Coronacrazy Made it to the Totally Finished Up Stage!

Finally got the Coronacrazy quilt completely finished up! It's one that I started just after the lockdowns happened in 2020. Basically just went out on a limb with the rows of arcs or 'hills'. Really no clue what was going to happen from there!

Another 2024 finish!

Lots and lots of applique in the quilt. It was so very time consuming. But what else did I have to do at that time? ha!

The outside flowers are my fave

Later on, after adding on the leaves in the outside border, I discovered that one of the fabrics used was a bleeder. That didn't make me very happy. After struggling with all the ways it could be addressed, I just went ahead and took those 5-6 leaves off and soaked them until the dye was done bleeding out. Very annoying to have to 'redo' any work at all, but much better than ruining my quilt over something so simple.

Will probably have to keep this one for myself...

Although I generally wash my quilts directly after finishing up the binding, this time I've decided to wait till later. Just want to enjoy it for awhile and not have to worry about something else giving me problems. Like maybe one of those orphaned flowers stitching into the center of the quilt? Ughh.  Don't want to take the chance right now! 

So awesome to see all the orphans being used up!

It's such a sweet quilt. Hard to believe it was started during a time when my mind was practically exploding with worries and stress!

Never know where I'll end up these days...

Love seeing the texture from the hand quilting take shape and give it all a little bit more depth. It's definitely a quilt that needed the little bit extra time and effort.

Still love the quilt colors too

I've also got my Gold Crossroads quilt ready for the last bit of binding stitching. I ended up doing a crosshatch pattern throughout all of the quilt except for the circles. Love the simplicity and old timey charm it brings to the quilt! And the colors of this quilt just kill me. Love how soft, sweet and cozy it feels to me. This is a quilt that I just sighed into every time I was adding quilting stitches. Very relaxing to work on!

A cozy look to this one

I've also been working a little bit almost every day on the Old Fashioned Wildflowers quilt. Have all of the vine work stitched down and am working on the flowers and leaves now. I thought {so optimistically} it would only take a week to do all of the hand stitching, but it's going to be tough to even finish it in two weeks and three is more like it. Really wanted to plow through this before getting to the hand work on my Bramble Blooms quilts.

Still enjoying the background blocks for the base

Which have actually seen a bit of work too. There is now an extra 2 1/2" on each of the outside border rows of the BBII-A quilt. It's a very subtle cream and lt. tan, every other square addition but I think it works well for basically expanding the area for the vine detail. 

An easy way to make it larger and not detract

It's one of those things that I didn't want to do, but now I'm thinking it adds something special to the quilt. Will definitely lift the overall look of the quilt. Bonus!

Now for the applique!!

Lots of quilting stuff on the list and mustn't forget, a quilt project for my SIL too, which has a Christmas deadline. Why oh why do I do these things to myself? 

A New Basket Quilt

If life wasn't busy enough, I took 10 days and went to my daughters in Oklahoma. She had almost all of the days planned and then of course, there's a granddaughter there! Um., yeah. Quilting took the back seat in a hurry!

All the baskets are done

I took two applique projects with me and managed to work only one of them. This is the new 'Folksy Trees and Baskets' quilt that was started from cut-outs from a previous quilt. You know me and my proclivity to start brand new quilts from the cut-outs and leftovers from previous quilts. Just can't seem to help myself! 

Good times!

Anyway, I'm back home now. Bags are unpacked and I'm catching up on laundry etc. etc.. I wanted to get one more applique project wrapped up before diving full speed into BB2 but we'll see. I'm definitely running out of time on my self imposed deadline! 

Taking Some Time Off!

 I've been puttering around, sewing the wedges together from a project that got cut too small. It just seems like a waste to have it sit in the orphan totes forever. The plan is to hand applique these wheels to a background block and then figure out a center circle fabric. Perhaps blue? Some of the Dresdens are a little bit wonky, but I'm crossing my fingers the hand work will ease it out.

The new applique project

In other news, my mother got this lovely quilt in the mail a couple weeks ago. One of my cousins had found these old blocks when she was going through her late mothers belongings. 

A quilt made from my grandmothers blocks

They were hand pieced by grandmother years and years ago, and had never quite made it to quilt top stage.

Making do, making it work!

My cousin quite generously paid to have someone sew these blocks together and then finished into a completed quilt top! Then, in the sweetest of sweet things to do, mailed it off to my mother. 

Takes me back to the days of
fighting over my grandmas quilts
to sleep under....

My mother was very appreciative and actually in tears as all of the quilts from her mother had burned in the 2014 fire. I especially love the 'mistake' block, don't you? Many of my grandmothers quilts used cut up remnants of clothing the family wore and greens were always a favorite of hers to make quilts out of. My mother said the Drunkards Path was one of her moms favorite unit to work with and that she had made several different quilts with it through the years. So many of her quilts have been lost, either to fire or to mildew from improper care of them after they had moved back to Oklahoma in the late 70's.

As usual, I have been a busy, busy girl this summer. Starting to sound a little whiny with it I'm sure! This is a picture of me after I had thrown together an apron to wear at another cousins wedding. A couple of my sisters and I had to man the kitchens and replenish the buffet table after the wedding. A little ironing and it was all set to go!

I'm taking the rest of August off from blogging as there is simply too much on the schedule to keep up. Take care and keep quilting! I'll probably check in on your blogs and lurk if I have a spare minute or two...

Summertime Happenings

Towards the end of June, we left on a 12 day trip. Before leaving, there was {of course} a mad rush to get the quilting sorted out so it would be easier to dive back in later. You know how us quilters think! 

Ready to the last little bit of handwork!

The funny thing was, I totally forgot about some of the prep work that had happened and so had to spend some time spinning my wheels anyway. These two little baby quilts had all the hand quilting finished up and just needed some binding attached. Thankfully I found the cut out and sewn binding in their neat little rolls just before I started cutting out a second batch. Seriously, where is my brain these days? Will have to find a good day to do the last little bit of hand sewing the binding down, but these are getting closer and closer to a true-blue finish!

When an idea starts on the floor

Two is not enough though. There is one more needed before the end of Julyd! I had a really great improv. idea all figured out and then when I got back from the trip, my brain was on severe overwhelm. Then one day I decided to dig through the orphan bits and pieces that had been set aside up a couple of months ago. Maybe one would be a good start for a baby quilt? 

Starting to take shape

This large applique block and the four churn dash blocks were given to me years and years and years ago in a larger box of cast aside fabrics. I have always liked them and thought to make a throw pillow out of the applique especially. Hmm... This baby quilt is a much better idea!

Did you notice how I put the hst on the corners of the border?

Even the blue fabric squares were abandoned from some late project or other so really, all that was needed was the in-between bits. At first I had zero intention of adding in the tan homespun fabric around the middle section, but something seemed to be missing. And then after that jumped into the quilt, well.... of course the yellow-gold cornerstones had to go too. At that point I was shutting out the lights in my quilting room to go to bed. 

Latest in the hoop!

And then something niggling in the back corner of my brain kind of spoke up and insisted that the cornerstones had to be a much brighter, happier blue than the one that I had chosen.*sigh  All the seam ripping just kinda gets exhausting sometimes! haha  I cut out mock-ups for the evening and went ahead and shut things down for the night. Next morning, I went ahead and made the changes for real, adding the same brighter blue over the top of the center circle in the applique too. Yep! That sealed the deal perfectly. Now it's all sewn together and in the hoop. Hope you can see how sweet and cozy this little baby quilt looks already!

A little bit of applique

Thankfully I took a bag of hand work with me on the trip, though I only managed to squeeze in time for nine blocks! Always soothes the soul to have some pretty fabric in my hands for those moments when there's nothing much else to do. I can't seem to hand stitch in the car like before I got my bifocal glasses. Just gives me a headache and doesn't seem worthwhile!

We love seeing the ocean

We went to my nieces wedding, which was absolutely beautiful. Love seeing the happiness of a young couple starting their new life together! After a long weekend there, my husband returned home and my youngest daughter and I started off on 'her' adventure. 

I drove these winding roads some my daughter could gawk
to her hearts content

She had it all mapped out and asked me to come along for the ride and a chance to see my 80 year old aunts. So sweet of her! We left Oregon and headed to California, taking a scenic side-trip along a little of the coast road HWY 101 and through the northern California redwoods. 

We loved getting a chance to hug these beauties

We managed to find time to hug one of these ancient trees and stand in awe of how totally magnificent they all are. I have been trying to go light on the pictures, but the mass of tree roots just from the trees lying down were larger than the car we were driving! And these trees!! They are so tall it practically gave us a neck ache simply trying to see the tops of these things. Wowsers, are they tall...

This was an incredible day

After a wonderful two and a half days with my aunties, we made our way back north again, touring through the redwoods once again even though that took extra time. Somehow my daughter also persuaded me to take a short hike through one of the forests, which is something my entire family could not believe. Me? Taking a hike? Very, very worthwhile though as we got to see more details of the beautiful redwood trees than we would have from the highway. Wish we could have had more days there!

A misty morning when we left

Totally surprising me {because I hadn't been paying enough attention to the itinerary}, we stayed for the night in Eureka, California at a landmark, historical inn. It was a fabulous experience and felt very surreal staying where a few presidents and a prime minister stayed once upon a time. 

Pro tip: Never leave home without the handwork bag!

Somewhere we picked up a nail in our car tire and ended up at a tire shop for almost three hours. Bah humbug. Look at me all relaxed and happy doing my applique regardless of the inconvenience! haha

Beautiful rocky beach here too

After the tire fix, we were in a time crunch. That meant we kept making short little stops along the coast line to gaze in rapture at the ocean instead of more leisurely visits like we originally supposed. One time we had made a hurried dash down the path to the ocean and a couple on their way to the beach started to turn around when right when we headed back. They thought it wasn't worth the hike down as we had returned so quickly! No, totally worthwhile, we just needed to jet!

An hour or two out from our camping spot

That was the day we were supposed to make our way to Winchester Bay, Oregon to meet up with some of my siblings who camp there every Fourth of July. My daughter still goes every year though my husband and I haven't made it there for over ten years! Anyway, long story short, she convinced me to end our adventure there with the fam and actually sleep in a tent for two nights. Uh huh. I told myself over twenty years ago that I was never, ever sleeping in a tent again, but yah. There I was. Thankfully she brought cots for the both of us and one of my sisters did the sweetest thing, she loaned me a skinny piece of memory foam for more padding. Yay! Two nights was about my max for these older hips of mine, but the worst part was probably having to get up in the wee hours of the morning and trek to the public bathrooms. Uggh. So not my thing. Much fun to hang out with four of my sisters and their families though! Loved, loved that part. Don't tell anyone, but I would probably do it all again in a heartbeat just for the good times!

Okay, that's it. A short recap of my incredible summer adventure! Wish my husband could have come along with us, but it was truly delightful, getting to spend this wonderful time with my amazing daughter.

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...

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!