All the 2023 Quilty Finishes {Finally!} & A Little Bramble Blooms Progress

 A belated look-back at all the 2023 finishes here at Quilty Folk! Once again, life has gotten in the way of my quilty forward progress. What a shock and surprise, right? I must be human.

2023 Finishes--A

It was a very slow year for quilt finishes, coming in at 10 quilt total. Considering all that went on last year though, I feel like it was an amazing feat. 

2023 Finishes--B

Since I'm throwing this up on the blog for my own benefit, it's probably best to keep it brief.

The 2023 Finished Quilt Details:

• 3 Baby Quilts
• 1 Lap sized Quilt
• 6 Bed sized Quilts
• 9 Quilts totally Hand Quilted
• 1 Quilt mixed Hand and Machine Quilted

As a note of interest, I gifted 12 quilts last year, which is more than I finished. Hmm... You'd think the stacks would be smaller by now? But no. That's not how it seems to work. Gifting quilts is really good for the soul and making friends though, so I guess I'm fine with that! Another item of note is that the quilt top drawers are getting easier to shut. By the end of 2023, there was only 20 tops left and 2 of them were donations from my sister a few years ago. Not really something that I'm stressing about ever finishing if you want to know the truth of it. Like I've mentioned before, they will probably end up as quilt backing some day. I'm just not that invested in them!

Another interesting thing is that I finished quite a few larger quilts last year. With lots and lots of hand quilting. Even if hardly anything else got done, I still managed some hoop time. That's NOT been the case this year. My hand quilting time has dropped to just a couple evenings a week the last couple months. So many things are getting in the way of my quality hoop time. Just drives me crazy, but what do you do? 

Just for the record and journaling purposes: I started out 2023 sicker than I've even been and of course that took awhile to power through and catch up from. Then we had our youngest sons wedding at the end of April. Our oldest daughter had her first child in August and somewhere in the middle was two wedding weekends for a niece and nephew who we feel quite close to. Lots of family shenanigans to attend to as well.

Unfortunately, the year also ended with my husband being sicker than he's ever been and now, somehow we're already in February of 2024. Whew. I'm still right smack in the middle of caretaking, which is not nearly as fun as quilting. We are starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel and feel thankful for any improvements as they are all quite hard won. Thank you all once again for your many messages of love and encouragement in this hard time. Priorities definitely ebb and flow throughout our lives don't they?

Moving along

Starting the Bramble Blooms QAL seemed like an exciting adventure back when the momentum was carrying me along with the inspiration and initial drive. Now, it's one of the few quilty things that I can think about without feeling completely overwhelmed and uninspired. Most days. Maybe just a little bit blank around the edges of my brain sometimes? Or panic that I might be letting you down? Uggh. There's so much to appreciate though: Using up the Oldy moldy fabric, an easy-peasy medallion quilt plan of attack, Improv-ish, open-ended, loosey-goosey style? Nothing to fret about or bother getting overly excited about, right? Except for the issue of time.*sigh

So yeah. Time is definitely problematic these days. Both for finding enough time in the day to do the applique work and then the computer time for posting. Wowsers, has that been a tough one! I keep telling myself that I did in fact warn everyone about the slower pace of this QAL. It's either bag the whole project or just keep plugging away at it and find the joy where it comes. You know me. Gonna keep after it until the challenge runs cold.

The picture above is the current state of my BBI. Both the top and bottom borders have been stitched down and all that is left for stitching on the side panels is the leaves. I have them pinned where they will probably stay. Still deliberating whether or not to remove a leaf or two from the top and bottom border and thinking yeah. Might as well leave them alone now. Afterall, it's extra work to take them off! 

Also, I keep making these flaky little mistakes {so surprising considering my state of distraction these days}. Right now the quarter triangle corner blocks are just a wee bit too small for seamlessly sewing onto the centerpiece. I've already cut the coping border down once, but may have to trim a little more off. Or maybe trim a bit of fabric off of the outside of the applique borders? Regardless, this phase of the quilt is very, very close to being done. 

I don't know about you, but I'm really liking the end result thus far! As per usual, I am a little shocked and dumbfounded by how interesting this older fabric can be made to look. It's nothing new to me as I've had this result before. But it always, always amazes me because in the fabric stack, the whole thing just looked pretty dismal if you know what I mean! 

I managed to squeeze in enough time to scroll though all the blogs and instagram accounts that have been linked up to the QAL. Very exciting work! Many lovely, exciting creations to contemplate and be inspired by! Wish I could be more present on the blogs especially but maybe later. I'm very encouraged by the creativity and courage many of you have displayed in branching out with this strange little QAL.  I'm hoping that if you manage to push through with the details in the first quilt, then my thoughts pertaining to inspiration and the connection to series work will start to coalesce in the 2nd and 3rd. It's a bit of a slog at first I know, but we have to get some foundational work in place before we can begin to build on anything personal.

  

I can't promise any hard and fast date, but my plan is to move directly into action with the next border phase of BBI. There is quite a bit of organization involved so please bear with me. Crossing my fingers I'll have all the details together before the end of February at the very least if not the six weeks I was originally hoping for. Don't be afraid to email me if you have a late start and want to be added to the link list!

Orphan Annie is a Finish and Other Things in the Lineup

 Orphan Annie is a completed quilt top now! So nice to get another one finished up. Still hopeful there will time for another two or three to get knocked off the list before the end of the year.

Orphan Annie all crumpled and cozy looking!

The next picture made the quilt look a little bit washed out. The actual color is more intense like the previous picture. I really love this whimsical quilt with all its imperfections. Somehow this one ended up being so very blue. For some reason I thought it would feel like a green quilt, but nope. Its one hundred percent got the blues!

Loving the mixed print background in 
the blocks

The tulips were cut-outs from behind another quilt {AHIQ Hourglass Tulip}. I just couldn't throw them away. Really interesting to see the flatter looking tulip, all cut out of only two fabrics, made up into something that really shows them off. I just have to smile at making an entire quilt out of a less than wonderful looking tulip shape. Because why not? Don't they deserve a moment to shine too?

Somehow very blendy looking

And then there's the improv. quarter triangle border. It was kind of hard to cut the triangles off at the ends and just let them be. Made for very odd looking corners for sure! Wouldn't change it for anything though as it distinctively comes across as a 'make-do' sort of look and vibe. My all time fave look these days plus it goes very well with the unpretentious look to the tulips.

The whimsical corners!

Next up in the hoop is my 'Positive Thinking' quilt. It's an AHIQ challenge from 2020 involving using old clothes and of course positive thinking. One of my favorite quotes although I'm quite sure the 'willingly' part would not always apply to me in every context of my life!

Next up in the hoop!

I've been dreading doing the hand quilting on this one 'cuz, how to properly stitch the middle of the quilt? But as always, it's merely a case of getting it into the hoop and simply getting started. I tend to make things bigger in my head than reality warrants.

So odd to have flowers without leaves....

I also managed to get Tatterdemalion to a finished quilt top stage.*sigh  All that needed doing was to to sew the last little bits of applique to the middle border.

It's a completed quilt top!

This was one of the faster quilt tops that I have made in years, all of it sewn together in about six weeks or so. I am loving the unusual color palette and the overall moodiness!

The oddities of Tatterdemalion!

Definitely a quilt that is not ever going to take itself seriously. I suppose that's the beauty of starting with orphan blocks, parts and pieces! Absolutely not anything that I would ever have 'designed' if I was sitting down to draw out the details of a brand new quilt project! 

Good use of the orphan bits

Really happy to have found a good place for some of those brownish violet and purple fat quarters that have been piling up in the stash totes too. I can only wish there was enough left to sew the backing together! There's something deeply cozy about a dark backing on a utility quilt like this one.

Can't wait to see this one quilted

QAL details: I've been thinking non-stop about the QAL idea that was thrown out there in the last post. Like I said, the odds were good that I would proceed regardless of interest, but some of the comments definitely got me to thinking about how to move forward. {Thanks for the lovely amount of interest! I am honestly blown away!} How to make it interesting for both beginners and more experienced quilters? Gathering my thoughts and trying to collate them into a semblance of order here. I recognize my hodgepodge way of throwing a quilt together might not make sense to just everybody!

Potential fabric stacks for the QAL

Also, now I'm a little antsy because what if the entire idea bombs and you all end up with hideous quilts? Ughh.  Anyway....  That's the completely compelling thing about making an improv. style quilt right? It's like rooting for the underdog. The outcome could be amazing, but there are no guarantees! All we know is that if the outcome turns out to be wonderful, we'll be even more excited than if we were betting on the sure thing. Or something like that....

So. If you think you might want to do this with me, go ahead and get digging through the stash fabric lurking in the corners of the quilt room. I've come up with these three perfectly normal looking stacks of similar looking fabrics--{you'll want stacks similar to each other, not necessarily to my fabric stacks!} Take a look, nothing stupendous and exciting! Not much in the way of larger yardage either, just a lot of whole and partial fat quarters and the occasional third of a yard.

Don't worry about what you might or might not be lacking till something becomes a real problem moving forward. We'll dig again later if needed! Also, don't worry about coming up with three fabric stacks if you really can't wrap your head around more than one quilt at a time. Or if you want to make three different color palettes instead of the one? Go for it! {I get that not everybody can stomach making three back to back quilts in the same color palette.} The main thing is to try and get a little bit of value change, plenty of various, mixed fabric prints and yeah, yeah, the old adage, lights, darks, mediums, and brights. I really don't recommend stacks of truly hideous fabrics or stuff that makes you feel nauseous. Will try to finish organizing my thoughts and have the start of the QAL ready by the end of the month!

Am still catching up to answering comments, but if you don't have a reply back by the end of this week, then you must be a no-reply commenter. Even if your name is on the comment, if you haven't received a reply from me, then I have zero access to your email address! Loraine Everard, you leave wonderful comments but I can't reach out to you! And there are several more. Apologies for how picky and proprietary Blogger is these days.

It's a Finish!

 Ta-da! Primrose Path is a finished top! Black was the only color that made sense for the outside border, so easy-peasy. The original inspiration was a tapestry or rug {not sure} in black and white. Just couldn't quite bring myself to make a pure black and white quilt. Much too modern for me!

Primrose Path is a completed quilt top now

Thankfully I had enough of a solid to cut out what was needed for borders. Just enough actually. Really surprising as I tend to use it up in bindings and I had already used quite a bit in the sashing borders of this top. Would have loved to use a black fabric with some sort of floral print, but then that would have made things over-the-top busy. Probably. We'll never know now!

A little bit funky, a little bit charming

I love quilts with blocks set in two different directions and this fit the bill nicely. It's not immediately obvious, but I find it kind of sweet and charming.

Probably too graphic to have the cozy vibe I like

This quilt is dark, quirky and not nearly as prim as I normally prefer things to look. Still, it's got a lot of character and will hopefully, fingers crossed, look amazing with hand quilting some day in the future! The size of this quilt is 78" x 82 1/2", so a bit bigger than a large throw quilt. Love having it at finished quilt top stage after years of wondering if I wanted to make this, how to do it? In what colors, yada, yada yada. So it's not my favorite quilt in the whole wide world. That happens sometimes. I'm definitely pleased with how it looks though and happy for the experience!

Lotsa pink in this quilt....

I also finished up the hand quilting on Practice, the improv. strips quilt that I'm gifting to a nephew for his wedding. Big sigh!  I was sweating it a little with all the other things that needed attention this week.

Improv. Practice is finished up!

This quilt was started with the practice strips from the winter quilting meeting two winters ago. I had gathered up a stack of old, less than admirable fabrics for all the gals to practice free cutting on. It seemed easier to let them 'practice' before asking them to cut into their good fabric. My thought was that I wouldn't care how this stack of fabric ended up and it might be interesting to play with strips cut in widths intuitive to other people.

It's been a great practice quilt 

Later on, I used these strips to make my own quilt top, only needing to add in another couple fat quarters of color, plus the cream of course. The cohesion of the cream fabric really helps pull the whole look of the quilt together in my opinion. Good call there as the other fabrics ended up being fairly blendy looking without the offset of the much lighter color.

So glad to see the hand stitching texture come alive

Once again, I was reminded at how much better some fabrics can look when they are cut into smaller pieces. Funny how it can make an 'ugly' fabric look so, so much better!

Very snuggly looking quilt!

Mostly though, I was just done with these particular colors and style of fabric prints. Obviously, I have been spending a lot more time with brighter colors in the past couple years and have gotten away from the overwhelming earth tone phase. That being said, this was a good trip down memory lane, while also allowing me to freely play with improv. strip layout. Absolutely no pressure with this project!

Loving this backing

When I went looking for a suitable quilt top for my very masculine, duck hunting nephew, this quilt top jumped out as the best possible choice. Feeling sorry for his wife to be, I went ahead and added this Kaffe floral to the back. Well, this fabric and about five others. ha! Anyway, it's DONE! Yay me! and now I can start finishing up the two baby quilts and maybe even start on another....

Introducing You to 'Ode to Joy', the Finished Quilt

 Ode To Joy is a true blue finish! The fourth finish of the year. I thoroughly enjoyed having this one in the hoop and I'm super happy about the finish. Just loving the unique look to this quilt!

Ode To Joy is finished!!

This quilt was started very impulsively one day when I wanted to make another big basket quilt. The applique flower motif was inspired from the darker blue fabric used right about the word 'joy'. Probably should have made the leaves in green, but I was wanting the result to be a nod to the Scandinavian vibe.

My first attempt at putting pears on a quilt

The pears were added in an effort to achieve a folk art look and the hearts just hopped on for the ride. I was busy hand quilting this one day when my mother-in-law was visiting and finally she asked what was on my quilt, was that pears? So I held the quilt up so she could see. She bluntly stated that she liked the pears, but not the heart things. Okay. Well. 

Loving these heart things so much.....

Guess you can understand why I rarely show her my quilts or even talk about them with her! lol  I'm still second guessing all the reasons why I didn't make sure the pink fabrics at the right side of the centerpiece weren't more blendy. The top lighter pink fabric works okay, but the one underneath is a bit too salmon-y for the bubblegum pink it's laying next to. I remember liking the tension and clashing of it all, but does it really work? hmmmm....

Good to see the texture across the quilt

I was surprised at how intriguing it was to see the outside gray border take on texture with the addition of hand quilting. Making a mental note here that I adore seeing the different gray prints and values come together to make the outside border surround. So much more interesting than a single fabric border!

A very snuggable quilt

The backing fabric worked perfectly for this quilt. It's an old fabric, probably about 20 years old. I bought it for a red and white quilt top that I made back in the day. Never could bring myself to hand quilt it, finally took it to a friend for long arming treatment. After she held on to it for two years but never did the stitching, I brought it back home and basically threw up my hands in despair. Ughh. I didn't even like the quilt anymore! So I gave it away to some church friends in Oregon to use as the base for the their annual raffle quilt. Very selfishly though, I kept the backing fabric 'cuz I love pin striped fabrics! Love, love, love seeing it used for this fun quilt. Much better use.

And it's a wrap!

I finally got the 'Old Fashioned' quilt top sewn together. You can see my original inspiration here. It doesn't look like much now, but some day when I hand quilt it? It's gonna look amazing. 

Got the top done

It'll probably make me break out in hives to hand quilt it though, because it's gonna be soooo boring! I can't help but be quietly pleased though at seeing these oldy moldy yellow and cream fabrics come together looking so well. It's so very easy to overlook fabrics that aren't as striking and eye-catching as others, but there is still plenty of value and opportunity in these understated fabrics!

Looking very sweet

I am trying to squeeze in time to work on some baby quilts too, even though I have more quilt ideas than I can shake a stick at. It's looking like I'll need to come up with at least three baby quilts, maybe four before the year is over. The first one is a baby girl quilt using the cut-out pear shapes from behind 'Ode to Joy'. It's on the floor here, being auditioned for block extender strips. 

Does this work? 

Really pushing the boundaries of the pink/red mix, but having a lot of fun with it regardless. There's a good mix of the prints, new fabrics, old fabrics, JoAnn Fabric 'meh' fabrics and even a true vintage fabric picked up at a quilt show vender years and years ago. I'm thinking this will be for my daughters baby but we'll see. Might end up with something I like better! 

Then I nixed the baby boy quilt idea that looked passable and decided to venture out with a improv. monkey wrench block instead. It was all so impulsive and compelling, I just reveled in the experience! And of course there was at least three interruptions to the flow of work that day. Right? Always seems to happen when the creativity seems to be at the highest ebb. Now I need to decide if I should make more of these, or just wrap it up with log cabin type surrounds of fabric till it's big enough. Part of me wants to go the log cabin route and see if I can sneak some applique in somewhere. 

A good start

Here's a picture of my husband and me in the last hour or so before we're finished cleaning up the campground on Memorial Day weekend. Yes, it was a great weekend once we actually arrived and got settled in. Finally starting to get a little more help from some of the younger families which is a tremendous boon. Can't even describe the relief we're feeling to see others step up and start doing more. We've been in a transition period for several years where families had moved away or aged out, and the few families doing the most work have been at or around our age. Starting to feel like maybe it's time to let the tradition go, but no.... looks like others are recognizing the need pull their own weight too.

Almost ready to head back home

It definitely helped that this was a slightly smaller crowd at 167 people, not including the kids under 5 years old. Undoubtedly a result of the economy, but it made for a little more relaxing and chill weekend than it could have been. And all the kids were great. No pockets of teenagers we had to keep an extra close eye on for potential troublemaking. You just never know! So yeah, we were glad to go, glad to enjoy the weekend and thrilled at making it back to Pizza Hut for our annual celebratory 'we made it' lunch on the way home. ha ha  Then loads and loads of laundry to wash. Still working on that as we always loan out sleeping bags, fuzzy blankets and towels to visiting teenagers. 

My daughter and I made a quick weekend jaunt to Eugene, Oregon too, for my niece and nephews graduation. Just got back on Sunday night! It's shaping up to be the busiest year ever with two of our niece and nephews getting married and now a cousin too.*sigh  Won't even get to take my quilts to {or even attend} the first regional quilt show after three years without! So sad. Is this a post Covid rebalancing of all things normal? Don't be surprised if my blogging gets more and more erratic throughout the summer. Will try to post whatever I'm doing quilty-wise, but it might be weeks apart. And I'm definitely not checking in on everyone else's blogs very often. So sorry. Just don't have time for everything these days. Crossing my fingers I'll be able to get back into being a better blogger by this coming fall.....

Melon Patch Rows is a Completion!

Third finish for the year! It was supposed to be finished up by the end of April if all my planning would have worked out. Unexpected company arrived for a long weekend and that was that. Apparently this is the year for the 'Oh well! What will be will be' happenings! 

It's a finish!

I am so very happy to see this Melon Patch Rows {Jubilee} quilt brought to a true-blue finish! It's an odd quilt probably to some, but it gives me all the feels.

Such a feel good quilt

It makes good use of some abandoned parts from a previous quilt attempt and joins them up with a declaration that just so happens to deeply resonate with me.

Always love the look of words on quilts

The colors in this quilt didn't want to be true in the photographs, but hopefully you can get the overall look and feel from all the of the pictures together.

Really pretty quilt in the right lighting

I found the perfect binding in the totes. I'm sure it's been there for well over 15 years! Really helps lift the quilt with a lighter, happier vibe than a solid would have. And bonus--it's not something that I ever really cared to use in a more commanding spot in a quilt.

Who says old fabrics can't be beautiful!

I'm always interested in how the hand stitching comes through when viewing the backside of a quilt. Does it have a good look throughout or does it just look choppy and disconnected? This one passes muster for sure! Every time I wonder why keep hand quilting? Something like this convinces me to keep on making the effort.

Loving the stitching texture

Next up in the hoop is 'Ode to Joy'. I've been diligently applying myself to the hand quilting ever since returning from our sons wedding. Closing in on the centerpiece here pretty soon! It has been a bit of a pain trying to decide on what pattern to quilt, but this looks okay so far.

Next up in the hoop!

Next up will be quilting the pear blocks and in-between fabrics. Still trying to decide if I want the thread color to pop or if it needs to blend in. So far I'm blending the thread more than I expected to, but that's what the quilt seems to want.

Ready for the pins

We took off for Oklahoma for our sons wedding and were gone about ten days. First we drove to Portland, Oregon to our eldest sons home where we spent the night. Early, early the next morning I flew out of the Portland airport with our DIL, the three granddaughters and her mom. Our granddaughters have never met a stranger {plus have boundless energy}, and so are a LOT of work in the airports. It took both of us moms to help corral them for the two flights to Oklahoma and back a week later. 

The happy couple with me and my husband!

Then, later in the day, our guys jumped in a truck and drove straight through to Oklahoma. They decided to drive out so they could rent a U-Haul trailer and bring back our new DIL's stuff. Us girls hung out at my daughters in Tulsa for a couple days and then met our guys in our DIL's hometown nearer to the wedding. 

Our youngest son is married!!!

Lots and lots of fun visiting, helping to decorate, and of course celebrating with all the family and friends the day of the wedding! The bride and groom were very happy and looked quite handsome and or beautiful! We are feeling very blessed to have a new addition to our family. Both of our older granddaughters got to be flower girls and while they both did an awesome job, this little gal stole the show! Reagan never took it too far, but let me tell you, it was hard to concentrate on the bride and groom when she was busy blowing flower petals off of her fingers etc.

Reagan looking super cute

Lucy has been a flower girl a couple of times before, so she wasn't quite as excited as her younger sister. On the first flight home though, she got her moment. One of the stewardess's asked Lucy and me if she'd like to meet the pilot? And next thing I knew, there she was, sitting in the pilots seat and pretending she could fly a plane! So thrilling for her! The pilot was very sweet and generous about it all.

Lucy having the best of times!

Mom and the other grandmother had went on ahead to their seats and didn't realize what was happening behind them. They had an anxious moment wondering what had happened to us, but all was well. No one was kicking us off the plane! 

That last flight home was rough though. All of the I-pads had ran out of battery charge due to a long layover and the littlest granddaughter was absolutely done with the entire adventure. Thankfully we sitting in the very back of the plane so hopefully not annoying too many people. Except for one flight attendant. She was having a really crabby day and kept taking it out on us. Probably didn't like fussy kids, but hey, she did things like make us wait a long time after serving everyone else their snacks before giving ours to us. Or serving the little girls drinks without the lids and straws on like all the other planes had done previously. Who does that on a plane? Not giving us napkins. Plus, she wouldn't let us sit in the very back row, we had to sit one row up because she said the seat was 'messy' when all it had was a box of gloves in it. Later we figured out that she must have been saving the seat for a friend and then got irritated when it didn't work out because the plane was full? and her friend was late? That's what we managed to piece together. But we survived and nobody got into a brawl.*wink

So happy to be home safe and sound and back to the regular. Took eons to catch up on all the laundry of course. And it's been hard to get back into the sewing/quilting routine. My husband has been constantly wanting me to go with him when he has to make a building material run to Home Depot etc. He says he enjoys my company, but I'm thinking he just wants a nap while I do the driving. haha  

Also, I've been trying to get back into my yoga routine, something that I started up after being so sick this winter. Was a little bit hard after taking almost 2 weeks off to travel, but I really like being in better shape than I've been in decades. Still have a longs ways to go before I'm very good at it, but it makes me happy even when I'm wobbly and/or pathetic at poses. Yoga is a low-impact exercise {Ugghh to the high cardio plans!} and actually very relaxing/soothing to me. Plus I've dropped another couple pounds. Yay me! Our life gets very stressful at times and it's well worth the time it takes to fit this into our busy schedule. I never thought this would be me, but I'll go do Yoga instead of quilting if that's the choice I have to take. Crazy. What is happening to me? But really, I just hated being so sick and feeling like an overcooked noodle afterward. Being so wimpy. Some people get into shape to run a marathon when they turn 50. Evidently, I'm doing Yoga. Who'd of thunk it?

Is this Not the Best Quilt?

Well, I'm definitely going to blow up this post with waaay too many pictures of Ormes Inspired! It's totally finished now, a true blue finish. And wowsers, it looks so much better with the hand quilting! Why does it always, always surprise me to see the difference between a flat looking quilt top and one with yummy texture from stitching? You'd think I'd learn by now.

Ormes Inspired is done!

But you know me, always a roller coaster of emotions from the start of making these beauties, clear up till the final showing! Once again, I want to thank Jane Ormes {a wonderfully talented artist in the UK} for her generosity in agreeing to let me sew up an interpretation of one of her prints, titled 'Welcome to my jungle'. {She certainly took a tremendous risk not knowing me in the slightest!} This was started in 2019 and took approximately a year to bring to quilt top stage. Probably wouldn't have come together even that quickly if not for the pandemic lock downs and all the time in the world for hand applique. Ughh, don't remind me.

Seriously wishing I had some quilt holder-uppers today

While I considered the quilt top finished, my mind just wouldn't leave it completely alone. Nag, nag, nag. Months later, in January of 2021, the missing piece occurred to me out of the blue. I mean, it was SO obvious! Everything sort of clicked into place and finally, finally, the design problem from the addition of a border treatment got to be resolved in a satisfactory manner.*Whew!

Loving the look of the stitching

Why are some quilts so tricky? But you know, it was totally of my own making, all the hullabaloo with the border. I was the one who took a perfectly good design and decided it wasn't quite right for a bed quilt 'as is'. Oh yes, got a lot of feedback about that, which was super interesting when points resonated and also difficult when they didn't at all. And maybe, subconsciously, it was all about attempting to make the quilt a little more mine. Because I've NEVER done that before! hehe  Whatever. It somehow ended up being one of the coolest quilts that I have ever put together! 

So much fun in the details!

I will confess to having a bout or two of insomnia over how in the world to do the hand quilting. Part of me very badly wanted to echo stitch inside everyone of the applique motifs and then perhaps do a subtle cross-hatch etc. stitching across the entire background. Possibly little bit of the antique vibe? The quilt mostly laughed and jeered at that idea and told me it felt massively underwhelmed by that particular idea. Well. If you have to be that way!

Inspiration is always a blessing

It wasn't until the top was sandwiched and pinned that I reluctantly decided on an overall stitching effort, the 'hills & valleys' one in particular. {Baptist fans just seemed a little bit too formal, even done in the freehand method.} Then I got sidetracked by being sick for a couple months, which oddly enough gave me just enough time to properly cement the idea in my mind. Soooo, here it is. Subtle, but seemingly funky and a little bit modern and whimsical too? Definitely nothing to distract in any way from the fabulous design, which was always going to be a concern. Better to push it to shine!

Don't ever be afraid to add the elephant

I want to say that I have had the most fun making this quilt! I'm laughing while I say this, but believe me. All the hair pulling aside, this has been an exhilarating quest, up to and including the last bit of stitching. It challenged me in so many ways that have positively influenced the confidence that I have in attempting whole quilt applique efforts. I'm a better quilter today for puzzlements just like this one. 

You can take a look at the original print here and compare and contrast the very small changes I may have made here or there. One of the most valuable things I have learned about attempting an interpretation is that the final result will NEVER be exact. And really, why would you want it to be?

The awkward flowers are sooo sweet

The goal {generally} is to take a look at the final interpretation quilt and instantly be able to recognize the original inspiration. But.... not get too caught up in agonizing over where the math may or may not work out or how your color choices perhaps changed things to slant in a 'you' vibe. I'm not saying the original design ever needs improved upon. Not at all! We were impressed and amazed enough to feel compelled to do something with that starting point. It's just that we're all human and inevitably something is going to be different, because for one, our eyes see color differently. Our perception of what is pleasing is tuned individually. Our hands create in distinctively unique ways. It's perfectly okay and it's a beautiful thing.

This quilt ended up being made up in these precise proportions mostly because I ran out of background fabric after making a serious math error. Then I had to pick apart fabric and basically start over. Wasn't going to ditch the starting Matisse looking leaves and well, why not wing it? Make-do with what I had available using the original as the framework and not the absolute. I've always been a little shocked at how closely the quilt did in fact replicate the print! Still shaking my head in disbelief... These are life long lessons that I've already put into good use since the finishing up of this quilt top in 2020. Start out as you map out, then be very willing to adapt, adapt, adapt.

Crumples up nice and cozy looking

I get so weary with quilters who fret and stress about how the original pattern maker will feel if they change up colors or an element here or there. If they will 'like it'. For goodness sakes, just do it!! That's what quilting is all about. Taking timeless quilting motifs, patterns and elements and doing our thing, making it our own. Putting our personal little stamp on it. {In this case, it's an artists' rendering and I tried to give Jane fair warning that the outcome would likely not be identical.} Do we need to give respect and honor to the original inspiration? Absolutely! 100%. Then it goes out into the world and morphs again 1000 more times, and where are you in this equation? Probably being a tiny, little spark to a couple of people you'll never even have occasion to meet! Isn't it wonderful?

The hot pink binding ended up working out perfectly!

Okay, enough about that. At this point, I don't know how I will be able to let anyone ever use this quilt, at least until the shiny wears off. It feels a little too precious and special. I had been thinking about gifting it to a granddaughter, but yeah. It's a lot of quilt and they're pretty little yet! We'll see. I might think about putting it into a quilt show some day. Just not sure about mailing off my quilts these days.

Making a statement in the guest room

In other news, I am still pushing forward on the Improv. Hourglass Abstract quilt. The open floor is only mine for a couple more days so really, I need to get off the computer and go quilt! All the hourglass units are where they will probably remain and now I am working on sewing improv. string units to fill up all the empty space. Right now they are just loosely plopped down into the pertinent space until I can determine how many still left to cut out and sew.

Trying to piece together a background 

There should have been plenty of them, but quickly realized that I needed a whole lot more. So bad at the guestimating! Back to the stash totes to dig for more fabric, grumble, grumble... Improv. strippy piecing takes much more fabric than single pieces of fabric, but if you want that background texture? Gotta do it! Basically, I need the empty areas to be lower volume fabrics because it will provide a nice background for the large scale applique vine I'm wanting needing to do. Uh huh. It's all starting to make sense now. 

And you may or may not know this, but I have a terrible time letting go of pretty pieces of creamy white background fabrics. Yep. I'm usually quite positive there is another much more worthy quilt waiting in the wings and of course it will desperately need this or that specific fabric....

Lots of lighter areas for better flow in the quilt

In case you're interested, here's a picture of what I see when I'm rounding the corner from the quilting 'room' back into the open floor plan upstairs. Back to my design floor. Wish I had a design wall as big as the floor area, but hey! We all do what we have to do to survive. To the right is the back of my husbands desk, which is always interesting when he's working upstairs and I'm just over the partial wall, merrily quilting on the other side. Good thing we like each other, though his music now, that's not always as palatable....

Having fun stitching the details

And here's a picture of the current quilt in the hoop. Making good progress with this one, though the individual hoops are taking much longer than expected to stitch. Somehow I always think that I can breeze through the hand quilting and get a hoop done in an hour or so. Uh huh. Right.... Hoping you all have a great Easter weekend!