Time to See All Those 2018 Finishes Together in One Post

Some years there are more finishes than others. The last two years have been especially good ones for bumping the oldest quilts off the list . It's often difficult to want to work on the oldy moldy quilt projects, but they never get any easier to work on by just ignoring them!

2018 Finishes

It's always great fun to slip a baby quilt or two into the mix and have a fast finish. And this year I even made an oversize doll quilt {hmm... is that actually a baby quilt too?}

2018 Finishes

As usual, I kept my hand quilting hoop busy all throughout the year {both of them, if you want to know the truth of it!}. It's become an oh-so-important part of my quilting journey and I can't even imagine life without that little bit of stitching time late in the evenings. Those peaceful, meditative hand quilting minutes have become something I unabashedly crave at times. It positively grounds me in the best way possible and dare I say, nourishes me as well.

2018 Finishes

The program used to group my picture collages didn't have a good 4-picture setting, so I put my Quilty 365 in two different groupings. It's been on our bed for quite awhile now. I adore waking up to it and then later in the day, snuggling back into bed with it once again. Move over husband dear, I got a good quilt now. lol  Sometimes I think that all my quilting years have led up to this one quilt, in terms of making a quilt that resonates on almost every single level.

2018 Finishes

Overall, I'm not sure how much these quilts represent 'me' as a whole--the way I've mixed up the old quilting projects with the new. It's something that I always find very interesting though, these end of the year quilt reviews. You pop over to someones page and in one click, get to see an entire lineup of the years finishes! What fascinates me the most, is the quilting voice that is always so immediately apparent! There's rarely any doubt whose quilt page you're viewing and that's the very best thing about this time of year. I bet most of us could look at any of these picture groupings and immediately tell what quilter made each of those quilts. Love that!

So now with the details: 2018 found me ending the year with 19 finishes again! That kind of suprised me as it didn't feel like so many. Yep, I was on a finishing mission once again. Trying to get some of those very old, not-as-interesting quilt tops out of my hair.*whew! It was very, extremely, tedious at times, I kid you not. Crossing my fingers things won't get quite that bogged down ever again! Want some year end statistics? I do like to keep track just for curiosities sake.

• 1 Doll quilt
• 2 Baby quilts
• 1 Comfort quilt
• 7 Lap quilts
• 8 Bed-sized quilts
• 6 quilts were completely hand quilted
• 9 quilts were a mix of machine and hand quilting
• 4 quilts were completely machine quilted

By the end of the year I had also given away 17 quilts, a mixture of new and old quilts. That was a little nerve-wracking at times. My family lives in dread that they'll wake up one morning and all our quilts will have been given away! hehe  One was given for a church raffle, for helping to make money to buy their building. Still waiting to see who winds up with that one as I do like to keep track of where my quilts end up!

Lots of ideas for the next year. Stacks of fabric that have been simmering on the counters for months and months and need a little bit of attention. Mostly I just intend to quilt the things that I find interesting without getting too far into the weeds with those pesky squirrels! There are 5 or 6 open-ended quilt projects that will hopefully get wrapped up and around and around we go. I loved diving into the orphan blocks totes and intend to try that some more of that. Adhoc. Improv. is definitely still a happening thing and umm..., there is a scrap bin monster that just has to be addressed soon. No ifs ands or buts about it! Taking up way too much room over there in the corner of my quilt room.*sigh Oh, and don't forget about those oh-so-tempting QAL's popping up all over blogland. Probably gonna join in on with the Unconventional & Unexpected one and also, Lori's String Quiltalong. Sounds like a good start to me!

Take One Out of the Hoop, Put Another One Right Back In....

Time to put another quilt in the hoop! Once the Christmas tree goes up, there is zero room on the living room floor for pinning larger quilts. And hello? One thing that does not need to happen around here during the holidays is an empty hoop! Those of you who enjoy hand quilting, totally know what I'm talking about. lol

Rising Sun quilt

I put all the names of those interested in the Kaffe floral vase panel {offered in the previous post},in a bowl today and drew out the lucky person. Congratulations GranChris! You are the winner! I'll get it into the mail asap after getting your mailing address.

Looking a little closer

It was wonderful to pull this quilt top out and finally start making a plan for quilting. I had a very good pattern I was following for this particular quilt and then... Well, it just wasn't working for me anymore. During the making of it, I finally stumbled into a better solution {for me} and then had to laugh at myself for being so contrary about following a pattern. Growing pains are not always easy to transition through are they?

Loving the sashing fabric I won long ago
from Barb

And really, I think those growing pains might still be happening around here. I don't feel quite as betwixt and between as before, but there's still this underlying restlessness that I deal with pretty often in regards to quilting decisions. Especially in terms of starting in on new quilts. I second guess myself all of the time. There are so many quilting ideas hanging out in my head and I really, really don't want to waste time on quilts that won't matter a lot to me in the long run.

A few false starts and now I've got it figured out....

Which I guess is pretty much the way I was feeling with the Basket Medallion quilt. So sad because it was a great learning quilt for me. Thankfully, I only have one other much older quilt top in the queue these days. All the rest only go back a year or two! And I have to remember that there is very real value in the learning and doing. It's how we get to the next step of amazing ourselves with our wonderful creativity!

The Basket Medallion quilt is completed!!

And you really can't go wrong with a quilt that has basket blocks in it! Right? Always a place for these in our repertoire. You better believe that I am not done making basket quilts any time soon.

Little basket blocks making up the last border

Plus, this is a medallion quilt. Something that I still love and adore making up as I go along. There are like a million different ways to work through a medallion style quilt and pretty much none of them are wrong. I am sure there are many, many more medallion quilts in my future....

A close up of the hand quilting...

Very fun to work out the math. Play with various options in size and proportions. Get each pieced border to attach to the previous one like it was always meant to be.

And a closer look at the more subdued center baskets...

Sure, if I could do things over, I'd change a few things about this particular quilt. For instance, the yellow sawtooth border has a funny way of turning and going around the corner. I didn't really know what else to do with it, but it bugs me just a little.

Six borders in all, counting the coping borders

And I'd probably place the black hourglass corner blocks so that they were all presenting the same direction. Maybe. But maybe not. I've always loved the energy and whimsy of them being different. One of my favorite things about any quilt is including something that feels unexpected.

The last larger quilt finish for 2018!

The very best thing about Basket Medallion quilt being finished is now I can mark it off the list! It won't be nagging me or haunting me anymore and that feels so... good. Other than the doll quilt and a couple pot holders I'm making for my mom, this will be my last finish for 2018. 

Linking up with the Peacock Party over at Wendy's Quilts and More. It's a new 'quilt share' linkup with a more laid back philosophy than most linky parties. Gotta love that this time of year!

A Doll Quilt, a Giveaway and Progress on the 6in6in2018

I had determined to make my granddaughter a doll quilt for Christmas this year. Several fabric pulls later and I was almost gagging over the sweetness of everything chosen. I have so few conversation prints and things were looking a wee bit grim. Then Linda's post popped up and that's all it took. That centerpiece....

The doll quilt top is completed! 32" square, made
for use with a 'My Life' doll

So I went digging through the stash totes, trying to find what looked to be the perfect start to a simple doll quilt. I knew I had one of these somewhere and what do you know, it totally fits the bill of being sweet, girly and yet, super easy to add bright, sassy colors to! You can see from the pic below that the original fabric pull had a green fabric that ultimately did not look very good. Sometimes I take that I-love-clash-in-my-quilts a little too far, even for me!

The first scrappy audition didn't work out so well....

It took me awhile to stumble upon the perfect fabric to add into the quilt. One that wouldn't just make a scrappy, mushy mess. {See the blue print I exchanged for the green in the quilt pic below.} That oddball blue fabric really surprised me, but when something works, why bother arguing! I figured out pretty quickly that three repeats weren't going to be enough and cut another square. Yep. That did it.  Everything just sort of locked into place. I apologize for the murky pictures, but as I was working through the late afternoon into early evening, the light just got worse and worse. And you know me, no way would I ever stop working on a quilt just so that I could a great looking picture!

When they sell this particular panel, it comes in a 41-42" length as per usual when it comes to fabric. The panel repeat itself is only about 14" square though, and that makes for one extra 'usable' panel and also a bit of waste as the remaining panel ends up being cut off at a weird spot. {I also prewash and dry my fabric, thus a bit of shrinkage!} Since this has been such a fast, fun little project, I'd like to offer my remaining panel to one of the readers of this blog!  Wanna try your hand at playing with one of these?

If you are at all interested in winning this panel, just let me know in a comment below, and I'll draw a winner sometime next week. If you can't leave a comment for whatever reason, just email me at audkateaster at gmail dot com and I'll enter you into the drawing with all the other names. Also, please, please leave your email address within the comment if you might possibly be a no-reply commentor. Blogger is being fickle again and I don't have all your email addresses readily available!

For those of you who are perfectionists {you know who you are!}, please be aware that this panel is not going to be 'perfectly' centered without chopping off some of the edges of the flower motif. My panel happened to be cut very narrow when I bought it--as you can see if you look closely at the pictures. Not a problem for me, but perhaps could be an intensely annoying issue for you! I will also try to ship to an international address, but not if the cost ends up being prohibitive. Just saying....

A little bit of deep stash digging and a better fabric was found.

Okay, enough of that business. Time for checking in with progress on the 6in6in2018. Honestly, it's  been a little haphazard around here. The thing is, I'm actually feeling pretty good about the total years accumulation. Yeah, about that. Would you believe that all Six of the older quilt projects on the list have been finished up or at the very least moved way down the road toward total completion?

Basket Medallion a 2018 finish!

The Basket Medallion quilt has finally made it to the finish line.*whew....  I really had to grit my teeth and dig in to stay motivated. Such a tough quilt for me to work on. I made the very last stitch in the binding just last night, so I even made good with my determination to finish up by the end of November. Yay!  But now it needs washed and dried so I can take some good pictures to show you. It's not an unlovable quilt. Not at all! It just happens to be a style or color palette that I've sort of outgrown or burnt out on? Or something. The X border is my favorite part of the whole quilt. Love that! And the binding ended up being the perfect touch. An older, reproduction style print that needed used up and was exactly the colors I was looking for. Win, win.

Cream quarter circle orphan units made into something interesting.

The only other 'need-to' work on project for the 6in6 list was the blocks above. Early in the year, I had put these leftover cream quarter circle units on the list. Just for a challenge. Slowly, slowly I have hand stitched all the bits and pieces together. And now, these chunky, naive looking, New York beauty blocks are emerging right before my eyes. Just like I imagined in my head. Loving these blocks so much! Now I'm crossing my fingers they will look as good together as I desperately want them too. 

39 blocks sewn together out of 64! And all that's left to stitch down are the yellow/gold arcs, so things are moving fairly quickly. When I sit down to stitch, I can complete about five {or more} an hour and it's absolutely stress free. No awkward, deep dive curves {or precise, tidy corners} which makes me so, very, very happy! This project won't actually be a completed quilt top by the end of 2018, but if these blocks all make it to a finish, then that's something to feel really good about too. Off to check out the 6in6in2018 November linkup over at Meredithe's! So glad I went ahead and stuck with this challenge throughout the year. Always good to see real, steady progress!

A Very Yellow Post

I have so enjoyed hand quilting on Quarter Circles Round #2. There's just something about this bold, in-your-face yellow quilt that makes me smile. Today has seen the first stage of the binding sewn on and surprisingly, {at least to me}, it's going to be red. Two striped pieces of homespun straight from the stash.

Ready for binding

More and more, I pull binding fabrics from the stash. Even if I have to use four to six fabrics? Who cares. I certainly don't! It just helps to add charm and homemade flavor to many quilts.

Next up in the hoop is the Basket Medallion quilt. The first post I could find concerning this quilt was from February 2013. This is one that I regret not getting quilted much, much sooner. You know, like during the time I was still enthused about it? Yeah, it wasn't always this way.

Starting in the  middle--already have the
top two baskets quilted!

I had a enormous amount of fun while building this quilt. It was something that kept me very engaged and I even typed up one of my rare tutorials, all about how to make pieced borders fit properly. A couple people asked and I gave it my level best. Most replied back that it did actually make sense, and might even help them just a little bit with future projects. That was pretty cool, even though tutorials are mind-numbingly time consuming....

Trying to figure out how to quilt that yellow sawtooth border....

Medallions are still one of my very favorite style of quilts as I'm sure you've all noticed. I love 'em! There's almost always one or two medallion style quilts in the works around here and often, I'm busy behind the scenes planning out yet another one. They totally, unashamedly, make my motor run.

But somehow, somewhere, through the depths of time, I've lost connection to this particular quilt. Maybe it's the old color palette that doesn't have enough happy in it to suit me these days. Whatever.  It was on my 2018 absolutely-gonna-get-it-finished-up list and by George, it's gonna happen. Too much money for professional long arm work {on something I feel 'meh' about}, I'm horrible at machine quilting and well, yeah. Guess that leaves hand quilting.

Most borders should quilt up easy peasy....

Which will only make it look nicer. I know!! It's gonna be fine and probably, like always, I'll fall back in love and get all sappy and sweet and you'll want to gag. But it will be crossed off the list and someday I'll even find the perfect person to gift it to. You know I will. That being said, I'm gonna push hard on this one 'cuz I want it done before December happens. Oooh, do I ever....

Love this giveaway so much!

On a different note, I won another giveaway! So much fun. I've been entering giveaways over at Okan Arts for like, forever. Always good stuff to drool over. This giveaway was one Uppercase magazine and a copy of the new Little U magazine from the same publisher. I've been eyeballing the Uppercase magazines for a long time now so am thrilled to get the addition with an article about quilts made out of wooden pieces! Now, thanks to Patricia Belyea and her generous spirit, I have some great weekend reading! Someday I would love to browse through her store in Seattle, if ever the opportunity presented itself....

The Basket Medallion Seems to be a Finished Quilt Top

After much delay and procrastination, the Basket Medallion is a completed quilt top!  It comes out to 76 1/2" square which is a bit smaller than I thought it would be originally.  I make most of my quilts so they can be used as functional bed quilts and this one seems a tad on the smallish side.  Definitely usable, but small.

Top finished on Basket Medallion!

What can I say.  It seems to be telling me it's a finished quilt top and who am I to argue? I love making medallion quilts because I never really know where I'm going to end up.  I have a feeling I'll be making many more of these in years to come!

I was pushing a bit to get something done before my next crazy, busy weekend (gotta love monster big families with all the nephew & niece graduations/family bbq's/celebrations etc.) when I sewed the last border on. Ta da! Then realized that I had two blocks side by side with identical background fabrics.  Since the entire border is made up of about twelve different background fabrics, I couldn't leave them side by side bonding like that.  Even though it's all brown, there should be subtle variations so the eye doesn't instantly gravitate there in puzzlement and concern! Needless to say, I was not happy to be using my seam ripper, but it was an easy fix all things considering.

I'm still not sure about that 'glowing' yellow border, but this is one problem area that quilting should more than take care of.  If I do it right.  And if I use the proper color thread!  Hmm.... Thankfully not a decision I have to worry about right now as this quilt top is way down on the list.

Hmm...  How did this happen?

I did end up with the striped fabric for the coping border after all too.  So unadventurous!  There was more than enough of it in my stash and it looked fine when auditioned.  More importantly, coping borders are my least favorite area to hand quilt unless they are sewn with striped fabric.  Hey, I know my strengths and weaknesses.  Why not make it as easy for myself as possible? lol

Basket Medallion Border Work and Orphan Block Fun

I have the Flower Pot basket border almost ready to sew onto the Basket Medallion quilt now.  All four border units are sewn together and just basically waiting on me to make a decision about the fabric for the coping border.  Maybe another striped fabric?  While it's true that I don't want all my quilts to start looking like identical twins, I am actually considering using the same sashing fabric I used in this quilt.

Flower Pot basket blocks ready for border

It's hard to see in the pictures, but these mixed brown fabrics are really rich and dreamy looking compared to the paler yellows used in the quilt.  I was a little worried about how some of the fabrics would look up next to the reds, but it's all behaving very well together.*whew  Kind of makes me want a Hershey bar for afternoon snack though!

All 4 borders ready to go...

Then I got a bright idea about those leftover 9-patches that kept catching the corner of my eye every time I ironed something.  Good tip for the future:  Keep orphan blocks in a clear Ziploc just out of plain sight, but where you can still see tiny little glimpses of them. Very alluring with all that potential greatness!

A slight diversion of plans

I somehow went a bit crazy and ended up with way too many of these blocks back when I was working on this Material Obsession quilt.  Me and 9-patches?  Well, I don't think we quite know when to quit.

36 scrappy blocks of goodness

They quickly sewed together into a nice little stack of goodness which had me positively rubbing my hands in glee!  Amazing how fast blocks can go together when you don't have to bother with cutting fabric.  Then I had to dig around and find a good fabric to frame the blocks and make sure they didn't all mush together.  Maybe I'm getting too reliant on sashing lately?  There was a time I refused to have any whatsoever in my quilts....

Going together very fast!

Anyway, I want to reassure you that I haven't forgotten any the projects on my LIST.  Those of you who like to practice project monogomy and get irritated by all this hop, skip, jumping around, this is just a very slight diversion.  Nothing important at all.*wink

Flower Pot Basket Progress

The Flower Pot basket blocks are slowly, but surely getting sewn together.  So many little pieces to put in the proper position!  I always chain piece where I can and that seems to make things go faster.

Chain piecing the Flower Pot blocks

I'm probably going to put these blocks on point which means I will need 28 more than what I previously had pieced together.  Of course, no decision is ever firm until I get a chance to lay things out and audition the blocks properly!  I'm also pretty sure I don't have a good fabric to use for the coping strip either, which means I will have to get very creative or make a run to the quilt store with my fingers crossed.  Our local quilt stores doesn't exactly carry a lot of this type of fabric.

Almost done!

I have had to do some end of the quarter book work in the office the last couple days and then yesterday I finally got serious and made a 'real' grocery list.  Other than picking up the essentials, I hadn't been grocery shopping for close to a month.*yikes  The grocery list itself took almost two hours to put together and then my husband and I didn't get away from the house until almost 8 pm.  Rather late to grocery shop, but we're having vehicle problems lately, the kids are extremely busy with practices/games and running every which direction and well, it just happened that way.

Takes me back to the days when my kids were very young and I actually chose to go grocery shopping late in the evenings (after the kids had gone to bed and their daddy was home to keep a watch on them)! Now days, I have to admit, I much prefer to go grocery shopping when the quilt shop is open and I can stop in for a quick look around.  Mothers do need the occasional reward for good behavior you know.*wink

Oh yes, I'm keeping the giveaway open till Thursday.  Stop by and comment for a chance to win!

Be Still My Heart!

The entire time I've been working on the Basket Medallion quilt, I've thought that one of the last rows would have to be basket blocks. Using an echo block in the border work is a very old medallion quilt trick that helps pull everything together. The Flower Pot block is very close to the block I used in the centerpiece of this project and it finishes out at a good 5".

Cutting for 5" Flower Pot blocks

Right now the Basket Medallion is at 55 1/2" square so 'nuff said about that.  I decided to cut out eight blocks to audition not only the size (proportion is always a worry) but also the fabrics I settled on.  I have struggled a bit because right from the start I kept the color range of this quilt in a very narrow window.

Tops of Flower Pot blocks sewn

The last thing I want is for my quilt to reflect back at me in a dull, uninteresting manner.  Come on!  Sparkle at me and make me look more than once! Otherwise, what's the point in continuing forward? I didn't get very far before the fabrics I chose were already working their magic on me.  There's just something about creams and tans mixed with madder reds that get to me every single time.  It's like drinking chamomile tea for other people I suppose.*wink

Flower Pot blocks in 2 pieces

Then the blocks were almost completed and I could see that regardless of what they looked like with this quilt, they were definitely keepers.  Seriously, who can resist little basket blocks?

Audition #1

I auditioned them in a straight side-by-side setting initially and wowsers!  Loving that look already!

Audition #2

Then I auditioned them in an on-point setting (which would require a narrow coping strip and more work) and stepped back.  Uh oh.  I can see I'm in real trouble now......

And around the corner....

There is no way I'm making this decision overnight!  Be still my heart!  It's just baskets. lol

More Pictures of the Turning Twenty Quilt

I know it's a simple little quilt, but I am in love with all the texture from the stitching.  I tried and tried to get good pictures and even let my husband show me a few little tricks with the camera.  Not that it helped too much, 'cuz the quilt looks better in person than in my pics.  But I DID try. lol

I'm calling it 'Sweet Dreams'.

Every striped fabric patch has a different (casually drawn) flower stitched onto it.  The light catches on the variegated thread that I used and really makes them stand out.  You know, if you're actually in the same room with the quilt!  Oh well.  I'm sure if you click on the pics, you can see the detail better, but don't feel that you have to.  I wanted the pics for my blog diary because I know I'll forget after the quilt has been gifted and long gone.

All washed up with that crinkly goodness.

On a completely different note, I finally finished up the 4th border on my Basket Medallion quilt.  It's a double saw-tooth border that I sewed up with scrappy pale yellows and tans.  I kind of like it and then, I kind of don't.  I have ideas for the next border (which definitely influenced the 4th border), so we'll see if it all comes together in the end.

4th border of Basket Medallion

Sometimes the end result is better than I ever imagined and then there are the times that I cringe and go looking for my seam ripper.  Only time will tell with this one!

Working on the Basket Medallion

I have been enjoying the Temecula Quilt Co. quilts popping up all over blogland and thought I'd try a similar X-shaped block for the next border of my Basket Medallion quilt.  The pattern I wanted to use asked that the inside rectangles be cut out on the bias with templates and you know me.  Bah humbug on the templates if I can possibly get out of using them!

The next border on Basket Medallion

 So...... somehow I ended up with a measuring miscalculation and the rectangles were too short.  What to do, what to do?  I had the block repeat measurement correct so I didn't want to end up with smaller blocks and then have to chop one block down resulting in awkward corner solutions.  haha.  Me?

Detail of border...

Okay, yes.  It's not something I'd normally be too upset about, but this quilt seems a bit too formal for that.  I decided to ditch the now too little corner triangles and cut newer, bigger ones so that my X-shaped block would now have a floating effect and my blocks could be the correct size to fit onto the previous border properly.

Sometimes mistakes actually make things better....

In the meanwhile, I realized that I had used up all of a couple of my cream fabrics.  Oh well.  Substitutions here we come.  And, get this--I love it!  I know it's hard to see in the pictures, but it adds another layer of interest to the quilt with the faint, random snowball look.  Some day I will think of these things before I have to make a mistake in order to get it figured out.*wink

Auditioning next border...

The next border needs to be a narrow strip of fabric without any piecing--just sort of frame the quilt and pull things together.  I'm still working as much as possible from my stash totes and the first fabric was the best I had come up with out of about 6-8 fabrics.

Auditioning yet another fabric....

Then I found the madder red stripe fabric!  Woohoo!  That's it.  That's the one I've been looking for! Unfortunately I only have one fat quarter piece of it, so this time I'm prepared to measure once, twice and then probably a third time for good luck.....

Totally Distracted

I definitely have some ufq's that are on a list just waiting to be crossed off.  You know the LIST.  It is supposed to help bring focus and organization into the quilting room.  Uh huh.  It's sorta, kind of working.  Occasionally.  I worked on the Vertical Basket quilt panels for a bit....

 2 Vertical Basket panels

Then I went ahead and cut out my applique pieces for the red and blue scrap attack quilt.  They even have the little snips in the curved areas so that they are completely ready to go.  Yay me!

All ready for the next step....

But the real distraction seems to be ahhh... apparently the Basket Medallion quilt.  It keeps capturing my attention and getting in the way of focus and dedication......

Basket Medallion center

It's not like the colors in this quilt are dazzling or anything brilliant like that.  I think it must be the whole medallion thing that is making my brain spin like crazy.

1st border on Basket Medallion

It's so terribly interesting and challenging to think about what another border should look like!  At least right now it is.  The best medallion quilts always seem complete 'as is' until you add the next border on and realize how much better it looks with the new addition.  Then you add on another border and another border until the quilt says enough already or it gets embarrassingly large and unwieldy.  That's the real challenge of course--adding on something that makes everything before look even better than you thought possible!  And of course, knowing when to quit.*wink

Hmm.... what next?

So that's why I'm linking up with Favorite Things Friday over at Quilting in My Pyjamas.  Her post totally made me laugh as it seems I'm doing much the same thing as she is this week. lol