Getting Caught Up On the Big Basket Series

Gather Ye Roses is the first finish of the year! Yay! This quilt is the first in my big basket series, but somehow the last to be a true blue finish. For some reason, I was intimidated at the thought of quilting all that 'blank' cream space around the basket. After stitching on the other two though, then it all felt so much easier. Amazingly enough, procrastination does occasionally pay off...

These quilting lines are 'eyeballed', not carefully
measured out for accuracy and precision....

And though I liked this quilt, it had become the least favorite of the three. Why in the world? It looks ever so better with the hand quilting than it did as a quilt top! Not sure why that continues to be a problem for me after so many years, under-appreciating the effect that quilting texture can just generally bring to the table. A quilt top can look so well..., lifeless before the quilting. There's just no comparison and really, no possible way to imagine the entirety of the final results.

Gather Ye Rosebuds the first finish of 2020!
Big Basket #1

The whiter areas of the basket handle continue to amuse me. Should there have been an extra stitch or two down the middle of the basket handle in order to dull all that brighter area? I decided not to, time and again. Second guessing just gets tiresome. I decided that it makes for an extra interesting element, having the basket handle fade in and out of the background. In years to come, it will no doubt become another one of those 'what-was-the-quilter-thinking?' questions we all love to ponder.

Gather Ye Roses. Or whatever else flower you might love...

I quickly figured out that making large baskets for a centerpiece would create all sorts of problems in the border areas. Proportion, proportion, proportion! I emphatically did not want these quilts to all be king sized! In the first quilt, I kept to a simple, much smaller basket block repeat on two sides. The purposeful asymmetrical look resulted from adding 1. a different color border on two sides, 2. a larger border width on those two sides, 3. a distinctively different design application in the break from blocks to applique vines. Easy peasy, but yes, involving a lot of different design decisions.  Should do this more often. Love, love a good asymmetrical border application....

A few little flowers in the baskets...

Working with an asymmetrical design idea also totally ended the dilemma of what to do about a long gawky basket surrounded by too-narrow borders. Which just made the basket look even more awkward and weird. So what to do? More borders? One fabric add ons? Ugghh.. I just wanted it to look interesting and somehow maximize the effect of the super large basket. Seriously though, all along I was hinging the entire success of the quilt on the hope that the final quilting stitching would create important depth and texture there in the centerpiece. So, so happy when that came to fruition....

It's hard to tell from the pictures, but all the brown in the applique area is made up of several different brown fabrics. Very subtle difference, but something that I find much more compelling than using all the same fabric. From a distance, the change from medium to darker brown creates depth and movement in the quilt, and close up, it just gives it that utility 'make-do look'. In my opinion, that adds to the sneaky charm of this quilt, the overall coziness, not having everything come off as matchy-matchy.

Possible rosebuds on the vine?

Of course, the fact that I didn't actually have enough brown fabric in any one piece of yardage helped make those decisions come about more easily. However, if it was a truly awful idea {after carefully auditioning whatever there was available from the stash}, I do know where the fabric store is. Rare though it may be, I have taken that option once or twice before in my life! How much more rewarding {for me, can't speak for you!} to find a good use for fabrics languishing away in the stash totes. 

Mixing several different blendy-type, printed fabrics that have a similar color feel to them is a puzzle, but being able to totally use them up and maybe even have to search out more feels great. I love it! I mean, it's not like you'd actually consciously build a quilt around these fabrics, right? Ahem, yeah. Quick disclaimer, I might actually starting to do this very thing, just for fun? lol  For example though,  the brown fabric with the tiny white flower on the corner of the quilt was a 90's look print that I had been trying to use up for years. Why toss the idea of finally getting to use it, when it's an absolutely perfect match for this particular quilt? Oh, there's obviously not enough, bummer. Guess we'll give that idea up. No! Find some fabrics that play reasonably well with that one wonderful print  and make it work. 

Nothing helps out a red, white a blue quilt better
than the perfect amount of brown...

The sweetest thing about this quilt might be the words with the red flowers nearby. Not all the flowers are rosebuds of course, but the sentiment still makes me happy. Words to live by! The binding is several random lengths from the leftovers binding tote and a couple other scrappy pieces of red fabric that blended well. So easy to go scrappy on a quilt like this. Although it never really, truly reduces the sheer amount of leftover binding lengths does it?  Not in the long run. No matter how much I kid myself, there always seems to be just a little bit leftover to dump straight back into the tote.*sigh  Maybe it's like sourdough starter....

That soft, striped homespun was a bear to work with
but looks so good in the background position!

So there you go. That's the sum total of the Big Basket Series {thus far}. Gather Ye Rosebuds was the first Big Basket in the series to be a completed quilt top, but the last one totally finished up. Improv. Woven Basket, below, was the second quilt top and the first one totally finished up.

Improv. Woven Basket, Big Basket #2

Big Tipsy Basket was the third in the series and the second one to be completely quilted. It's interesting to see the overall comparison at a quick glance. The first quilt was started in 2016 on an impulse {really had no idea that I even wanted to make big baskets}, and that quickly led to the idea of series work. Kind of impossible to stop at one! There was supposed to be a fourth quilt, but somehow that particular idea never got off the ground floor. 

Big Tipsy Basket, Big Basket #3

Never say never! When Jolene shared her beautiful Tribute To Gwen Marston basket quilt earlier this year, it definitely got me thinking again. Hmm... Maybe. Maybe? I might just one more big basket quilt in me. Or two. The series is only over when I say it is.....

Wrapping Up 2019 So We Can All Move On

I always think this end of the year retrospective should be a quick post, but somehow

it never quite works out quite that way. Oh well. Time for a glimpse of whatever finishes 

managed to come to fruition during the past year! It always surprises me how it stacks

up. Never quite what I imagined somehow!

2019 Finishes (1)

It's been a surprisingly productive year. So many times it felt like I was just sort of spinning my wheels, or at times, chasing after ever single squirrel that popped around the corner. Some of the oldest quilt tops did get checked off the list, but it felt arduous at times. 'I don't wanna' was not an uncommon feeling at the start of some of these quilting/stitching finish-it-up endeavors.

2019 Finishes (2)

A surprising amount of larger quilts were completely hand quilted. Well, maybe not so surprising.as it was a terribly stressful year here on the home front. So happy to see 2020 roll around with the all the possibilities of a fresh new year! When life's troubles start to get extra heavy, I tend to have a habit of ending every evening nose deep in the quilting hoop. Well, right after finishing off the popcorn and catching up on Blogger and Instagram.*wink  Helps me sleep ever so much better, that hand work. Seriously therapeutic. If I didn't have so many hot flashes, I'd probably pile on about six quilts every night when I go to bed. Just bury myself in them. You know, for the good vibes?

2019 Finishes (3)

Lots of baby quilts were made and finished up, plus quite a few little bitty ones. Very fun, fast quilting sessions which felt kind of rewarding. I don't think that would be good for me full time though. The feeling lasts only a little while and then it's gone. Poof! Almost like it never happened.

2019 Finishes (4)

So now it's time for the stats. 23 Total Quilt Completions last year! Woohoo! {If you count the Barbie quilts.} But lets not. Leaving off those smaller, quickie quilting projects, it's really more like 18 for the true total. Not too shabby. And because I like to break things down even further....

• 9 Bed sized quilts finished up
• 5 Lap quilts
• 4 Baby quilts
• 5 Doll, Table Runner or Barbie quilts
• 9 of these quilts were completely hand quilted
• 8 quilts were completely machine quilted
• 5 quilts were a combination of both machine and hand quilting
• 1 quilt was a combination of machine quilting and hand tying

It was a good year. Also a good year for giving quilts away! 20 different quilts, including the 5 mini quilts, but not limited to completed-in-2019-quilts, were gifted to a hopefully happy recipient.Two or three other quilts should have been given as well, but I'm sort of dragging my heels about those. Not quite ready to give them up just yet. Still having pangs about a couple of the quilts I gave to my daughters!

Some thoughts about looking ahead:

I'm still very invested in keeping lists as per usual. The most important one is for the quilt projects that have been started, but are still in the works. These are ongoing, in many different phases, but most importantly, they have fabric cut out though not yet a completed quilt top. Its not just a fabric stack of dreamy potential! I'm committed, hopefully engaged and generally always pushing forward toward a conclusion. 

There is also a list for the finished quilt tops that are not as yet quilted. Totally separate lists for different categories of UFO's. That's because the 'in progress' quilt project list fluctuates all year long. What I've finally found to be an optimal balance {for the way that I work} is somewhere between 6 to 10 projects. Anything over that and it inevitably starts stressing me out. Anything under that and I start feeling incredibly bored. Good incentive to cross projects off the list and then promptly dive right into the new!

The 'finished quilt top' list has been slowly shrinking from a high of 28 several years ago, to this past year where I seem to have regressed. These tops are listed in order of when they were completed with a vague idea toward quilting the oldest one firsts. Ha. For now I'm going to ignore the fact that quilt tops are multiplying like rabbits and just keep on doing my thing. I really don't know what else to do.I tried severely limiting quilt starts, but that was stifling. There's only so much a person can do to put the breaks on creativity/new starts/inspiration before all momentum comes screeching to a halt. Some day maybe I'll be able to afford having a few tops long armed again, but what probably needs to happen is for me to work a little harder at {being open to} combining machine and hand quilting. That's where I seem to gain the most ground.

Last year saw me taking an even more intentional look at the fabric stash. Many of you know that I truly love digging deep and coming up with interesting or unexpected combinations of fabrics and colors. I'm super pleased to have a 20-30 plus year range of quilting fabric colors/prints, but to be frank, some of those fabrics are stale dated now. Over time there are fabrics which have somehow become bland or completely and totally uninspiring. It's kind of sad, but mostly it irritates me because every single time I've tried to earnestly address these dated 'colors', the ideas crash and burn. The quilting plan seems lackluster and pointless so I give up.

On a whim late last year, I tore through the green fabric totes and pulled out most of the worst offenders. Some of them really aren't that bad. Truly. They're just dated. They've sort of gotten lost in the trends of colors changing. Marketing.That sort of thing. When digging through for fabric choices, they are easily pushed aside and ignored because they don't always play nice with the new additions and then, of course, the situation compounds itself through time. Take a look at the Sherwin-Williams 'Color Through the Decades' to see what I mean. I'm totally stuck in the 70's, 80's, 90's and 2000's in regards to over half of the fabric stash! What to do?

At somewhat of a loss, I took these annoying {green} fabrics and put them in largish clear plastic bags and purposefully left it all out where I couldn't fail to look. See. Be reminded and think about solutions. Eventually I came up with a personal challenge that involves using these 'So Tired' fabrics. The first phase of that saw me making a really weird {okay, it's ugly}, purple and green comfort sort of quilt top, and since then, I've incorporated quite a few of these less-loved fabrics into the Christmas quilts. Other than the first quilt {totally an experiment}, I don't really intend to waste a lot of time making ugly quilts though. Finding a good place for them is the ultimate goal. That and using them up so they aren't in the way anymore!

The most awful of all these fabrics have already been sewn into a large quilt backing for one of the recent Christmas quilts. Extra time, but hey, the fabrics were put to good use and I save money on a backing. One way or another, I totally intend to sneak these troublesome colors/fabrics into quilts and find a way to love them again. Maximize their potential. Then I'm going to move on to a different color and start all over again. Yes! Loving this challenge so much. Look for the 'So-Tired' label at the bottom of  posts moving forward. This challenge could last for a long time.

If somehow the hours can be found, {crossing my fingers}, I plan to put together a 'Hand Quilting with Perle Cotton' tutorial this year. Yikes. So intimidating. Several people have inquired and seem to want to know how to get the 'Quilty Folk' look and feel to their quilts. Deep thoughts here. Please don't get in a rush expecting anything. My life is full of crazy ups and downs and I often barely have time to proofread current posts for misspelling, much less organize an intelligible tutorial.

Yay. This is also the year when I will be turning 50 years young. See how excited I am? Just loving the gaining-weight-at-warp speed and experiencing my lack of mind/mouth coherence due primarily to hormones. How is it that I'm thinking a specific name in my mind, but what comes out is totally different and sometimes I don't even realize?*sigh  My kids think this is hysterical and I just feel stupid. This has turned my thoughts to perhaps making a celebratory quilt such as Lori and Barb both did in years past? Why not make turning 50 into a good thing? I want to walk more and take better care of myself for sure. Will keeping thinking about Jubilee quilt ideas though. It's not a terrible idea.

And last but not least, I plan to keeping on making interpretations of antique, utility style quilts and also, continue to follow along with the AHIQ prompts. Both of these challenges, while difficult at times, seem to feed my creativity in a way that helps me to flourish as a quilter. As a maker. Very important during this particular phase of our life! Thanks so much for following along with me along the way. It wouldn't be nearly as much fun without you....

Some Quilts Are Easier Than Others

Big Tipsy Basket was a very fun quilt to hand quilt. Unfortunately they aren't all so easy. I had to mark the many echoing lines around the outside of the basket and of course the double lines inside the basket too. Totally eyeballing whatever I could get away with, because marking is a pain. I really, really hate marking. Yuck.  But the thing is, you do all of that, get it done, firmly behind you, and then the rest can be free sailing.

Big Tipsy Basket is finished!

Well, as free sailing as slow hand quilting ever is! So relaxing though. Can you tell that I thoroughly enjoy hand quilting? Especially when using Perle Cotton thread, which is all I use anymore. I'm possibly an addict. There's just something about that instant texture that still speaks volumes to my utility quilt loving soul! I've even started wondering about getting rid of all the usual Gutterman etc. hand quilting thread around here. It hasn't been used in several years now and thread does start getting old. Would anyone be interested in doing a trade of sorts?

#3 in the Big Basket Series

I do agonize a little when starting with a new quilt in the hoop. Wonder what in the world I can do to help make it all look better. This basket quilt had so much of the background fabric showing that it almost intimidated me. But like always, I picked a selection of complimentary thread colors, stuck the quilt in the hoop and just started stitching. {You can't let fear of the unknown paralyze you into inertia or you'll never have any quilts to show off.} If it didn't look good, then I took it all out and started over with a different thread color or maybe even a different stitching pattern. Whatever it takes. Nobody wants to spend eons hand quilting only to dislike it later!

Looking at the texture

Getting started is often the hardest part. So many decisions to make and me? I feel pretty inadequate because most of what I end up doing is just easy peasy stuff. None of those gorgeous feathers and entwined cable motifs around here! I mean, not that I really, truly want that for my quilts or it would probably be happening. But there is a little teensy part of me that sometimes tries to insist that those harder, more complex quilting patterns should probably be the default position. Right? Aren't we the funniest creatures! Building up this imaginary pressure in our heads because of what? Still scratching my head here.... 

After finishing up one or two hoop fulls of quilt though, making all those thread color and stitching design decisions, the rest is a breeze. Seriously, after settling into how the stitching is actually going to proceed, all those little doubts and concerns just melt away and I'm good to go. Maybe that's why I'm still here, quilting away. Those ideas pop up from time to time and I give them a little consideration. Of course I do, 'cuz I'm human! Then I take a good long look at MY quilt and just swat the 'should-do'ems' away. Poof! just like dandelion seeds. This is me, doing my thing, thank you very much. And I couldn't be happier with the end result! Don't listen to the haters, even if they're only in your own head.*wink

Still happy with the border solution

Next up in the hoop is the Make Beautiful Things quilt. It's pretty bright and obviously, has lots of attitude to boot. First off, I pinned it so that there could be some machine stitching in the ditch. Now it's in the hoop for very important hand quilting details. Ha! Not going to be a fast quilt. Nevertheless, I am enjoying the opportunity to take a closer look. And yeah... contemplating the next wordy quilt idea that may or may not be in the works.... 

Make Beautiful Things next up in the hoop

These rising sun blocks do have a few puckers that, after the hand stitching is completed, are proving much more difficult to see. Oh yeah. Totally what I was hoping would happen! The worst thing about stitching on this quilt is that all the blocks are about the same size as the hoop. So what is the problem? Basically there is a choice to be made. Go ahead and center each large block in the hoop and then take off a clamp on the side that I am stitching on, so as not to keep running into the edge of the hoop with the needle. OR, I can keep taking the quilt in and out of the hoop, so as to perfectly center about a fourth of each block at a time. Ughh.  Guess which one I'm doing? Yep. Centering the entire block and removing clamps as they get in my way. A little harder on my hands in certain areas, sure, but I definitely don't have an unlimited amount of patience! Once I get to the longer wordy rows and the borders, the entire dynamic changes and it should be business as usual.

Lots of area to figure out how to add in stitching

After writing that little bit the other day about 'labeling all my quilts once a year', I had a little pang of conscious. Did that really happen last year? Um, no, probably not. Only the quilt show ones and like always, the ones that are given away. So... I reluctantly decided to go through every stack and even the displays of quilts throughout the entire house. Just to check. Surely there weren't that many unlabeled quilts? 

A wonderful pile of guilt

About that.... This stack doesn't even represent the quilts that may have been given 'unlabeled' to my own kids. They're supposed to be checking and getting right back to me, darn it all anyway. This is a time-expired offer! How does this happen? On a good note, I was able to select four more quilts for the giving away pile {though two will have to wait until after the quilt show} and that helps me to feel better about continuing to keep making quilts. Though I fully intend to hoard the lions share, I wouldn't want anyone to start feeling, perhaps, suffocated? by all the mountains of quilts developing in our humble abode. Linking up to Wendy's Peacock Party.

Trying to Work in One More Finish This Month

Monday, Monday.... Boy, was it ever. But lets talk about positive things. All the petals for this specific layer of the Melon Patch quilt are done. Yay! The next layer is already cut out and ready to go for the very next time I decide to resume working on this particular quilt again. That's a good thing.

80 petals later!! It's on to the next layer...

Though I would absolutely love to dive right into another good applique quilt, I have been reserving {most} of my recent energies for finishing up. Still going strong on the hand quilting for the Big Tipsy Basket quilt. It's moving along so well that I went ahead and decided to include it as one of the entries for the quilt show. This means that I have until August 11th to finish up the hand quilting, bind the quilt, label it and get it properly washed up. I know, I know. Many of you would never, ever wash a quilt prior to entering it into a quilt show. I do. That's so much a part of the look and voice of my quilts. How could I do anything different?

Stitching the outside of the basket in my
fave, free-form echo quilting style

People often make comments about how 'soft' my quilts look, or how comfy or heartwarming or cozy the vibe is. Things like that. Well, they are hand quilted and then immediately washed, which means that the 'natural crinkle thing' happens right off. If it makes them look slightly less professional or not quite as serious as other entries, then that's perfectly okay. I'm really not in it for the ribbons. Wowers. Not at all. Don't need that kind of stress!

Considering how to stitch the inside area between
the basket handles

I honestly just love the chance to come around a corner and unexpectedly see one of my quilts hanging. Oh the delight! Be able to see some of the details from a greater distance. Or take in the entire impact, in a single glance. I don't have that opportunity here at home! Plus the bonus of perhaps inspiring another quilter in some small way, really feels like giving back. {Not that I'd probably ever know either way!} Quilt shows have often been responsible for inspiring and sparking great ideas during my long quilting journey. This same quilt show in 2017 sparked an idea for a quilt that I'm actually entering into the show just this year! These are only a few of the reasons that make it worthwhile to attempt to squash down enough nerves and second guessing to go ahead and fill out the entry forms.

Quilt show entry forms

Seeing quilts online is awesome, {we are a lucky generation in that!}, but nothing beats seeing them in person, being able to take in all the lovely texture and nuances.*sigh  The risk of course, is the obvious. Once in a blue moon there will be a bad experience and honestly, every year I'm a little punchy and wondering if this is the year of the Very bad, No good, quilt show Mojo. Not that I ever took any more quilts back to where I previously entered them every year. NCW is the much larger regional show, approximately 60 miles away and where I have taken quilts in 2015, 2017 and also 2018. Still a non-member to the guild though I probably would join if the meetings were more convenient. In the meantime, I'm just happy they are friendly to accept non-member quilts and have enough volume of works to support an annual quilt show, year after year.

I found out that I do get to stay in town quilt show weekend and pick up my quilts after the event. Though I had a couple of wonderful offers of help in picking quilts up, I'm a bit relieved to be able to bring them home myself. While it seems crazy, I hate to bother any of my friends for what is basically a selfish endeavor.

On another note, did I mention that just three days ago this month, my blog turned 9 years old! The posts are definitely stretched a little further apart these days, but hopefully the overall quality of the blog has improved since the beginning. My youngest son says that I am a dinosaur for still blogging, but I don't think he quite understands the on-line quilting world.

Many thanks to all who follow along for the quilty ramblings! Thank you, Thank you to whomever, where-ever you may be! So crazy, but I've had over 1,200,000 page views just on this blog and now, over 400 followers thru Blogger. Over 900 followers on the Bloglovin' app, which doesn't always show up on the Blogger stats but who cares? There are regular followers from all over the United States, countries such as Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the U.K., Ireland, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden, Finland, Switzerland, Austria, Spain, Germany, Indonesia, Japan, South Africa, and even someone from Iran on occasion. These can't all be bots! Many of these people have never even commented a single time, but come back to read yet another post on yet another day. Or maybe they just skim through the pics and move on! Life seems just a little bit sweeter for being able to share my passion with like-minded friends....