All the blocks are trimmed up and ready to go. The only problem is, they ended up being quite a bit smaller than the 12 1/2" that I expected and hoped for. Nope. They all had to be trimmed to 10 3/4" because of the smaller improv. squares. Soo... Will have to add another two rows or so of 3-patch strips to each side of the quilt. Oh the joys of doing things the improv., fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants way!

This could be a good quilt someday

Which brings me to the wheels quilt. I had these dresden wheels all ready for applique before taking the month of August off. Didn't sew a single one. They were a bit worrisome in the amount of stretch and how warped they were. Just didn't take enough time with the precision sewing like they so clearly needed! Anyway.... I finally got a couple of them sewn down to the background fabric and ughhh... Don't want to deal with this right now at all! {Are you sensing a theme?}

Next up will see me using a seam ripper, getting them into the half circle shape once again. Then I will cut the background fabric in half and start working on the hand applique. After that is kind of up in the air as to the overall look of the quilt. All I know is, these wedges are just too darn cute to leave languishing in the orphan totes. My daughter calls this the 'Mistakes Squared' quilt, but I'm sure we will find it a more fitting name eventually.

Loving these fabrics together

And the last project on the moving forward track is 'Good Vibes' from the Circle Game series. I'm thinking #3 in the lineup? These are big circles, needing background squares a slightly larger than a fat quarter {what most of the stash starts out as around here}. So yeah... pieced backgrounds are my new go-to as you've undoubtedly noticed! Good thing I'm learning to love and appreciate the look!

Never take pictures in the evening

Each circle will have a 9-patch circle shape stitched into the center except for three of the circles. They will have a rough, somewhat awkward looking tulip shape appliqued right over the top. It's been a whole thing getting the leaves and petal shapes figured out, but wowsers has it been a joy to work on this quilt! Will see how the quilt shapes up, but for now I'm positively thrilled with the way the colors and fabrics look together. 

Sometimes it doesn't even seem to matter what the design of the quilt is, we just need to sew specific fabrics and/or colors together and see them rest side by side in a quilt. It's like they belong together and our job is to facilitate that, no more and no less!

Trying somewhere new

On another tangent, I have belatedly decided it's time and past to order new clamps for my QSnap quilting hoops. Uh huh. Out of two 17" hoops, I am down to three clamps and even one of those is now showing a crack.  Decided to take a chance on this company instead of Amazon like usual as their prices and references seem good. Isn't it nice to order from a smaller company instead of the huge monopolies? That's been my goal for the past year though there are a few things I can't seem to find anywhere else. In a couple cases, I've switched out the product brands normally bought {not usually quilting related}, and am trying to see how I feel about that.

Okay, that's the quilting round up for what's been happening in the Quilty Folk quilt room {and living room}. There's one more project that needs lots of attention and then..... it's fair game. Gonna start a couple brand new projects guilt free!!