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....

A Stitch a Day Makes the Fidgets Go Away

It's been a busy couple of weeks. We had to leave town for a couple days to attend a cousins funeral and then last weekend, our grandkids came to visit. Yay! We're always up for that. Plus, there was a bridal shower for our new-to-be daughter-in-law. Wedding the end of April in Oklahoma! And our oldest daughter is expecting their first child. So very exciting. Shaping up to be one of those years. I almost turned the commenting off on the blog 'cuz I've been such a terrible blogger lately. It's all I can do to throw up a post once in awhile, much less, properly keep up with postings elsewhere.

Ormes Inspired getting some attention

I feel like the hand quilting has been massively neglected this year and it's been hard to get back into the regular routine of things. It's just one of those things where progress tends to happen very slowly. Then, little by little, that steady bit of effort {several evenings a week} can add up to a whole lotta by the end of the year! The current quilt in the hoop is getting the overall 'stacked hills' stitching treatment and I'm finally, finally closing in on the second row up from the bottom. This is a quilt where I wanted the stitching to mostly stay in the background. We'll see how it looks when more of the top is finished! So far I'm really liking the look and I'm usually fairly indifferent at this point. Crossing my fingers! 

Piddling away on the Hourglass Improv. quilt

Quilting time has definitely been a bit sporadic lately, but so have my moods as per which quilt project seems most interesting to work on. The hourglass quilt is to a point where all the larger hourglass blocks are stitched and now all of the smaller ones are sewn into 4-patch hourglass units too {didn't get a picture of that}. Time to lay it out on the design 'floor' and see where to go next! I just like to make sure auditioning time is mostly distraction free so I'm biding my time waiting on the perfect moment.

Making progress on the 25-Patch HST

I've also started sewing the 25-patch hst quilt blocks into rows. This project feels a little 'meh' at the moment. All the crayon color vibes are getting to me I guess. It's my own fault for trying to make it larger than the inspiration picture though. Just doesn't have the same look and feel as I was intending. Will have to look at it again later when it's all put together and see if my opinion changes any.

The start of Old Fashioned

A couple brand new projects are popping up around here for some reason or another. The cutting phase is getting close to being finished for the old fashioned yellow quilt. It's been a good excuse to use up more of the older fabrics that have been languishing in the stash totes. Don't know why exactly, but I have such a fondness for good cream fabrics. Always have had which means there is always an abundant supply on hand. Really hoping that these mellow yellow fabrics shine with the cream backgrounds and very simple design that's been chosen. Have you ever heard of the Crown block? That's what's happening here. Probably on point, but we'll determine that much later. For now, just need to get the blocks sewn together!

The start of Peace Always

Also, there just isn't nearly enough applique work prepped and ready to go around here. Makes me a little bit antsy! I gave into temptation, grabbed a marinating stack of fabrics and started in on the details. Quite an enjoyable afternoon pondering the exact shape that was needed for a basket, flowers etc. This quilt will be called 'Peace Always' and will be yet another medallion quilt. 'Cuz you know there's never enough of those! And they are so much fun to put together, playing around with all the interesting options available when making the quilt one row bigger. And then another row bigger until the quilt finally screams 'Enough!'. Well, maybe not a scream exactly. It's more like a very firm 'We're done now. You can go away'. Right? 

Progress on Several Fronts!

It was a good week for quilting around here. The #AHIQTulipQal quilt is finished being hand quilted and the first phase of binding is already sewn down. I didn't expect to like the wavy stitching in the outside border so much. Just has adds a bit of whimsy that funnily enough, makes me like the quilt better!

Binding all ready for hand stitching

The next quilt in the hoop is 'Ormes Inspired', an impulse quilt started clear back in 2019. Most of the work was completed in the early days of the Covid lockdowns and finally, the bulk of the quilt top was finished up by May of 2020. Later on, I went ahead and added the word at the bottom of the quilt and that was that!

Ormes Inspired getting sandwiched and pinned

This was probably the trickiest all over applique that I had ever attempted to do for a quilt. It still boggles my mind that most of the placement was done by eyeballing positions and sort of working backward from large motifs to much smaller ones. When I go out on a wing and a prayer with the quilting efforts, I just don't know when to quit! Oh well. Look where I ended up! On a totally different note, this was supposed to be my January quilt in-the-hoop and thankfully, it has been sandwiched and pinned since sometime in early December! 

Almost ready for the hoop...

One of the things that I really wanted to get accomplished in the past week was to work on the 25-patch HST quilt. I was crossing my fingers to get to 'completed quilt top stage', but count myself fortunate to at least see progress in a serious way. This picture below is a stack of all the completed blocks. They are trimmed to size and nicely stacked into rows according to the layout that was deemed appropriate one late, late evening. 

A little nerve-wracking to be working on a quilting project so late in the day as occasionally my judgement does gets a bit impaired. There comes a point in most all layout auditioning sessions where we are just DONE with all the what-ifs and what abouts. I'm sure you know exactly what I mean! There's something here in this particular layout that is still bugging me but not enough for a do over. For now I will sew it together and just wait to see if or where things might have went sideways. It's not like it's a precious quilt with tons of hours wrapped up in the decision making or stitching. Who knows? It might just end up being a quilt backing some day. 

Getting ready for sewing

A couple more applique blocks finished up with the Herbs and Berries quilt. I'm still really enjoying the laid back feel of these blocks. And since auditioning seems to be in the cards this past week, I went ahead and rearranged the blocks on the wall to make way for potential sashing. Because this quilt was always meant to have sashing and I wouldn't dare try and cheat it out of what it expects!

Auditioning for Herbs and Berries

Another thing that caught my attention almost immediately since getting back into the quilting room on a regular basis? This orphan block project {plus fabric pull} from almost a year ago. There has been the odd, random moment of trying to gain traction, but somehow it never amounted to anything solid. So easy to  just give up and walk away rather than feel like I was beating my head against a brick wall.

Hourglass Improv.

The thing is, I have this idea that will NOT go away. It haunts me. There's a longing here that feels kind of important though the entire project itself has felt overwhelming. Or totally underwhelming? Boring at times. Or maybe just a hair above my creativity level? And I'm so tired of that particular mental block. What a waste of time and energy to go there and think things like that. Uggh. 'I'm not good enough.' Seriously, what's the harm of trying? 

So here I go, mentally picturing something about making an 'intentional' background piece and then perhaps absolutely going over the top with a big 'ol applique design. Nothing formal of course. There needs to be lots and lots of glorious imperfection in order for me to properly connect with the flow. If there ever actually ends up being one. Somehow I rather suspect that part will come fairly rapidly if the irritating background would ever get busy and properly manifest itself!

Here's the latest plan. Instead of trying to put the smaller abandoned hourglass units together first, {as seems perfectly logical but wasn't getting anywhere in almost a year}, I will now switch to making these slightly larger hourglass units first. A small but important change that looky, looky! is translating into sewn units and good things happening!! Then.... I will most likely try to puzzle piece the new units with the smaller ones until there ends up being a largish, potential background piece. I may have to make more hourglass units than what are currently cut out. No way of knowing how many will be needed! And this process will probably include having to incorporate various pieces of gray, beige or white/cream fabric into the layout as well. Hey, whatever gets the project moving forward, right?

Moving Things Along

 Trying to get a couple more finishes in before the end of the year. Moody 9-Patch has the initial phase of binding sewn on, all the clips on and now is waiting on the hand stitching time.

Moody 9-Patch getting a binding

It was a huge relief to get Country Stars all finished up and ready for gifting. I even managed to get the label stitched on! 

Country Stars all finished up!

Next up will be making the time to deliver it. Gotta wait on my husbands schedule as we want to do it together. Sort of a 'Merry Christmas' and also a housewarming gift. 

The compass stars are never a bad idea

It's kind of funny how it ended up with a vaguely holiday vibe, which was never intended at all. I just hope our friend likes traditional look quilts as much as she proclaimed to. Kind of a trip down memory lane for me and though I don't LOVE this quilt, I'm happy with the way it turned out.

So happy the hand quilting grid proved out

The applique could have been a little bit more exciting, but then it would have been difficult to give away. Right?

Should be a good couch throw!

Next up in the hoop is the #AHIQStringTulipsQal project. This is the top that I thought was done and then  months later, had to pull it back out of the quilt top drawers and add on an applique border. So much better looking now. I thought surely, surely I would want to hand quilt the one and only Christmas quilt top left in the drawers, but nope. Absolutely no interest at the moment. For some reason this one thinks it needs to be next.

On to the next quilt

Oh well. It should be very easy to jump into and get started. I went ahead and machine stitched in-the-ditch around the large center area and also, at the outside border. Not necessary, but something that will make the overall stitching move just a little faster. And it won't ruin the look of the hand quilting one iota. Win, win.

Ready for the next step

All the applique for the thirty Primrose Path applique blocks is done now. The little flower centers went lickety-split. Now I will be adding little corner triangles to the blocks. Just need to decide on the right color for that. Originally I thought to do a white texty fabric, then I moved on to a mixed palette of pastels. Now I'm leaning hard toward shades of the med-pink used in a couple of the blocks. I never intended for this to end up a 'pink and black' quilt, but hey, what do I know?

A quilt that refuses to be taken seriously

You can see that I've sewn together eight of the nine blocks necessary for making the 25-Patch Hst quilt. Of course it doesn't seem like nearly enough {color me shocked} and so I will be changing it to a sixteen block quilt. I started out following the original quilt look for block colors but eventually just sort of gravitated toward changing things up here or there. Now I'm in good shape to make up the next eight blocks willy-nilly and then afterward I'll probably have to mix all the blocks up to make everything make sense once again. 

I'm crossing my fingers this will be a joyful, happy looking quilt, not a sad hst vomit type thing. I went ahead and cut out more of the darker brown and medium blue fabrics for more units. So far the green is the very hardest to introduce into the quilt which is pretty on par for normal around here. Don't want to leave it out though as there will be more green used in the sashing pieces. Probably. It's been a lot of fun though and coming together without much trouble. In my head, I'm calling it a 'palette cleanser', but I'm not sure why. Maybe because it's a quilt that refuses to be treated as precious?

A Little Quilting and A Lotta Family

Would you be shocked if I said that life had been busy lately? What was it that I read the other day, something about our 'hustle culture' being the new norm? Yeah. Not by choice for most of us. I managed to squeeze in a few good minutes trimming off the points of the hsts and then throwing a few of them up on the wall. This isn't sewn together yet, still in full-on contemplation mode.

25-Patch Hsts

All those hsts sewn together properly would represent four blocks to the 25-Patch HST quilt. The look is overtly {almost obnoxiously} scrappy, yet somewhat vintage in look and feel. Most all of the fabrics used are in a 15 year range though. There is probably only one fabric that would truly be of vintage era though. I'm absolutely loving the mishmash of colors and sheer unpretentious quality that's already shining through. The Inspiration quilt has nine of these 25-patch blocks so I'll start with that, roughly following the original makers lead as to value. After those nine blocks are sewn, then we'll figure out the rest of the quilt. Pretty sure there will be lots of leftover units to play with.

Primrose Path blocks

I seem to be in this rut lately of making myself finish up one applique project at a time. So weird. For years, when I got bogged down mentally, then I just pushed the project off to the back burner and started stitching on another. Now I'm acting like Sally Steadfast and keeping my nose to the grindstone until it's ALL done. 

Figuring out the centers
Can you see the snow piled up outside on the deck?

It was really exciting to finally figure out the little centers of the primrose flowers. I knew the fabric needed to be a in similar tones of faded black, but the fussy cut flowers in the this black fabric is exactly right. Don't you love when that happens?

Moody 9-Patch in the hoop

Still hand quilting on the Moody 9-Patch quilt. It's only been a finished quilt top since February of 2021, but it seems like it's been in the quilt top drawers for much, much longer. I machine stitched-in-the-ditch between all the blocks before my sewing machine was fixed. Basically, the dual feed wasn't working properly which makes for all those stitching lines being less than fully in-the-ditch and more of a meandering trail of thread. Even with using a standard walking foot. Oh well. Made me a little mad at the time, but now I don't even hardly notice. Or care. Am sort of laughing at myself for expending so much energy doing hand quilting on a quilt that barely shows off the effort involved though. It's been lovely having it in my lap though! Such a pretty, deep fall look and feel going on here!

All the Wilson Siblings in one place and 
lightning didn't strike...

The entire family didn't end up being altogether on the big day after all, only about 45 persons or so. But by Saturday, all of my siblings were present at my mom and dads for 'pizza night'. It's become part of the holiday weekend to have one pizza night, an Asian food night and also a taco bar in the days following Thanksgiving. Anyway, on impulse because its so rare we're all together in one place, we found ourselves taking a few family photos of the siblings. Some smart-alecky person suggested we arrange ourselves in order by birth, and of course people started snapping pics for posterity. It was pretty funny getting it all sorted out and then later on somebody mentioned that half of us pictured here are Gen X kids and the other half are millennials, Whatever that means? 21 years between oldest and youngest in case you were wondering. My baby brother was only four months old at my wedding! lol

I don't really talk about this much because we got a lot of flack about it growing up. People have SO MUCH to say about people having more than four or five kids in their families. I always had to laugh when someone would say my four kids was a big family. Right.... You wouldn't believe all the things total strangers and/or supposed friends would say right in front of us kids or my parents too. And not expect anyone to get offended. It was crazy and really rude at times! You learn really quick who the real friends are! Once in a great while someone would have wonderful things to say to us and we'd all sort of relax and lose the defensive posture. Not that we care now, but as kiddos, it was terribly hard to take at times.

Mom and dad had 12 kids in all with 11 kids raised to adulthood. Let me just say that they were incredible parents to us all and never lived off of anyone or expected anyone else to pick up the slack. Two of my siblings {right smack in the middle and pretty much the bridge between 'older' and 'younger' families} have passed now and this is what is left of the tribe. We still feel their loss every time we do something like this but know it will only get worse as the years fly by. And the numbers undoubtedly shrink even more? Such is life unfortunately so we cherish the good times while we can.

I am the shorty, second to the left in this picture. Fun times and yes, I was bossy growing up. What can I say? As you can see, a few 'what are we doing here?' looks because of the relaxed attire, but who really cares in the long run? I actually think the pictures turned out better from not being overly scheduled and planned to the nth degree! We don't always get along super, magically, wonderfully well, but I know if ever I truly needed anything, I could call any one of them and they'd run to my aid in a heartbeat. You know how it is with well adjusted siblings, blood is thicker than water, but ooh... we also have memories like elephants! I had a great time telling one of my nieces this last weekend about a much younger version of her sweet mama.*wink

Wintertime in Brewster, Washington

In other news, we've had snow and then a little bit more snow on top of that. The first two pictures were snapped by my husband a couple days ago. The first one was taken at his current construction/remodeling project approx. six miles from where we live {which is a whole lot closer to that mountain in the background}. It was such a cold, clear day, the distance looks much, much shorter than what it really is!

 

This next picture was taken just as he was driving through the outskirts of our little town of Pateros {less than half a mile from where we live}, but looking off to the left across the Columbia River instead of straight ahead at Billygoat mountain {seen in the previous picture}.

The sun is shining in Pateros, Washington

This last picture was taken by a friend of ours here in town who owns a little Airbnb. She snapped this picture while taking a walk along the Methow river, right where it dumps into the Columbia river {pictured behind the railroad bridge and also in the background of the previous picture. This is where our little town of Pateros sits, right at the junction of those rivers and nestled in the foothills of the mountain shown in the first picture. We really do have gorgeous views year around here, but in wintertime, after a fresh snowfall and  then the sun comes out? It's just incredible. So pretty.

Love the steamy look to the rivers in the wintertime

And mostly we do love the winters here, but wowsers, it did come early this year! I have shoveled snow off and on in short little spurts for about three days now. Yesterday I slipped and fell splat! on my left shoulder, elbow and hip, thankfully only getting slightly bruised. Normally my husband would do more of the shoveling, but we all got hit by a stomach bug on the Monday after the big weekend and I'm the one who recovered the fastest it seems. I'm just way too impatient to wait around for him to do the work, even though my back and shoulders are crying out the entire time I'm shoveling. I am soooo out of shape! There is a huge difference between a needle and a snow shovel, but I hate having snow fall into my boots every time I head out to the garage, the dumpster or to the car. Ughh. Don't tell them, but I always miss my boys a little extra this time of year...

Simple Projects

First of all, so sorry to everyone who is having trouble posting comments on my blog! I just don't have the energy to switch to a different platform and Blogger seems to want to be extra difficult these days. You can email a comment directly and I'll always respond. Otherwise, thanks for reading anyway! I figure there are lots like me out there, reading the blogs but doing a terrible time leaving feedback. I said never, never, but these days it's tempting to switch to Instagram where all you have to do it click on the 'heart' to engage.

The new vintage look 25-Patch project

I took an online personality test the other day and was completely appalled by how low the score came back in Openness {and creativity}. Part of the test was spot on and super interesting. The other part? Uggh. I must have been feeling very self critical and down on myself. Whatever, it made me realize that apparently I'm more 'stuck' that I realized! Time to dig back in and see if that can change eventually. According to the test, color doesn't seem to move me at all??? I started small with a basic project. Just dipping my toes back in the water. This is an idea that's been rattling around in the quilt room forever. 

Starting something new

It's a picture of a vintage quilt made out of scrappy hsts. I took one of those infamous {marinating} stacks of fabrics and got busy. All the hsts are cut out, ironed open now and all that's left to do after yesterday is the trimming. Just trimming the points. I really don't care if the blocks are a little wonky for this quilt. Imperfection will make it more interesting. 

Okay, it probably sounds like I just went after it like crazy, but believe me, I've been having to force myself to work for even a half an hour or so. Take a break. Come back. Making progress has been like pulling teeth, everything feeling like a huge effort. But I've been here before! Just have to break through and get back on track.

It's a true blue finish!

Finally got the binding sewn down on the Improv. Strips quilt {No Wasted Pieces}. Was kind of surprised by the fact that the quilt wanted a pink binding, but oh well. Just glad that I had something suitable languishing in the stash totes!

Loving the texture

My favorite part of the quilt is the added strips in the bottom left corner. Really adds an element of make-it-up-as-you-go to the quilt and helps make it a little bit more quirky. Always a good thing in my book.

Gotta get the attitude on the quilt

I kept the hand quilting super basic of course, don't I always? But then went ahead and stitched a few tulips into the wider border area there at the top of the quilt. Adds a little bit of sweetness to an oddly colored quilt! Overall, it was a good finish and crumpled up very nicely after washing. This one is a good example of how simple shapes can show off and/or disguise older fabrics. Whichever is needed. They all just sort of disappear into the quilt and nothing stands out as too stale or too obnoxious when they're cut this small.

A bit sweeter with flowers

I have also been tentatively playing around with these abandoned hourglass blocks from an older AHIQ quilt. There is a vague design doodled onto a piece of paper and all the potential fabrics for the quilt jumping up and down shouting YES! I know the color palette may be unexciting to some of you, but it's doing something for me. Uh huh. Seems like the Personality Test was taken on a bad day? I learned a long time ago to try not to question the whys and wherefores of current color curiosity and just roll with it. Never know where things might end up!

Hoping to kickstart this one after Thankgiving

That being said, I'm getting flashes of interest, excitement and yes, even trepidation just trying for a start. Can I make this happen the way that I'm envisioning things? The reality is: Probably not. And that's part of what's been holding me back. A general feeling of negativity about sparking real creativity. About making good things happen. Or NOT. The journey is so much fun regardless and I've sort of let that slip this past year, pushing my expectations to unnecessary places. I need to TRY for the idea first, then everything sort of falls into place along the way. If I don't even try, well then. Nothing happens. Duh. Obviously!

In other news, I got my sewing machine fixed! Yay!! Ended up with a way too quick trip to Spokane, dropping someone off at the airport, doing the sewing machine service, going Christmas shopping and then driving back home feeling a bit sick from exhaustion. Now it's Thanksgiving {already!} and there are more things still to bake and fix. We're gathering at my mom and dads this year with all of my siblings. Whoa...... It's going to be A LOT. Only one of our kids will be there though as they all have other obligations. I count it very fortunate to still have my parents and know these years are fading very quickly. Hope you all have the best of holidays filled with lots of good visits, turkey and pie!