Wrapping Up 2019 So We Can All Move On

I always think this end of the year retrospective should be a quick post, but somehow

it never quite works out quite that way. Oh well. Time for a glimpse of whatever finishes 

managed to come to fruition during the past year! It always surprises me how it stacks

up. Never quite what I imagined somehow!

2019 Finishes (1)

It's been a surprisingly productive year. So many times it felt like I was just sort of spinning my wheels, or at times, chasing after ever single squirrel that popped around the corner. Some of the oldest quilt tops did get checked off the list, but it felt arduous at times. 'I don't wanna' was not an uncommon feeling at the start of some of these quilting/stitching finish-it-up endeavors.

2019 Finishes (2)

A surprising amount of larger quilts were completely hand quilted. Well, maybe not so surprising.as it was a terribly stressful year here on the home front. So happy to see 2020 roll around with the all the possibilities of a fresh new year! When life's troubles start to get extra heavy, I tend to have a habit of ending every evening nose deep in the quilting hoop. Well, right after finishing off the popcorn and catching up on Blogger and Instagram.*wink  Helps me sleep ever so much better, that hand work. Seriously therapeutic. If I didn't have so many hot flashes, I'd probably pile on about six quilts every night when I go to bed. Just bury myself in them. You know, for the good vibes?

2019 Finishes (3)

Lots of baby quilts were made and finished up, plus quite a few little bitty ones. Very fun, fast quilting sessions which felt kind of rewarding. I don't think that would be good for me full time though. The feeling lasts only a little while and then it's gone. Poof! Almost like it never happened.

2019 Finishes (4)

So now it's time for the stats. 23 Total Quilt Completions last year! Woohoo! {If you count the Barbie quilts.} But lets not. Leaving off those smaller, quickie quilting projects, it's really more like 18 for the true total. Not too shabby. And because I like to break things down even further....

• 9 Bed sized quilts finished up
• 5 Lap quilts
• 4 Baby quilts
• 5 Doll, Table Runner or Barbie quilts
• 9 of these quilts were completely hand quilted
• 8 quilts were completely machine quilted
• 5 quilts were a combination of both machine and hand quilting
• 1 quilt was a combination of machine quilting and hand tying

It was a good year. Also a good year for giving quilts away! 20 different quilts, including the 5 mini quilts, but not limited to completed-in-2019-quilts, were gifted to a hopefully happy recipient.Two or three other quilts should have been given as well, but I'm sort of dragging my heels about those. Not quite ready to give them up just yet. Still having pangs about a couple of the quilts I gave to my daughters!

Some thoughts about looking ahead:

I'm still very invested in keeping lists as per usual. The most important one is for the quilt projects that have been started, but are still in the works. These are ongoing, in many different phases, but most importantly, they have fabric cut out though not yet a completed quilt top. Its not just a fabric stack of dreamy potential! I'm committed, hopefully engaged and generally always pushing forward toward a conclusion. 

There is also a list for the finished quilt tops that are not as yet quilted. Totally separate lists for different categories of UFO's. That's because the 'in progress' quilt project list fluctuates all year long. What I've finally found to be an optimal balance {for the way that I work} is somewhere between 6 to 10 projects. Anything over that and it inevitably starts stressing me out. Anything under that and I start feeling incredibly bored. Good incentive to cross projects off the list and then promptly dive right into the new!

The 'finished quilt top' list has been slowly shrinking from a high of 28 several years ago, to this past year where I seem to have regressed. These tops are listed in order of when they were completed with a vague idea toward quilting the oldest one firsts. Ha. For now I'm going to ignore the fact that quilt tops are multiplying like rabbits and just keep on doing my thing. I really don't know what else to do.I tried severely limiting quilt starts, but that was stifling. There's only so much a person can do to put the breaks on creativity/new starts/inspiration before all momentum comes screeching to a halt. Some day maybe I'll be able to afford having a few tops long armed again, but what probably needs to happen is for me to work a little harder at {being open to} combining machine and hand quilting. That's where I seem to gain the most ground.

Last year saw me taking an even more intentional look at the fabric stash. Many of you know that I truly love digging deep and coming up with interesting or unexpected combinations of fabrics and colors. I'm super pleased to have a 20-30 plus year range of quilting fabric colors/prints, but to be frank, some of those fabrics are stale dated now. Over time there are fabrics which have somehow become bland or completely and totally uninspiring. It's kind of sad, but mostly it irritates me because every single time I've tried to earnestly address these dated 'colors', the ideas crash and burn. The quilting plan seems lackluster and pointless so I give up.

On a whim late last year, I tore through the green fabric totes and pulled out most of the worst offenders. Some of them really aren't that bad. Truly. They're just dated. They've sort of gotten lost in the trends of colors changing. Marketing.That sort of thing. When digging through for fabric choices, they are easily pushed aside and ignored because they don't always play nice with the new additions and then, of course, the situation compounds itself through time. Take a look at the Sherwin-Williams 'Color Through the Decades' to see what I mean. I'm totally stuck in the 70's, 80's, 90's and 2000's in regards to over half of the fabric stash! What to do?

At somewhat of a loss, I took these annoying {green} fabrics and put them in largish clear plastic bags and purposefully left it all out where I couldn't fail to look. See. Be reminded and think about solutions. Eventually I came up with a personal challenge that involves using these 'So Tired' fabrics. The first phase of that saw me making a really weird {okay, it's ugly}, purple and green comfort sort of quilt top, and since then, I've incorporated quite a few of these less-loved fabrics into the Christmas quilts. Other than the first quilt {totally an experiment}, I don't really intend to waste a lot of time making ugly quilts though. Finding a good place for them is the ultimate goal. That and using them up so they aren't in the way anymore!

The most awful of all these fabrics have already been sewn into a large quilt backing for one of the recent Christmas quilts. Extra time, but hey, the fabrics were put to good use and I save money on a backing. One way or another, I totally intend to sneak these troublesome colors/fabrics into quilts and find a way to love them again. Maximize their potential. Then I'm going to move on to a different color and start all over again. Yes! Loving this challenge so much. Look for the 'So-Tired' label at the bottom of  posts moving forward. This challenge could last for a long time.

If somehow the hours can be found, {crossing my fingers}, I plan to put together a 'Hand Quilting with Perle Cotton' tutorial this year. Yikes. So intimidating. Several people have inquired and seem to want to know how to get the 'Quilty Folk' look and feel to their quilts. Deep thoughts here. Please don't get in a rush expecting anything. My life is full of crazy ups and downs and I often barely have time to proofread current posts for misspelling, much less organize an intelligible tutorial.

Yay. This is also the year when I will be turning 50 years young. See how excited I am? Just loving the gaining-weight-at-warp speed and experiencing my lack of mind/mouth coherence due primarily to hormones. How is it that I'm thinking a specific name in my mind, but what comes out is totally different and sometimes I don't even realize?*sigh  My kids think this is hysterical and I just feel stupid. This has turned my thoughts to perhaps making a celebratory quilt such as Lori and Barb both did in years past? Why not make turning 50 into a good thing? I want to walk more and take better care of myself for sure. Will keeping thinking about Jubilee quilt ideas though. It's not a terrible idea.

And last but not least, I plan to keeping on making interpretations of antique, utility style quilts and also, continue to follow along with the AHIQ prompts. Both of these challenges, while difficult at times, seem to feed my creativity in a way that helps me to flourish as a quilter. As a maker. Very important during this particular phase of our life! Thanks so much for following along with me along the way. It wouldn't be nearly as much fun without you....

Finishing Up the Last Minute Christmas Makes Was Great Fun

Well, here it is! Playing with Scale #2 is a true blue finish. It's been hanging around for awhile, just waiting on the binding stitches. While hand quilting this one, I decided to gift it to our oldest granddaughter. This seems to have a happy, youthful vibe plus it will match with the decor in her bedroom. Not that it matters to me, but it will probably make her mama happy!

Playing With Scale #2 is finished!

It's large enough that she should be able to use it for years and years too. Personally I have a fondness for quilts that will grow with children. My own children very much cherished the ones given to them by me and others, when they were little. By the time they were old enough for a change, those quilts were often faded and many times mended. Three times is the charm. Time to put them up for good!

I have been stressing over making a princess quilt or something equally appealing to this sweet little charmer, but never felt any major inspiration strike. Finally, I tried to look at it from the position of just being gifted a quilt 'from grandma'. Okay, that works too! She's only four. I could probably make her a frog quilt and she would be delighted, she's just that easy.

So glad I added the applique flowers.

I have to say that it was an absolute joy to hand quilt this particular quilt. No pressure whatsoever, no marking, and no thinking really, except for whichever thread I had picked out for each specific area. Love that so much! It makes me realize that I need to keep making scrappy, improv. quilts to mix in with the other more ordered quilts that I make, even if just for the hand quilting love.

The hand quilting really added to the quilt....

It was difficult to get proper pictures with the winter light being so variable these days. I actually had to get the quilt out for two different settings because so many pictures were just too dark the first time around. Now there's a Christmas tree right in the middle of the best-lighting-in-the-house, so pictures are going to be getting more and more problematic until the end of the month.

Love the vintage fabric addition {in green}

Not quite sure when this quilt was actually started, but it's not been much more than a year. The entire quilt was started based on an AHIQ challenge, Playing With Scale. This was the second attempt at this challenge and yes, I know the large and small triangles are different types. That was totally on purpose. The concept of scale still works and was actually quite fun seeing it all come together. In spite of the nerves 'cuz there's most generally a wee bit of anxiety when doing improv. around here! That's just part and parcel of trying to work free of a script, but always so thrilling when things start to 'click' properly and you can see some momentum happening.

A different color palette, but lots of fun to work with!

One of the things that makes this quilt work, {in my mind} is that it mostly has the same background fabric throughout. This light green/white print was one where I bought the rest of a bolt of clearance fabric {for a backing fabric} and then switched quilt tops and only used up about three yards of it. Then I was like, 'What am I going to do with all this leftover fabric?'  Hmm.... That may have been what jump started this entire fabric stack!

You'll find that I rarely, ever intentionally buy a great lot of a single fabric for background fabric usage. Instead, I rely on pulling enough similar feel fabrics together from the stash to fake it or else, don't care if they blend less than perfectly together. Truly, in my mind, it's {usually} much more interesting if they don't work fabulously well together, and even more intriguing if one or two of the fabrics squawk a little about the ultimate pairing. More of that utility, make-do siren song that speaks so well to me?

A few strips of shirting fabric added in here and there for character

It's just funny that whenever something like this happens, on those very rare occasion, it's totally by accident. I mean seriously. What if I bought oodles of some odd print and brought it home and absolutely hated it in the potential background fabric position? Then I'd be out all that money and end up having to use it as a backing fabric. The horror! In this case though, I found it very refreshing to keep reaching for the same fabric over and over, knowing it was going to be the 'calm' area in my busy, scrappy improv. quilt. I know this is the way a lot of quilters work, but it's the opposite of how I normally do things!

Wonky quilts are the best

Lots of pictures of the same quilt, but well, you gotta remember that this is my quilting journal. That's really what this has been about from the start. The chronicles of Quilty Folk if you will, and I've invited others to take a peek as I travel along.

All free cut strips

As of this weekend, all of my {soon-to-be-gifted} Christmas makes are finally done! Yay! The two little doll quilts, below, ended up being such a blast to put together. Both of these were started from leftover bits in the orphan totes which totally makes me smile. Such a good idea and also, excellent procrastination from what really should have been happening around here. For some reason, the season came way too early this year...

Doll quilts for some of my nieces

The first little doll quilt used up the very last blocks from a project I've previously turned into two different baby quilts, one that happened just last month. These blocks were right on top so an easy choice, and wowsers, am I glad to see the last of them used up.The first two went for little baby boys and now the last, is a doll quilt for a young girl. Really versatile blocks depending on the colors used alongside! Now I just wish there was record of whether the original project used up one jelly roll or maybe two? Cannot remember those details just now. 

The second doll quilt came from the abandoned bits from the earlier Improv. Wheels quilt and also just a day playing with free cut Drunkards Path blocks a long while ago. Was terrible at it and they mostly ended up being wrinkly and not lying flat at all. Love the look, but hate the massive amount of fabric waste too. Will have to try again some day in the future when I have a mountain of fabric that needs to go.*wink  Weren't we just sort of talking about that?

And then there was also this quilt, you might remember, which was made from literally, the cut-offs from those same, original Improv. Wheels blocks. It's always endlessly fascinating for me to see the similar but oh-so-unique look derived from exact same pieced units or fabric pieces. It's silly, but sometimes there seems to be more of a thrill from the second or third time around quilt than the first! Orphan blocks/units are just too much fun to throw out, don't you think? So many possibilities and then lookie, lookie! Super fast doll quilts all because I had something easy to start playing with. What it does is eliminate that initial step of decision making. What color does this need to be? What fabrics should I pull? The Orphan blocks lead the way and before you know it, you're already halfway through with a project!

 Machine quilted in straight rows, nothing fancy

And last but not least, are the matching {Barbie} doll quilts for the granddaughter. Of course. It's not like I ever did this for my own girls! So sad, that, but it's too late for that now. I couldn't stop at just one right? And before even making an attempt to check myself, was also making matching pillows. Pillows? I am smiling so much as I'm typing this. Just too funny! They perfectly match the little charmers Christmas quilt and should bring her oodles of fun for all her dolls living in the three-story play townhouse. See, now she'll like the larger quilt even more because it will 'match' the Barbie quilts, which is a very important thing. Our granddaughter is a details girl at heart. Aha! There's actually a method to my madness!

The Barbie quilts, all washed up and ready for play

My daughters rolled their eyes at me and my husband agreed that I was a bit crazy. Totally drawing the line at making Barbie clothes though. Not gonna happen! So that's that. Other than one long afternoon ordering Christmas presents online and buying a couple little baby dolls while doing the grocery shopping, there's not much Christmas organization going on here yet. Will have to step it up and stop with all the fun, quilty procrastination! Who knew last minute Christmas projects could be so enjoyable? 

This One Ended Up Without a Name on the Label

As always, I get to the end of a quilt and am amazed and humbled at how different a quilt looks with added stitching texture. Blue Plumes was put into the hoop back in October. Notice how much lighter it looks before the hand quilting?

Blue Plumes is finished!

That's because I used a brown/black variegated #12 Perle Cotton in all the blue/white ticking striped fabric areas. The thread is super thin, but eventually, all that darker thread starts making its presence known in a very subtle way. 

It's been a little gloomy, but here's the full quilt

Over three-fourths of the quilt was stitched before I finally was able to sigh a huge sigh of relief. For the longest time, I was absolutely positive that it was being over quilted which always annoys me. Why waste all that time and effort when it doesn't seem to bring the quilt any benefit? While hand quilting is incredibly relaxing, I don't just do it to fill time you know!

A closer look at the details...

This quilt is probably the closest to being a 'monochromatic' color scheme than anything else I've attempted in a very long time. Though the connector squares come off as brown in the pictures, close-up they are a very mixed bag of colors including plenty of blue. To be blunt, it wasn't the most exciting quilt to work on. I enjoyed all the different fabrics {love some of them to pieces}, but wowsers, where's the color?

All crumpled and inviting looking

I do adore how the background fabrics in the Fleur De Lis {or whatever these motifs are} pop so wonderfully now that the hand quilting is finished.*sigh  That was my intention from the very beginning {when piecing the quilt actually}, but it's always a mystery until the whole thing is done. Do you know how many times an attempt at 'glow' goes terribly wrong and ends up reading all mushy looking? This time it worked. Yay!

The binding is basically the color of the floor

Much to my dismay, the quilt demanded the rusty brown fabrics for binding. I have to admit that it was very cool to my frugal loving quilting person to use up some of these older languishing fabrics. Yes it was. But I was also mentally crossing my fingers that using brown wouldn't 'dull' the quilt down to the extreme level of boring. Not that I'm opposed to using that color in quilts, but it's sort of a love/hate relationship these days. 

Not a flashy quilt, but I like it anyway....

I think it used to be a safe color for me to use and was almost always a default decision. When in doubt, use brown. Nowadays, it needs to be very intentional and be used to uplift a quilt. Which of course sounds ludicrous to all you hate-on-brown-quilters out there! But yes, it definitely has its place in quilting and in this case, really was the perfect choice. 

Used in the binding area, brown softens the edges of this quilt without leaving it looking vaguely unfinished, something I'm not a big fan of. Plus it doesn't compete at all with the darker blue border and then inadvertently busy up the sides of the quilt. Which, in my opinion, would be a crying shame. The outside of the quilt isn't all that important here. Our eye needs to be looking at the center of the quilt and wondering what exactly was that quilter thinking anyway? Does anyone really know? lol

Oh hey, did I just make an old fashioned looking quilt? Now that it's completely finished up, I'm thinking it looks sort of yummy. All cozy and warm and very comfy looking. Never satisfied with the name 'Blue Plumes', I decided to leave the name off of the label entirely. Off it goes to celebrate one of my younger sisters 25th wedding anniversary! I think that's it for the anniversary quilts until 2028. Hmm... wonder what I'll be creating then?

This is the Last of the Little Quilts

There are times we would rather be working creatively and yet other things pull at our time and attention. This isn't necessarily wasted time. It just is. We all prioritize and make decisions based on real life events and happenings. No need to apologize!

Another baby quilt finish!

Making baby quilts for friends and family is something that {most often} doesn't feel especially creative. It's fast, fun and sorta fluffy. Boom! The quilt is done and there's a sweet little rush. It's even sorta needful once in awhile, like eating a good piece of chocolate. But the process is neither intense or particularly {deeply} rewarding. I think you know what I mean.

Finding new use for the abandoned blocks...

The way that I make the most of the experience is to simplify things. Severely. It's called managing my expectations. No baby quilt made by me is ever going to mistaken for an 'heirloom quilt'! When I know that from the start, then I can loosen up enough to barely wince at any inevitable mistakes. Like switching the wider 'middle' dark green strip for the more narrow 'side' strips.*sigh  There's always something, right?

Didn't even notice this mistake until after it was quilted!

Though initially I had all sorts of intriguing ideas about ways to set the 9-patch blocks, in the end it came down to what made the most sense {at the time}. Stacking them end to end freed me up from trimming all the blocks down to a set size. Later, after quilting, I can see why it would always be wise to do that no matter the time it takes! As you can see, the quilting shoved the fabric here and there and makes it obvious that the original piecing was just a little bit too easy-breezy. 

These quilts are made fast and simple on purpose though. Very deliberately! Just digging in and trying to work instinctively is a great refresher. It could never happen with a much larger quilt without some serious anxiety hopping on board. What about fabric waste???

For these small quilts, I rather enjoy pawing through the stash, looking for a happy color palette that would be suitable for baby. Better yet is starting with orphan blocks and trying to lift that mood up, into a totally different direction than the original make. Which definitely happened here. Very similar, but still, completely different quilts. Love that! Neither quilt ended up with a particularly polished look and in fact, an experienced quilter might want to slap my hands for not taking proper time. So what. Will baby care?

Two similar light colored fat quarters work for the binding.
Not quite right colored fabric turned over for a backing....

No, and neither will the mother. And it will be used and then eventually washed, and then used and probably washed yet again. Until it's falling apart, though of course we never wish that for any of our quilts. The literally falling apart thing! Enough said. I have zero regrets!

The quilt below is only slightly larger than my average baby quilt-- 45" x 55". Made for a 5 year old nieces birthday, it was the result of said child wondering why she didn't ever get a baby quilt made specially for her. Older brother did and alas, her younger sister did too! Oops!

Why not start out with this? My niece thinks its the front of the quilt!

Little kids don't understand the dynamics of family gifting and how making a baby quilt for Every. Single. Birth. can quickly morph into the hundreds. But yes, I was most definitely beguiled by the wide-eyed questioning sincerity and set out to make a special little quilt. 

Quilters know that this is the 'front' of the quilt....

With this one, I started with the Raggedy Ann quilt backing fabric. It was given to me shortly after one of my aunts died a couple years ago. Sorting through a box of very low quality fabrics resulted in a grand total of three decent finds. So sad to ditch the other remaining fabrics, but I determined to do something special with these if at all possible, and now the day had arrived for at least one of them!

Is the blue floral print too much for the binding?

All the fabrics in the front of the quilt were chosen based directly from colors used in the vintage backing. While searching through the stash totes, I very carefully chose out some very large print fabrics too. Generally, these would be terribly difficult to incorporate into my regular quilting, but as I pointed out earlier, it greatly helps when we start out by 'managing our expectations'. Appealing to a 5 year old wanting a blanky made by A. Audrey absolutely helped to keep the tricky decision making dilemmas down to a very low ebb. You know she's never, ever going to question anything about the design!

It's busy, busy, but oh, so fun looking....

I tried to channel a little bit of Linda from KokaQuilts when finalizing the fabric selection. Reading her blog over the past couple years has tempted me to open up to the possibility of using busy and/or large print fabrics! The first thing that I did was to make two sets of four patch blocks. Next up was fussy cutting the larger print fabrics of which I only had fatquarters {or even less} starting out! I don't know if you can tell or not, but the large pink flower square in the bottom left corner is pieced with three different pieces of the same fabric. What exactly is a quilter supposed to do when the quilt obviously needs another focal point and all worthy fabric has been sadly depleted? Make do!

The sharp yellow fabric is something I've saved back and kept on the do-no-touch list until it feels absolutely ridiculous. What am I saving it for, pray tell? The smaller red and white floral fabric were leftover strips from a prior backing on another quilt. Feels so good to use up the last of it! And the larger polka dot fabric has been deflecting me for years. 'No! Don't use me in this quilt, I'm too loud and bossy!' 

Overall, it went together super fast after I settled on the 6" measurement for the squares. Once that was figured out, then it was full speed ahead. The only real problem was adding on one more row after the base look of the quilt was set. Why I ever thought it could work properly as a square quilt is a question that will haunt me, well..., not at all. It was actually just a little hiccup in forward progress and made me have to come back and finish on a different day, in a slightly different way than originally imagined. A five-year old needs a slightly longer quilt than a baby though she is very petite. The width matters not at all here.

They couldn't be more different....

In the sweetest of sweet coincidences, the birthday of my little niece and the aunt who indirectly gifted me the backing fabric, are the very same. Can you believe the coincidence? I did not remember for some reason as I am terrible about remembering birthday dates. You can be sure this news totally made my day. Perhaps this quilt was meant to be? The momma is pleased too so that is a good thing as well. You just never know about vintage fabrics. There are people out there who will never appreciate them, no matter the sentimentality involved.

So there you go. All three of my latest fast and easy 'baby' quilt makes finished up and/or gifted in the last several days. Every one has been made 100% from the stash and in another wonderful coincidence, all of the backing was recently gifted from a sister-in-law giving away the last bits of her quilting stuff. Life is very, very good when we have hobbies such as this. I've been quilting long enough to start taking it for granted, but I don't. I won't. It means entirely too much....

A New Fall Project and The Completed Tidbits Quilt

Someone used the word 'Autumnal' the other day and I thought it was a beautiful word. Fall is my absolute favorite season in a place where we definitely have four full seasons! Anyway, long story short, the word has attached itself to the brand new start around here. Meet 'Autumnal Tulips', pictured below!

The start of a new project

This project was inspired by a lot of things, though no doubt primarily by this post. It somehow gave rise to feeling of longing to make yet another tulip quilt, because really, can you ever have too many of them? The kicker was a cream blouse I pulled out of the fall/winter clothes tote. Lots of these lovely fallish colors on it and everything just sort of clicked into place later in the week. Autumnal. I must make something Autumnal. The season just sort of demands it, right?

Tidbits is finished!

On another note.... as you can see, Tidbits is a finished quilt. Totally and completely! The hand quilting went so quickly on this one. The little bit of pre-marking {outside rings on the hills} really helped speed things along. Later, while in the hoop, how hard is it to freehand mark and stitch a couple frames every evening?

So hard to get a good full sized quilt pic around here...

This quilt was started as a result of not wanting to throw away the itty bitty cut-out pieces {the small appliqued hills}. Originally they went directly into the trash. It was only after the fact that I looked at them and thought, 'Seriously? Surely I can do something good with those!'

Did you make the connection from this older quilt to the current one? Yep, the seeds from one quilt so often influence the beginnings of another. I'm not nearly as good at cleaning up the leftovers and cast-offs as Julie is, but some of the most interesting quilts can come from the leftover bits. From the very impulsive beginnings, this particular quilt expanded into something much larger. Of course it did! So typical. The default setting seems to be 'bed quilt' size around here, though I do try and listen to when the quilt decides that it is plenty large enough, thank you very much!

Looks very snuggable

There's just something about this quilt that has never quite made sense. It's not perfectly designed, graceful or even exceptionally beautiful. But it has always felt very endearing to me. Charming in a subtle, hard to define way.

The quilting makes me so happy on this one!

It might be because I'm a huge fan of the log cabin block design, which is what the border add-ons are all about. They almost always seem like a cozy element in most older quilts. Who cares if this particular experiment sort of got out of hand! Then, the folksy hand quilted hills, the quiet color palette and a little bit of simple applique? Love it, love it, love it. Unabashedly my kind of quilt, though I'd never deliberately plan to make a quilt such as this one. Oh the beauty of playing with the abandoned parts and pieces! Things just happen. You never really know where you might end up, and that's the most exciting part of the process if you are brave enough to take the opportunity!

Started from little pieces that would usually go in the trash!

There are a lot of fabrics in this quilt that I suppose you would call 'taupe'. They are neither gray nor brown, but somewhere in between. While these colors are attractive to me, they haven't always been easy to include into just any old quilt project. When at times the quilt came off as a bit drab or unexciting, all I had to do was fold it up to gain a different perspective.

After the quilt top sat in the drawers for a good long while, I took it out one day to look at. Something seemed missing, and so being me, I added the appliqued flowers on the corners. I kept the shape simple though the fabrics were very carefully chosen to add just a little more touch of a blue. Oh how I dithered over them. Take them off? Leave them on? Why did I sew two on in the white fabric and two in the dark blue? How ridiculous is that! In the end, they were left as is and now, I'm very happy to see them holding down the corners of the quilt. If I could change anything, it would be to remove the much larger green applique units at the bottom of the quilt. They are whimsical, but a bit weird. I think that I was 'playing with scale', but now they seem unnecessary.

When it came time to choose the binding fabric, nothing made sense except to add more green. The quilt simply refused to play nice with any other color. When I couldn't decide between lighter greens or the dark? Well...., might as well include all the colors in the running and make it scrappy! What surprised me was how much more I liked the quilt after that little pop of color arrived on the scene. It's been a long time since I've seen the effects of adding a perfect color of binding to a quilt. And for whatever reason, this binding feels perfect. Maybe I need to try harder? Or maybe this was just one of those rare quilts where it matters more.

Loving that binding!

I've always suspected that the main reason this quilt ended up being the size that it is {82" x 87" before washing}, was because it was so very much fun to finally find a place for many of these odd colored fabrics. While quilting this one, those same fabrics whispered sweet thoughts to me and felt very 'right'. When you're buying random colored {for you} fabrics through the years, and haven't yet found a good project for them? Don't despair. Their time is coming! It might be a couple years, but there IS a quilt coming up that will soak up all those shades and tones and thank you very nicely indeed for it!

Easy to stitch the applique onto the striped fabric...

This quilt might present as a little bit more modern than others made by me, but it actually kind of defies being lumped into a single, specific category. It's just too scrappy and make-do'ish to not come off as 'utility' too! That feels good. Interesting quilts are the best, those that practically dare you to put them into a box and leave them there.

Very simple backing choices

Gonna link up to The Peacock Party once again. Wendy is showing off a beautiful, bright new quilt there this week. I could never do what she does with Kaffe fabric, but it's wonderful to have a look and be inspired!

Long Rambling Thoughts About Making

Make Beautiful Things is a very bright, bold looking quilt for me. It was started initially in response to an AHIQ 'words' challenge. Sort of a 'What would our quilt say if it could say anything at all' prompt. The solid yellow and dark brown fabrics were chosen quite by default, if only because they had sufficient yardage available without going out and buying new.

Make Beautiful Things is finished!

Most usually, I am adding words after a quilt is started. There I go, plodding along with my latest masterpiece and the quilt suddenly insists that it needs certain words added. That is something that happens fairly regularly around here as I find joy in the quirkiness of including words or a phrase in fabric. This time, the words would essentially BE the quilt and so it made it all the more important to find the very best wording.

The Rising Sun blocks make me happy

As the years have flown by, most of my local quilting friends have all moved on from quilting. They have aged, {died in one case} or perhaps never became interesting in challenging themselves to grow in the same way that feels important to me. Though I am very blessed to have a wonderfully supportive family rallying behind my interests, it's not like they are invested in the details of what it takes to arrive at the finish line. They are much more interested in the finished product and where, or to whom, it might be going. lol

Very simple but effective

It might seem to some like the projects careen from one idea to the next without a lot of thought, but the truth is something altogether different. There is almost always a story or theme behind every quilt. A color palette that I am ardently pursuing, a pattern, design, block {or style?} that is currently intriguing, an antique quilt that is needing interpretation, a particular challenge that I'm earnestly trying to meet, or perhaps even a stack of orphan blocks that are feeling miffed about being left behind. Whatever the case, you can be sure that I am doing my very best to make the finished quilt absolutely as beautiful as is possible.

Hand quilting makes everything even better

The quilting process is incredibly personal as it pertains to the 'journey'. Decision after decision is made that stems directly from personal experiences, current skill level, preferences, and/or the lack {or plenty} of supplies on hand. This quilt for instance, includes some largish Rising Sun or Twirly Wheel blocks that were languishing in the orphan totes. Would any of you have similarly unused colored/patterned blocks tucked away in your quilting room? Maybe the blocks or the colors, but probably not both.

Hmm.. love it with sunflowers too

The quote, 'I just want to make beautiful things even if nobody cares' {attributed to Saul Bass}, really jumped out at me as the starting point for this specific quilt. It says so much! Yes, I have good, quilty friends here on the blog who 'care'. My family 'cares'. Sometimes even the people who receive a quilt from me 'care', even if only in the abstract.

My motto

For me, the quote zeros in on something integral to making authentic and/or original looking quilts. It's become a motto sorts. Basically, I don't care if you or anyone else likes my quilts. Not to be rude, but it's really that simplistic. Oh, I get a great big smile on my face when people appreciate whatever it is that I'm doing! It feels really good and I'd be a liar to say that it doesn't matter at all.

When we make for ourselves and the furtherance of whatever journey that WE are on, then the decision making process can become greatly simplified. It only has to make sense in our heads to be 'right' which saves a lot of time lost spent testing the winds.

Do I wonder sometimes if what I'm posting on the blog here will be well received? Of course that happens! I just don't let it bog me down either way. It feels much, much better when we quit over-complicating progress with ideas and worries such as, 'Nobody likes yellow quilts!' or 'Oh yeah, these blocks are so obviously imperfect that I should be terribly embarrassed to think of using them!' or worse yet, 'This is a really dumb idea!'. Uh huh. Because every idea can be a dumb idea. Or NOT. How do we know until we try?

Don't misunderstand. You will still THINK these things and you might even be right about some of them. Many people do not and will never like predominantly yellow quilts. That's a fact. What is important is that you don't let these 'facts' diminish your desire to play with the color 'yellow' or whatever weird color that is currently tickling your fancy. Over and over again if that's what makes you happy! I can tell you that if you love a color and it shows to the point that somehow you make an amazing looking quilt with it? {'Cuz you will if you love it that much.} It won't matter if that's my least favorite color in the whole world! Suddenly, I'm gonna start thinking of ways to incorporate that very same element into my own quilting!

Gonna have to keep this one!

If I would have started out by capitulating to all these silly {mostly imaginary} external pressures, this quilt would never have been. It would have died in its infancy and those fun Rising Sun blocks would still be buried in the orphan totes or maybe even in the garbage! Where's the fun in that? I just want to make beautiful {to me} quilts even if nobody else will ever be moved by them, understand them, appreciate them or possibly even be inspired by them. By starting from a place of  'even if nobody cares', then we free ourselves exponentially to the making of more and more beautiful things. It's like a perpetual motion motion. We make. We like. We respond positively and enthusiastically. We make more. Others like it too? That's just bonus and oh yeah. Inspiration flowing to them. See how that works?

Funnily enough, this is a quilt that I stare at sort of in amazement. I did this? Made this? SO not me and yet, very, very me all at the same time. I'm constantly learning and growing and pushing myself and slowly, slowly the quilts show signs of that forward progress. When this quilt was laid across the foot of my bed, there was this huge feeling of achievement. Wowsers! What a bright, happy quilt! The challenge was the perfect impetuous to try something a little different and overall I'm beyond delighted with where it ended up.

Easier to stitch the letters to a background fabric first

Next up was the Coins and Baskets quilt. Yes, it's finished too. It was another challenge from our AHIQ friends that involved 'coins'. This one seemed super easy at first and the ideas flowed very quickly. For some reason I immediately fell in love with the idea of using up older fabrics from the stash. Where have you heard that one before?

A mix of hand quilting and stitched-in-the-ditch

Eventually, it became obvious that the original spark for the quilt was proving to be a spectacular fail. Of course, that doesn't slow me down for long as frustration is an unacceptable resting place. The ideas were parceled out into two separate projects for two completely different looking quilts. Other ideas got dumped, as well they should be.

Last minute words that seemed like a good idea

Can I just say that improv. coins are sheer fun to cut out and sew together? There will definitely be more of these in the foreseeable future! I thoroughly enjoyed the idea of grouping together several narrow rows and then creating an every-other block out of the result. Of course, something needed to be done about the rest of the quilt, but as you can see, my beloved element {baskets} to the rescue!

Really glad it has the brighter greens included

It was a fairly interesting quilt to make once the proper direction were sorted out. You can read more about that here. Lots of quick, simple decisions with the minimum of stress. Will that fabric work? yes. How about green for most of the baskets? Yes. Things like that.

Count Your Blessings is the obvious new name

Though I wanted this quilt to look good, it always felt like it had unspoken limitations. Sometimes its not a bad thing to know absolutely that the current project is never going to win the beauty pageant. We do our best to make it into the running and then just finish it out. By starting with the old gold, rusty reds, browns and black, {not to mention the improv. coins}, my default position went immediately to the 'primitive' vibe and never veered off of that particular path.

Always good to get in another finish....

I talked at the start of this post about making 'beautiful things'. You can believe that this quilt got plenty of attention too though I never believed it could end up looking 'amazing'. Close-up, there are some lovely fabrics used and I for one, happen to think that the baskets are very sweet. I even allowed myself to be persuaded into adding words onto the quilt--at a point where it probably seems ridiculous!

This quilt washed up very nice and wrinkly, giving it the proper cozy feel that every good snuggle quilt needs. It's being gifted to a friend as a comfort sort of quilt. Hopefully no-one would ever assume it was meant to be an heirloom {hands-off the precious textile!}, but rather, sit and drink coffee or tea while having it draped comfortably across their lap. No doubt you've gleaned that this quilt isn't nearly as exciting to me as the previous quilt, but I'm not a bit reluctant to claim it as one of my 'makes'. I gave it lots of love and now it's going out to spread some love. What can be better than that?