August Wrap Up

There was a list of things that I was determined to do this weekend and one of them was throwing up a quick quilting post. It's been awhile I know. I was working on this 'Worthy' quilt before we made the trip to Oklahoma and it seemed like something to post about. But then my husband upended all of our plans and we left for our trip earlier than expected. 

Starting to see where Worthy is headed

This has been a very slow project, started in November of 2023. Basically I took a stack of fabrics and started free-cutting triangles, ala Sujata Shah. In fact, the progress has been so very slow that I really never bothered to post about it after the initial start. I mean, what was there to talk about?

 The fabrics are very soft, muted and have quite an old fashioned vibe. I've been pondering them for a couple years, but every time I decided they weren't enough to bother making a quilt out of, there was just something that wouldn't let me toss them back into the fabric totes. I'm not even sure there's enough value changes to come off as interesting, but I'm gonna try anyway. 

This is probably about a third of the fabrics in the stack. It's not been the most fascinating quilt to work on, but as I said, it's still compelling for reasons that make me want to continue on. Forward ho! At this point I'm dithering over sewing this all together and then joining in subsequent piecing later {as I go} or.... waiting until I have all of the various strips piled together and then start fresh. 

Part of me wants to be brave and sew it together and just make the rest fit on and around. Ughh. You know how that can turn out. Possibly lots of regret and frustration. Much better to go ahead and take it off of the too-small design wall, be patient and come to terms with the fact that it's going to be awhile yet. I'm almost certainly going to end up crawling around on my knees, moving parts and pieces around on my design floor before anything becomes truly cohesive!

There will be more pink colors added in, more of the dark brown and also, more cream fabrics. I've even thought about expanding on the 'Worthy' block, perhaps adding in more applique in the form of a border motif. Something like that. I'm really, really liking the odd pairings and uneven rows of triangles. This definitely is not a quilt that wants to be perfect or even exactly aligned.

The goal is {for now}, taking each particular fabric as it comes and cutting it all up till it's gone. Really easy when there's just a small chunk of fabric left, but lots harder when it's a much bigger piece. I'm continually second guessing myself as to adding 'that much' of a specific fabric into the quilt. Am trying to quiet the admonitory voices in my head and just let creativity have full reign. At the end, my hope is to have a quietly charming and cozy {utilitarian-look} quilt that feels a little like it could have transported from the late 1800's. Ha! 

Needs some hand work before finishing

Though my goal was to have both of these quilts completely finished up by the end of August, life just got away from me. Again. Can't say that I'm surprised! Will have to squeeze in time to hand sew the binding on here pretty soon as one of the quilts is for a nephew getting married this month. At least there is serious finishing progress on both.

Applique border work

Have also been working on the hand sewing on these borders for Melon Patch Blossom. The middle part of the quilt has been done since late last year. You'd almost think quilting has become the lesser obsession in my life in the past year and you might be right. Family time has absolutely ended up being the top priority.

Ready for the next phase!

Finally got all the applique done on Bramble Blooms II-B. It wasn't complicated at all, so no real dragging of my feet. Just didn't want to take something this large with me on the plane! I get lots of looks when I'm working on my quilting in the airports, but rarely does anyone actually say anything. I wonder if it's like a houseguest once told me, 'Just makes me want to laugh! Quilting is such a grandma thing to do these days.'  My whole family was kind of looking at this man with their mouths hanging open. 

Seriously? Do you know how much money and time is spent on quilting these days? The incredible quilt shows that people can attend and feel inspired and moved by? Thankfully, I chose not to feel insulted. His grandma really was a hodgepodge quilter, quite artistic in other ways, but her quilting was strictly utilitarian and quite primitive looking. If he wanted to laugh at my old fashioned hobby, who cares? It brought her {and now me at this point in my life} lots of joy and that's really all that matters.

Sandwiched and ready for pins!

Next up in the hoop is Gold Crossroads. It's been finished up since about 2021. It's part of the 'Circle Game' quilts where I'm taking the cut-out circles from behind other applique and incorporate it into a brand new quilt. My latest Circle Game quilt top was Good Vibes. I already have fabric stacked up for the next one in the series and ideas for that and one more after that! Gotta love series quilts! They're a great next-up quilt when you run out of other ideas or are stalled with indecision.

Happy, happy mail!!

I also had this wonderful gift sent to me from an online quilting friend. This awesome box of fabric was waiting for me when we returned from our trip! Very generous and so sweet of her. Am always more than willing to mix brand new-to-me fabrics into the stash totes and see just where things might perk up a little. It must be my month because I was also able to buy a little fabric with some birthday money and also a recent surprise from the Tip Top Jar! Quilters are the best! While I am having great fun digging through all the older stash fabrics, there has most definitely been totes that are starting to seem quite, quite dreary. Always more exciting to throw in a few newer pieces occasionally to see what might start to spark and take on new life.

Okay, that's it for a what's happening around here on the quilt front. Lots of projects, ideas and stacks of fabric, but not nearly enough time to get it all moving and grooving. For all the Bramble Blooms QAL folks, will probably not dive into the last border prompt for a couple weeks or so. Lots of little things that I want to make forward progress on first, including hemming a couple pair of thrifted jeans. Darn it, when you're 5'2", the jeans rarely seem to come in the right length....

Another Difficult Quilt Top All Wrapped Up!

Here it is! A completed quilt top for the Positive Thinking challenge over at the AHIQ blog. This prompt was introduced in June of 2020, more or less encouraging us to keep going with whatever form our creativity allowed considering the stresses of the year. Doing anything 'positive' based seemed like a reach at the time {and even later}, but turned out to be a really great idea. Most of the intention behind what I do is for a cozy, happy, comfy outcome, and it was a timely reminder to keep on trying.

Positive Thinking quilt top is done!

It was also suggested that we might want to chop some of our clothes up in the getting-started phase. {Begin with the comfortable and familiar.} I cut up about six or seven shirts and used them to determine the base of the color palette moving forward. The cream print fabric behind the raspberry pink letters {and those same pink letters} are from two of my favorite shirts that I wore for years. The blue shirting fabric in the middle of the quilt is from a barely worn shirt from my husbands closet, and then there are two more of his shirting fabrics that made it into the quilt as clamshells. The other shirtings were dumped into the stash totes without being used at all. No worries, one of these days I'll dig them out and introduce them into yet another quilt!

What do you think of the whatchamacallit
at the bottom of the words?

So yes, those specific fabrics being used mean something to me, causing the quilt to feel a little more special. The decision to attempt another 'wordy' quilt was actually quite simple when I thought about trying to project positivity. It's all in the message, right? Coincidently, there was a suitable one that had been pinned up on a board in my quilting room for eons. 

Cutting and sewing letters together doesn't take a tremendous amount of creativity once a person gets started. It's more of a formula and that seemed to be a good thing last summer. Like maybe I could coast through at least part of the process on auto pilot! Ha. Of course there's always the phase {or two or three of them} where everything comes screeching to a halt and Very. Important. Decisions. Have. To. Be. Made. And it's usually in the details that later appear so thoroughly nonessential, but whatever. I made it through and finally got to the puzzle, getting the words and background to fit together in a way that hopefully everyone can read!

Bright, happy flowers

I ended up with the cream/black pinstripe fabric as the background because I loved the way it blended with the one cream shirting fabric especially calling out to me. The old fashioned charm was irresistible and also, there looked to be enough to hopefully take care of the entire background. Generally I'm okay with mixing and matching background fabrics {making-do}, but wanted something more controlled this time around. The stripe made me a bit nervous initially. Stripes?? But after I made the decision to put each word into its own 'box' of sorts, then the rest fell into place and started making more sense. 

No leaves this time

There were plenty of stops and starts getting it all pieced together. Energy would run very thin on the ground occasionally. What am I doing? What am I actually trying to accomplish? If I do this, use that, then where does that leave the emphasis of the message? 'Cuz you know, changing up the value of some of the colors per words, makes a huge difference in how the message could come across!

It's a wrap!

Fabric usage was carefully planned out ahead, but you can only do so much because of the waste involved. You can only imagine how thrilled I was when the cream shirting behind the pink letters was just enough and then later, when I was trying to puzzle piece the entire background into place, having the perfect amount with barely a scrap or two leftover! 

Originally I wanted every single word to have the same exact cream shirting background but it simply wasn't possible. Waahh! That's why I paused part way through the letter making and spent some time considering. How do I move forward in a way that doesn't mess up the whole {imagined} look to the quilt? Eventually I just had to do something and leave it up to chance as to whether or not everything could/would come together. So that's where the blue background shirting came into play. Off on another tangent and we'll just have to see if it makes or breaks the quilt!

Also, the greater background was pieced intentionally with the stripes positioned on the vertical. All except for the very bottom of the quilt where I had no choice but to sew a narrow strip on the horizontal. It was a scary hairy determination to make as I worried it might 'waste' too much fabric and potentially leave me lacking enough to finish. The main reason it seemed important to deliberately choose one direction or the other was to eliminate extra chaos from fabrics being placed into the background willy-nilly. Since the theme was to be 'positive', it felt necessary to at least try to eliminate as much noise as possible. So yeah, that's one more area of this quilt that makes me super happy. It's a very small detail of the quilt, but almost boggles my mind. Lets just say it again.... the stripes are all going in the very same direction!!

The clamshell background is much whiter
than the cream center, but it seems to work.

Once the middle of the quilt was totally pieced, then I let it sit for a good long while. It was tempting to wrap it up and say 'It's a finish!', but honestly, the whole message thing was a bit too much for the totality of the quilt. I almost wanted to say in return, 'Oh yeah? So what?' With nothing but words to look at on the quilt, it seemed to make the quilt feel almost aggressively opinionated and I didn't want that vibe. Besides, I was pretty sure it needed applique. I mean, lets be real. How could there possibly be that much background space on one of my quilts, and not have a flower somewhere? It was always meant to be.

A couple months went by and the quilt decided that it probably needed to have borders. Almost any border would do, but didn't clamshells sound interesting? So I pondered and played with the idea until coming up with the scrappy 6" clamshells plan. Big enough to more easily learn the new-to-me technique, yet not so small as to get buried in the minutia of 'not quite good enough'. Mistakes were made. Things are far from perfect, and yet... I love it! Adds such a wonderful exuberance to the quilt. Definitely helped lift the quilt into a place of confidence and meaning without the overbearing quality it had before.

These strange blue colors are difficult for me to work with...

And then before the clamshells were completely finished and attached to the quilt, I finally settled on the applique flower addition. They are MUCH brighter than I ever intended, so in-your-face happy to be on the quilt. Wowsers. Dial it down a bit, could you? hehe  Why does it take more than just words though? They just aren't enough by themselves sometimes, especially on quilts. In fact, at the very end of adding on all the applique, I felt compelled to add on the little curly-cue or whatchamacallit thing as extra emphasis there on the bottom. Like an underlining of intent that I mean this. I feel this. Does that make sense? Laughing at myself here because the quilt was a little too overbearing without the border and applique and then after? Not quite serious enough. These quilts. They just love to run us in circles, don't they?

I know that not everyone will appreciate this quilt as much as I do {already figured that out by showing it to my mom}, and that's okay. Personally, I'm very, very pleased to have pushed through with this particular challenge. It was a good one in so many ways! There were definitely times that I sincerely thought the quilt had lost its way. What a drab little nothing of a quilt! And then, this. Plus, I finally got over my fear of playing with clamshells! Just goes to show that attempting the occasional challenge can take us on an unexpected, but wonderful adventure! Next AHIQ challenge is Symmetry/Asymmetry. I'm only a little behind on getting started!

Plodding Along

 There's not going to be a lot going on here quilty-wise in the next month or so, but hopefully I won't go completely dark! No matter what else is happening around me, I can usually squeeze in a bit of hand quilting, so there's that.

Sweet Hospitality is done!

The latest quilt finish is Sweet Hospitality. It's been in the quilt top stage since late in 2018. I loved the old fashioned pineapple blocks when I first started them, but somehow, somewhere, the quilt lost its pizazz for me and then, more or less became a problem child.

Still liking this pineapple block

As per my new normal, I was trying to use up fabrics from the stash and well, yeah. This was probably one quilt where I should have went out and bought special. Why am I so stubborn about this? Whatever! It ended up coming together better than I expected, but somewhere a bit below the standard that I tend to set for myself. 

Definitely looks better washed and dried...

Like I had hoped, the quilting texture really helped lift the look of the quilt. It's so funny that I oftentimes have wishful thinking when it comes to that hand quilting stuff. Surely, surely, it will cover a multitude of sins! Right? And that bright binding... Nothing like what I was expecting, but nevertheless, a very good save. After finally settling on it, I had to wonder why I ever expected anything else to work out? It was just so obvious....

Can a quilt be too scrappy?

I struggled mightily with how to quilt this one. Mostly because I get so tired of echo quilting all my applique efforts. Or do I actually do that? Maybe I'm just tired.*wink  Regardless, it all because so much clearer when I finally decided to put yet another quilt top on the back side of the quilt. Such a rare decision, but it seemed right for a 'just for play' quilt.

The improv. quilt back

It sent my brain into a tizzy at first wondering how not to end up with a complete and total disaster on one side or the other, then it all made sense. The only solution was to stitch some type of endless repeat. Of course! And I love the fact that it didn't even really matter whether it was a Baptist Fan or whatever else I chose. And don't let people dissuade you from extra piecing in the backing when it comes to hand quilting. With a curved stitching pattern, you rarely ever run into long stretches of 'too much seam allowance' to stitch through. A couple tough stitches here and there, and otherwise, it's all good to go!

Just had to see what this side looked like!

So I gleefully dove in with the idea of stitching simple looking 'Hills'. It's been a year and a half since I've done this, but I remember making a mental note to do this again some day. And it turned out to be such a good decision! Always rough to stick it out through the first row or two, but once it starts showing more, then it's time to relax and just enjoy the stitching. So crazy, I love the back of the quilt almost more than the front!

Looks cozy enough to use!

In fact, if my daughter-in-law hadn't chosen it for her next quilt, I'd probably be trying to hoard this one for a couple more years. Just for the improv. side. 'Cuz more and more, that's what I want to work on, even if I don't have a clue as to what I'm actually trying to accomplish! 

AHIQFlowers next up in the hoop!

And that leads me to the 'next up in the hoop' quilt top, #ahiqflowers. This one was a response to an AHIQ prompt and also, an interpretation of an 'Unconventional and Unexpected' quilt. There are many quilt tops that should be in the front of this particular quilt top, but you know how it is. Gotta grab the one that's actually making us WANT to pick up a needle and thread....

The sunflowers totally make it...

There are entirely too many have too's in our life at the moment, better to have a little bit of simple pleasure when I pull out the hoop in the evenings. At the moment it does feels like I'm trying to 'over-quilt' this one. Trying not to get too worked up about that though. One hoop at a time and the details will sort themselves out at the end. What is the worst case scenerio? I'll have a Kantha type look for my improv. quilt? Oooh... wouldn't that be terrible....

Here a Little, There a Little...

This is kind of a catch-up post. There's been a lot going on at the home front which made it seem like I didn't have time to blog. Then I had too much to post about so it really felt like there wasn't proper time and well, yeah. Vicious cycle. 

Adhoc. Hourglass project about ready for takeoff

All the applique is finished up on the latest tulip blocks. They are trimmed as are the hourglass sashing units. Things are ready to roll in terms of layout if I could find available floor space. Should I just make an appointment? 

Next up for applique was the 'quick' word addition to Ormes Inspired. It is progressing at a very plodding rate. Who's idea was it to cut the letters out of Batik fabric? Huh? Such a difficult fabric to work with when doing needle-turn applique. The fabric is a very tough weave which always destroys my fingers at the point where I'm sewing the corners of letters. Trying to ram the needle through the extra layers is killer. And really, it's very slow overall because the needle doesn't properly glide through the weave like is optimum. You constantly have to make an effort, push, push, pushing which absolutely takes away from the enjoyable aspect of applique! As you can see, it is very close to being finished, but alas, I abandoned it once again in disgust and frustration. Bah! Beautiful fabric or no, this was a bad idea from the get-go. Please don't give me wonderful advice about using a thimble. I've tried. Believe me I've tried. Yes it saves my fingers a little tiny bit. But it's awkward and even more time consuming, not to mention extremely annoying. 

Getting there, slowly but surely....

No surprise that once again I sabotaged the get-through-the-ufo-list and jumped into a brand new project. So nonsensical {and unrealistic} to think I won't be running full speed ahead into something brand new when there is crushing mental fatigue from difficult projects.*wink  Plus, Sharon mentioned that she had 125!! ufo's so now I'm feeling pretty awesome about my own list! Finishing up the tulip blocks felt like a finish, okay? That's pretty much all the justification needed. This particular fabric has been sitting on the counters for wow, almost three years now? Not really sure, but whenever I think they are well past their inspiration prime, I get to feeling this little bit of longing to make another cheddar quilt. Okey dokey. The fabric has spoken.

The start of new project

One random night while I was casting about for something to chain piece {knowing I didn't have the mental fortitude to properly measure things}, this project struck my fancy. It's been the plan to use these cheddar and purple fabrics for an hst improv. medallion for a very long time. Ridiculously easy to dive right into free-cutting strips and then cross cutting them into little-ish squares. I really, really wanted to cut little bitty squares for the hsts but occasionally, even I know my limits!

Breaking it down into workable units

It was easy peasy and not at all scary to make sets of purple/cheddar squares and do the diagonal sewing, never marking a single thing. Isn't it wonderful to recognize our growth as a quilter? Improv. is so liberating when you could care less about the points or anything matching up. Every now and then for about a week I sewed sets, cut them in between the sew lines and then ironed them open. Occasionally I scissor cut the edges to make them more square, but not too much! When that part was accomplished, I just slapped them up on the wall, sometimes kind of fussily moving things around, but mostly just making rows and trying to find positive energy.

Trying to bring it all together

After I had about enough for the intended centerpiece {Oh yeah, did I tell you this was going to eventually be a medallion quilt?}, then I started sewing the hsts into 9-patch units or maybe 6-patch units if that seemed better and sometimes even a 12-patch unit. Whatever felt right. All the cheddar fabric used in the hsts was either a dark tone on tone or the brighter gold cheddar solid, keeping the background very cohesive. For the purposes of evening up the larger hst units, I deliberately introduced one busier cheddar print. Same color family, still ALL cheddar, but more tension. At first I used it quite a bit, then slowly realized that I didn't like the vibe of that print used in excess. You'll be hard pressed to see where, but I eventually went back and replaced that print in just a few areas with the original tone on tone cheddar. Balance. It's always comes down to that doesn't it?

Touching up the outside edges

I didn't mind the look of '9-patch' hsts, but I also wanted a couple areas to kind of flow into others. Fuss, fuss, fuss. Do I like this? Or that? How could I make this work? Also, I was trying to make sure the centerpiece didn't have an obvious seam directly down the middle. Ughh. Wouldn't that just look stupid? This is the part that stressed me out a little and where I had to take a lot more breaks. Eventually I got one large piece that seemed to lay relatively flat. Yay for curved piecing techniques! Though I'm not a pro, it definitely helps ease improv. blocks into submission when you don't want to tidy up {chop} every single unit as you're going along. 

At the outside edges, I simply added long strips here and there and then trimmed the whole to an approx. 30 inches. It was never going to be perfect with me at the helm. I could have easily added in more strips of hsts and then whacked them off {and in fact I diligently considered that}, but I rather thought the breathing space of more background fabric would be good. Yes, I did have to rip a seam out occasionally to add smaller pieces of fabric back into the original unit before sewing on a long strip. There are always details ready and willing to trip us up in our mad dash to the finish!

Making it square-ish

Overall I was pleased and happy and then abruptly, I wasn't. What was that curved thing on the bottom sticking out like a sore thumb? Part of me wanted to leave it be and just let it disappear into the larger quilt plan. The other part of me knew it would knaw away at me until I'd probably find myself ripping it out at a very inopportune moment. Been there done that doing that right now with Ormes Inspired! So... I fiddled around thinking I would have to re-work the entire bottom of the centerpiece, grumbling all the while. Then I remembered that there was just a couple leftover hsts that had been thrown out. Aha! Slapped them up on the wall, played a little with adjustment and wallah! Simple fix and it was done! More colors will be introduced moving forward, but for now, it's feeling pretty good! One thing I've unquestionably learned through the years about {me and} improv., is to take advantage of the mood. Finish it out to a good stopping place and then more easily pack it away for a short time.

Looking better!

As most of you know, I am still dedicated to hand quilting on this more traditional HST Medallion quilt. I'm sure it's quite obvious where I got the impetuous for making a much more free looking hst medallion quilt at this particular moment in time! hehe  All these tidy little rows are starting to drive me crazy!

Starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel

I have been pushing myself very hard with the quilting on this one, stitching for up to three hours many, many evenings. No need to wonder at all why improv. has been especially alluring to me at the moment! The need to rest my hands, my brain and probably my resolution too? I finally took a couple days off over this past weekend and didn't feel guilty at all. 

It's a big quilt....

I have two more corners of stitching and then all that remains will be the flying geese border on the far outside of the quilt. I have been boot, scoot and boogying right along! For that border, I will probably switch to my q-snap frame that is just as long as the current one, though only about 7 inches wide. No need to have this huge frame for such a narrow width of stitching. It's time to think about the next quilt top to go in the hoop, but all I can think is that it better be an easy one. It I have learned one thing with hand quilting this quilt, it's to always end the thread somewhere besides at the top corner of an hst! You don't even want to know how many pieces of thread that I've had snap off right at the knot....

Inspiration

Just for fun the other night, I had to pull another stack and bury myself in fabric love! I tell myself that you can never really have too many of these and then I realized, there are three stacks in these approximate colors! Ahem! I'm sensing a theme? Must pull them all out and compare, then ditch the less-worthy stacks. Gotta save room on the counters and in the little totes for plenty of variety!

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? 

Needing a Creative Lift

This past weekend was a rare, quiet pocket of time for us. I took full advantage and was able to get this #AHIQFlowers challenge quilt up on the wall. If you look closely, it's obvious that the left side is mostly sewn together while the right side is still in a state of flux. And yes, some of it is pinned well above the design wall. We do what we have to do, don't we?

U&U quilt interpretation for #UHIQFlower challenge

I've been craving a good boost from creativity time, so it felt absolutely wonderful to piddle around on such an oddball, no-pressure sort of project. In the lower right corner there is an empty space where 'the flower' should end up. Normally I've tended to work on one long strip at a time, but at this point in the quilt, I thought it best to look ahead and plan out/balance the colors in advance. For comparison to the inspiration, I posted a pic back in August at the end of this post.

Parts of the design {can we seriously call this quilt 'intentionally designed?'}, are driving me crazy and so I'm ditching those particular areas. Skimming over them or just cleaning them up a bit. It's mostly the areas that look super chaotic and don't even make sense to re-create. It's my quilt so I can do that! It's at a point now where I want to leave it on the wall for a day or two before sewing. There's something that feels out of whack but I'm not sure exactly what needs to change in the mock-up.

Only two more new starts....

Lately I've been thinking longingly about the potential of having, literally, stacks of Christmas quilts, but that would be absolutely absurd, even for a prolific quilter. Right? So instead I decided to just make two--to go along with my other two sorta, kinda Winter/Christmas quilts that get pulled out during the season. It's pretty insane timing and who knows how far I'll actually get. The fabrics for the first one, based on the spotty quilt in the 'Unconventional & Unexpected' book pictured above, having been stacked up and hanging around for well over a year.

Definitely gonna add some green after the blocks are sewn

The problem is, I'm never in the mood to make Christmas quilts until December {if then}, and then there's even more crazy going on than normal. At the same time that these thoughts have been swirling around in my brain, I've also been thinking deep thoughts about those pesky oldish quilting fabrics which seem to want to swallow my stash whole. In an impulsive moment I dug through the green totes and pulled out three different, very tired stacks of green fabrics. They definitely need to be used up or just go away. I am so very weary of seeing some of these float around unused and unloved. For the first pile, I gleefully challenged myself to incorporate them into a Christmas quilt, which, yep! Is very good timing. See? Just have to work the angles and then we can easily convince ourselves any brand new start is a fabulous idea!

Already prewashed and soaked the reds!

But first! I made myself cross something off the list. I do have a tiny bit of discipline in this freewheeling quilty world of mine, believe it or not. The Roman Stripes quilt was started back in September as a result of a problematic stack of fabrics that was giving me troubles getting off the ground. It seemed to demand a complicated quilt pattern, but then could never quite gain any traction. Finally, I used a free Sharon Holland pattern {unfortunately not available any longer}, put out while she was promoting her latest book.

Uh oh, getting a lot of quilt tops on the to-be-quilted list!

I had thought to use it in a baby quilt and then couldn't get her instructions to cooperate with the way that I tend to buy fabric. Oh yeah. Same problem with making the throw quilt. But I didn't let it stop me, just kept cutting fabrics and making sure there were plenty of 'pairings'.

The smaller Roman Stripe quilt

Which led to enough blocks for two quilts! They are both the same length {76 1/2"}, but the first one, above, is only 59" wide while the second one, pictured below with an extra vertical row, is 66 1/2". It's really hard sometimes to make these quick scrappy-look quilts with fatquarters {the most frequent size of fabric I buy}. Instead of agonizing about it or trying to determine which fabrics would work better, I just made more sets and determined to work it out later.

This one is wider

There's something about this 'coins' pattern that really intrigues me. It's all very formal, yet the way that Sharon encouraged a light/dark fabric pairings, it has a wonderful flow to the stripes. I especially like the repetitive stacks of like fabrics with the occasional scrappy 'make-do' element mixed from using smaller pieces of fabrics. See? Nothing wrong with adapting a pattern to fit what you have available!

Loved adding the easy borders to wrap it all up

One thing that I've been wondering about lately is whether strips are pre-cut or free-cut, is there always going to be a certain amount of seams coming lose at the edges or long lengths of the quilt top? I thought it was mostly a free-cut strip issue, but no. Anytime there are lengths sewn and then cut or trimmed later, I'll have to go back here when joining the long rows and re-sew random seams starting to come loose. This is something I had forgotten. It's just part of quilting because even when you back stitch, if the fabric ends up being cut in the middle of the lengths, there goes the reinforcement. Ughh! Oh how it annoys me! But now maybe I won't isolate it to free-cut, improv. sewing and let it hinder me from new starts. There's just something about wonky strip sets that make my heart go pitter patter but I was starting to get a little resentful of the extra time that it takes to clean up those coming-loose seams.

So happy with these fabrics!

I'm not at all sorry to have two of these quilt tops {instead of one} as they should make wonderful comfort type quilts for friends in need of a quick pick-me-up. The colors are just that warm looking, with a cozy and comforting  vibe that should only improv. with quilting texture. So glad I didn't throw these fabrics back in the stash totes! It's good to have a couple comfort quilts out in front of me for once, and not have to be all in a rush one day throwing something together!

Kinda boring to sew together, but great fun seeing the top finished!

Now I'm thinking about making some quick little Barbie quilts for my granddaughter and possibly a doll quilt or two for the nieces. I really, really hate last minute DIY Christmas gifts, but sometimes with quilting, it's just pure fun to sew these little bitties. Especially when there's no expectation whatsoever. I think the first place I'll look is in the orphan block totes. Doesn't that sound fun? lol