Are You Still Following Along With the Bramble Blooms QAL? Here's the Third Part--BBIII!

Okay, I've finally figured out how to do the BBIII part of the QAL! Life happenings are a little uncertain around here for an undetermined period of time and this approach will best match the posting requirements from me.

Fabric pull for BBIII

Bramble Blooms III Prompt:  Now that we've established the basics of our series, it's time to get more personally creative! Make a fabric pull, whether from the original, older fabric color palette you've already been using for the QAL or a bright, shiny new one that feels more inspirational. Think about all of the elements you've previously incorporated into your BBI and BBII quilts. Take the time to consider which elements have felt especially good to play with. Have any of these blocks, motifs or color blends unexpectedly piqued your curiosity? What if you tweaked them just a little? What if you really pushed the boundaries and made them much bigger/smaller or even potentially a lot more improv. and quirky? Which elements do you particularly dislike? Perhaps it's time to drop those and move on.

Now take out some paper and an ink pen and draw up a potential design for BBIII using any or all of the previous elements. Consider this a 'doodle', not something that has to be perfectly in proportion or laid out exact as to measurement on graph paper. Let your ideas flow as with the ink from the pen. Draw one or several drawings and then choose your favorite or the one that looks most intriguing at the moment. Perhaps you will pick the design that your fabric pull will feel most at home with. Or would you rather choose the design that will feel the most challenging to combine your fabric pull with? Either way is totally fine. Finally, sew up your design and get ready to see it in quilt top form. You can totally do this!

Design doodle #1

Don't feel like you have to use every single element from before, including the medallion layout. Go somewhere that feels fresh and interesting to YOU. Do keep at least one of the elements though, and concentrate on keeping some similarities there. This will add interest when comparing BBI, BBII and BBIII.

Design doodle #2

Add applique or not. In my case, I am somewhat obsessed with the flower, leaf and yes, even the bramble-ly thorn motifs. So of course that's where my imagination continues to take me! What if I do this? What if I do that? Make notes for clarification rather than trying to draw a 'perfect' design. You can always come back later and fine tune the one that you've chosen out for making.

Design doodle #3

Don't worry about the proportions of each individual part of the design and how it might all fit together properly together or not. Just doodle what your mind is envisioning in a very simple and basic way. Draw relatively quickly and let it be primitive. Your rough lines should easily convey the general feel of your idea as it's being created in real time because your hands are in fact, connected to your brain. It might feel forced or tricky, but believe me, this works. 

Design doodle #4

Don't be afraid to draw several doodles and maybe even throw the worst of them away. {It actually feels really good to crumple up a terrible design into a ball and throw it away!} As you are drawing, things will probably occur to you to that might not even fit into the current doodle. Finish the one you're working on, and then go ahead and explore the next idea directly after. 

If your brain feels fuzzy and sluggish {because of the implied pressure to be creative}, make yourself draw at least one overly stilted and perhaps unimaginative doodle, and then just walk away. {It is oddly helpful to force out one pitiful rendering rather than nothing at all.} Let your brain cogitate and ponder over the next couple hours or even, days. Then, whenever a random QAL design idea pops into your mind, hurry up and draw it out on paper immediately so you don't lose it.  

Keeping the odds, ends & orphans just in case

When you've got a design that feels right, then feel free to dive into the making part of the equation. Don't rush into micromanaging how you're going to implement every single, little part of the quilt! Simply start from the center like we've done before with BBI and BBII. Basically, I'm urging you to FORGET about the other parts of the quilt until you get there {except for maybe assigning potential colors to those areas}. Please don't stress to the point of positively paralyzing yourself! And remember, there are lots of tips for border making in this post here. You can also check here for a list of all the posts in the QAL if you need to refer back to other tips and tricks I might have dropped.

Start by making the center or possibly making blocks. Concentrate on that alone. Now, how does that section look and feel? Good? Move on. If not, fiddle with it for a bit. Does it need a coping border? Applique? An addition of improv. piecing? Remember, auditioning is your friend. What's next? Decide on the components and colors for the next phase, and then sew up each and every part of the quilt as it connects to the previous portion. Listen to your quilt and pay attention to the feelings in your gut of 'something is needed' OR 'something isn't right'. Take plenty of time for pondering if you're unsure. 

All the leftover fabrics to date from the original 3 quilt fabric pull
Enough fabric left to easily make a couple more in this series!

It's very important to understand that your chosen 'doodle' isn't set in stone. Ever. Consider this just a starting place! At any point along the way, you can change things up or even eliminate part of the design. Play with how to interpret your design so that it has the very personal vibe and voice of YOU. That could be as simple as choosing out special fabric prints or mixing areas of formality with make-do backgrounds. It's completely up to you how closely the lines are followed in your original drawn design.  And yes, if you really, truly, positively want to make up one of my designs, then feel free. Go ahead if you have to! Give me the design credit of course, but seriously, wouldn't it be so much more rewarding to make a YOU quilt?

The tentative plan is to host the BBIII link-up party sometime in the middle of June. This will give five months for putting together a quilt top. I will be posting about my own Bramble Blooms progress along the way, along with any other quilting progress made around here as well. As the link-up time gets closer, I will try to post a heads up as to the actual posting date for the third part of the QAL. Don't know how many people are actually interested in this particular part of the QAL, but everyone is welcome, whether they have completed BBI or BBII quilts or not. Lets dig into this from a slightly different approach and see where we all end up. I bet some of you are going to be surprised! 

For myself, I can already see that I'll probably have to make more than one of these designs eventually.*sigh  Will probably continue to hang on to all the leftover fabrics from these Bramble Blooms quilts until I can get this series properly worked out of my head. {Could be interesting to see how much of this fabric could actually be used up and how many quilts that would be?} 

Thanks so much for coming along on this oldy, moldy fabrics adventure with me. Some of you have even left a tip in the tip jar! Not necessary, but very sweet! The more I play with older fabrics, the more intriguing it is to see if I can truly end up with a quilt top that looks 'intentional' as to fabric choice, and not just a sorry use-it-up story. The resulting quilt tops from all of you has been absolutely fascinating to see. I love how much personality I'm seeing, the random bits and pieces you've gleaned from my tips about making your fabric work for you! Love it! And hearing about your struggles with the process. We've all been there before or will be eventually. It's all good stuff. Hope you've learned a valuable tip or two in the journey to making your own very personal and unique quilts. It's a lovely, sweet thing to know our finished quilt is the only one like it in the whole entire world! Fingers crossed this hasn't been a huge waste of time for anyone. I know I'm still learning something with almost every quilt made....

You Really Need to Try a Textile Art Party Too....

Our family 'Wattle & Loop' inspired, textile art party went so good! I grabbed a design off the Net and tried to make my own version--not super original. I wanted something very simple to work on while helping others figure out the process. Still needs lots more stitching but I'm pretty happy with it. Very interesting approach using all the raw edge fabric, embellishments and prim stitching. Not my normal at all. I can totally see why it's so addictive though. All the layers of texture that are possible. The mind boggles!

Slow Stitching

Below is a picture of most of the stitching efforts after the first night. We're missing about three of the original attempts. Two of my sisters and I gathered together all the background muslin, fabric scraps, needles, #8 Perle Cotton thread, random embellishments, paper for sketching, batting scraps, plus fabric glue etc. All they had to bring was an embroidery hoop and small craft scissors, and even that was optional. We had some simple textile art pictures to show them on our phones and several inspiring Instagram sites to check out. 

The stitchers ranged in age from 9 to 54 yrs old. Several of the teenagers enjoyed it so much that they made a 2nd block in later days, after they finished up their first try! Isn't that so cool to actually get the teenagers off their phones and busy with their hands? Wish we could have gotten a picture of those later blocks, but it never happened, such a busy, busy weekend. Lots and lots of stitching, snacking and visiting all weekend at mom and dads. Good times!

Most of these blocks aren't totally finished {obviously}, but you can see how easy it is to let your personality shine through. The totes of scrap fabrics that I donated to the cause were a big hit, with many of the gals and even teenagers taking a baggie of scraps home for later attempts. The fact that this thread and fabric play feels very forgiving to imperfection helped everyone relax and just enjoy. It really was the perfect craft for a mixed age gathering. After the first little bit of 'overwhelm', everyone just sort of dove in and got busy being creative.

We had a textile art party...

I think we're going to have one more stitching party for the ones who couldn't make it. They were very sad to miss out and of course we have many more ideas to explore. More threadplay? Or more fabric play? It's all so open ended and fun! Now I have ideas for the 'little quilts' I've been wanting to make for a 3 pane window frame decor thing. Just need to decide how to finish up the first block and learn a few more tips and tricks.

On an interesting note, I showed the picture of all the stitching to my husband and then asked him if he could pick mine out. He just kind of huffed, then he laughed and set the phone down. I was like 'what?' He just looked at me with this expression and then said that he knew I thought he never paid attention to my quilting. {Which of course is true.} He barely glances at any of it, and if he does comments {which he rarely ever does}, it's most always favorable. Very sweet, but then that makes me think he's just being supportive 'cuz it's the nice thing to do. Right? And it's not like he's ever truly enthusiastic. It's my deal not his blah, blah, blah. I don't need him to hold my hand about this. Yes, women are weird. Anyway. In less than 15 seconds he picked out my block. Seriously, it really was that fast! Isn't that the sweetest thing? I just love that guy.

More progress on Worthy quilt

I did manage to get some more work done on the 'Worthy' quilt. Had a good several hour cutting/sewing marathon one evening after getting in the proper flow of things. Had to stop what I was doing right in the middle of sewing these strips of wedges above. I don't often leave projects right in the middle of this kind of work 'cuz then how do you move this? Ugghh..  Really need to get these sewn together and out of my way.

Another 2024 quilt finish!

Finally finished my commission quilt! Binding on and all the threads cut. Just waiting on the label to be delivered to me and then I can sew that part on and be done. The deadline was Christmas so it feels wonderful to have this much done and out of my hair. Ended up trading the work for a roll of batting so that made it all worthwhile. It's kinda hard sometimes to work on something that doesn't feel quite as creatively challenging, but it's also nice to help someone finish up a longtime project....

Completed BBII quilt tops!

And.... Both BBII-A and BBII-B are completed quilt tops! Got the last stitches in them today. Huge sigh of relief!! Will try to get the linky part up later next week or perhaps Monday the 16th? We'll see. We have a family wedding in Oregon this weekend and then some of our kids are coming into town for the week after so yeah. It's already hoppin' holidaze....

Bramble Blooms Quilts are Progressing and A Couple New Starts!

Though I try to keep the open ended projects at 10 or less, a couple projects just demanded to be started this month. First off is the barely-there start to a very large improv. style Log Cabin quilt. It's going to be golds, cream, brown, black, green and rusty reds. Had to start it before the snow fell or it might end up being another year!

Feels good to start something new!

That put me at 10 projects, but then.... I just couldn't resist. So I went ahead and started what I'm calling 'This Old Friend'. The color palette is based on an old flannel shirt that I wore for years and years. Lots of greens, blues, creams, rusty reds and kind of a cantaloupe orange color too. We'll see where it goes but for now I'm just working on the beginnings of what will be a large basket. I really needed this. Feels so good to have something in these colors.

I could leave it like this

There has been sooo much hand work lately that I'm positively craving a little bit of mindless time at the sewing machine. Both of the new projects are improv. and virtually perfection free. Very easy to pick up and put down without worrying about making a mistake in piecing etc. 

As you can see from the previous picture, BBII-A is a completed quilt top. Or not. After getting the last stitch into the border, I decided it needed something more. So I added a couple little leaves next to the larger flowers. After lots more contemplation, I decided to try adding those little bottom pieces to flowers like what I had done with the first Brambles quilt. Maybe that would quell my dissatisfaction?

Auditioning the extra layer for the flowers

Thus far they are just sitting on top of the flowers waiting for a final decision and some stitching. It's probably not immediately obvious from the pictures, but they do seem to add a much needed layer of subtlety and value to the quilt. Not surprisingly, mind is mostly made up. I mean, I'm showing it to you, right? This new look absolutely gives me that feeling of quiet satisfaction I've learned to never ignore anymore. What's holding me back is the time involved!! Ughh. I just want to be done! And why oh why didn't I think of it before the borders were sewn onto the quilt? So annoying.

A closer look

It's one of those things that 'once you see' it's hard to unsee and would probably always leave me with a clench of regret if left undone.*sigh  Meanwhile, I'm hard at work stitching away on the borders of BBII-B. I've taken what's already stitched down, laid it side by side with the middle of the quilt and everything looks great. Pretty sure there's no last minute fix-it's with this one coming up, thank goodness! But then, this is the version that I've been happiest with all along. Funny since these are both made from the same fabric stack!

The BBII-A quilt however, might still see a little bit of fussy cut fabric placed over the top of the loudest red flowers in the sashing fabric between the middle of the quilt and the first border. They just keep reminding me of 'bleeding' and that's not a great vibe for this sweet, floral quilt. We'll see what happens. At some point I have to quit picking at and fussing with the quilt top--call it done and walk away! 

Three borders done for BBII-B

Another mindless piecing project that has been seeing a tiny amount of progress lately is 'Worthy'. August is probably the last time it's seen any love so it was way past time. I'm hoping to lay all the pieced units out this weekend and take a good long look at to what needs to happen next. I had thought to make some triangle units with a little bit of pink and cream or tan fabrics but will need to check and see if the quilt agrees. It's not that this quilt is uninteresting to me, it's just one that I'd prefer having a design wall to work with. It would make things ever so much easier as it's going to have be 'puzzle-pieced' together.

Starting to add up!

My daughter caught a quick picture of me doing some hand quilting late in the evening. She said that I looked very colorful! This poor quilt has been sadly neglected as I continue to devote much of my hand work time to the Bramble Blooms quilts. Still trying to have them done before Thanksgiving if at all possible! Don't worry if yours won't be done by then. It's early! Still tentatively planning on posting the link-up for the BBII quilts sometime after December 10th. 

Hand quilting for good health...

That's it for now. Our extended family is planning on having a crafty day during the Thanksgiving holiday where we will attempt to make a Wattle and Loop or Mandy Pattullo inspired {small} wall hanging. One of my sisters has shanghaied me into helping out with the bulk of it {like I know how to do this?} so now I'm scrambling through scraps and batting orphans etc. We're trying to keep it as cheap as possible and doing everything free-style of course, as it's our first attempt. If all goes well, I might even dig out that old window frame I've been wanting to frame little quilts in like forever....