August Update

Decisions, decisions. It was either take the time to go quilt or take the time to actually write a post. Today I decided the post had to come first. 

Seedpod Flower quilt top is done!

What can I say about this quilt top? You already know that the flower itself was kind of an impulse, use-up-the-abandoned-bits sort of start. 

The full view

You also know that the inspiration pic was one that I fell head over heels in love with a very long time ago. Or did you? Regardless, I'm pretty impressed to actually see this interpretation finally come to reality. I do so adore a scrappy, utilitarian sort of look!

Scrappy goodness

I suppose this quilt would have looked fine without the Seedpod Flower center. Maybe. At this point I can't even imagine the quilt without it though. Once I wrapped my mind around how it all needed to fit together, then the top went together relatively easily. The anxiety and avoidance up to that point was stupid. Why do I always tend to overthink?

Trying to UP the 'busyness' factor with the prints this time!

All the economy blocks are the same size which means the horizontal rows are the exact same width. That was an important detail moving forward. The random placement thus relies strictly upon the differences in the various lengths of the connecting rectangles. 

A new color palette for me, but somehow it seems to work!

While they are not nearly as tall as the ones used in the inspiration picture, these started out from the scraps leftover from cutting the economy blocks. That was a good place to start. Hard to throw away the very narrow ones!  And so... determining approx. vertical measurements for the connecting rectangles became unexpectedly very simple. After all, I really didn't want the differences to be super extreme. A couple inches at most and there I was. Easy peasy.

Looking across...

Crazy how the bright, sparky applique addition to the inside border brightens everything up. I do wish the very slight, lighter blue outline above the curves still showed, but it ended up being turned under for seam allowance. This was just another one of those impulse rabbit trails that turned out to be a wonderful idea in the end. Sometimes it's nearly impossible to keep myself from traveling down the path of 'I wonder if x, y, or z would make things look better....'. 

Sometimes it works to the good and other times I find out that it's clearly wasted time. Never really know till you try though! I love how the yellow in the applique surround is more citrus than the rest of the yellow golds in the quilt. Yet it works as a very definitive framing for the Seedpod Flower, which of course, is the star of the entire quilt. Why not emphasize that even more!

This quilt top has a very distinctive mood, one that I can't quite put a proper label to. Is it retro? Vintage? Does it just convey fond memories of my grandmothers house dresses or perhaps it was the aprons she wore? Whatever it is, the mood as a whole, brings a smile to my face every time. 

Working on Spring Flowers

Another project that I've been spending time on in Spring Flowers. After seeing how washed out the flowers looked, I decided they needed a little bit of pzazz added in somewhere. After debating several different ideas {most of them ridiculously complex}, I ended up going with a very simple rail fence sort of block as the alternate. Lots of turquoise used to wake things up, but I also made sure to add insome clashy blue. For value and interest of course. There's just something about doing the unpredictable that always strongly appeals to me when it comes to quilting! The long narrow strips of the cream background fabric were added in after I realized that the flowers now needed some breathing room. So glad I had enough of that particular fabric because everything else just looked sloppy.

Auditioning border ideas

The brown and light cream striped fabric was something that I locked onto early on in auditioning border ideas. There's just something about a good striped border that speaks to me. Lots of ideas in play until abruptly I was completely done with dithering. The pink/rose fabrics were totally scrapped and simplicity became the name of the game. While I kept the strong chrome yellow, narrow, inner border {the blendy mustard gold fabric that seemed obvious was boring}, everything else got stripped down to basics. Will see how this border turns out in the end, but the thrill was just gone. Oh, and all the other orphan bits were dumped back into the totes too. So done with this particular project.Time to move on when it's not fun anymore!

Peachy Cameo in the hoop

The hand quilting is moving quite slowly on Peachy Cameo, but there's nothing very complex about what I'm doing. Sensing a theme here? One last hoop on the blue circle areas and then I'll be working on the two outside borders. I think they both will fit into one hoop {as far as width} so that's good. We're entering the long, long home stretch!

A closer look

As you can see, I often take the clamp off of one side when hand quilting. In this case, two of the blue 'circles' are right where the clamp would be, making it impossible to quilt in that area if it were to be attached. Honestly, I don't know if this is laziness or efficiency, but with this sort of quilting, having one clamp off is rarely a problem. The funny thing is, after all these years of working with only Perle Cotton thread and a long needle, my stitches are getting smaller. Still not super close together, but it's not exactly big stitching any longer. Oh well. Love the look regardless. All that instant texture is very addicting!

Will try to catch up with my emails and reading and/or commenting on other blogs in the next couple days. Have seen several posts in the Bloglover app that feel important to comment on, but the time simply hasn't been there. With time being diminished for quilting around here, often times there's really only one choice!

Be Still My Heart, I Have a New Lap Quilt

Another finish today! Apparently I'm in the mode. This little quilt somehow snuck it's way into the lineup and just demanded to be. I've long been a fan of Victoria Gertenbach's thread work, but knew I didn't have her artistic flare {go back further on her blog to see even more beautifully done hand work}. So then, when I saw Svetlana's simple, yet lovely quilt, it somehow became 'the quilt'.

Be Still, my new lap quilt

You know about these. The quilts that somehow light a fire of determination where you really didn't know there was enough intensity to even light a match in the first place? Yep. Off I went on my quest to find the perfect pepper cotton fabric. I love how supple the fabric is and how it shines in proper lighting. Also, I was already imagining a cheater way of making the quilt. How about a subtle print that would preclude me from having to mark for stitching lines? If this quilt was going to bully it's way into the lineup, then it certainly didn't need to monopolize all my precious quilting time for the next forever.*wink

Such lovely texture

With pepper cotton fabric apparently on its way out, Just found out it's still available online! I was very limited in color selection, but found myself delighted with the soft seafoam green I found. The backing fabric was a much tougher selection as I didn't want anything to detract from the simplicity of the entire [wholecloth} quilt look. I finally settled on a charcoal fabric with lines of indiscriminate black text. I actually love that the words are indecipherable.

Love, love, love looking at this quilt

Not having to mark my fabric made the hand quilting go very quickly. I ended up using nine different balls of #8 and #12 Perle Cotton thread, some variegated and others plain. The biggest struggle with the entire quilt was the fact that I was having to worry about the consistency of how the stitching was showing up on the backside of the quilt {the green side}, which in fact would eventually become the front side of the quilt. At least in my eyes!

Ooh, how annoying to realize that my normal pattern of stitching is more of a longish stitch {or two or three} and then a very small, little nod to the idea of a stitch. I think it's the long needle I use for the thicker Perle Cotton that makes my rocking motion a lot random that way. More taking out of stitching than I'd like to admit too, but it didn't really interfere with my excitement at seeing this quilt take shape. {And really, lets stop pretending that my stitching will ever be anything close to flawless or that I'd even want it that way if I could somehow convince my fingers to cooperate....}

A closer look at the print fabric backing

I also took extra time trying to find the 'perfect' binding fabric for this quilt. I knew I didn't want a red or other bright colored fabric, but did spend lots of time in my cream and then eventually, the yellow/gold fabric tote playing with possibilities. After a mostly disappointing search in most all of my fabric totes, I finally decided to look in the purple/lavender tote. Imagine my surprise when the fabric that jumped out at me was a brownish purple plaid? It had all the elements I was looking for, including a bit of lightness to subtly break up the long line of color on the outside of the quilt.

Indeed, I almost went for a cream binding initially, but just couldn't make myself be convinced the quilt looked the better for it! This mellow, toned down plaid somehow brings the entire quilt together in a way that I love and adore. It makes it unmistakably my quilt, which is quite a feat in such a simple, basic quilt! I mean seriously, how many components are there to quibble over? I remain amazed at how much every single quilt has to teach if we try to pay proper attention to what's it's trying to tell us.

Working on border blocks for two different quilts

My family pretty much thinks I went a little bonkers. 'Mom, it's so plain?' And it didn't help that I kept calling it my 'boring' quilt while chuckling like well, I actually was having real mental slippage. I'm sure at least a few of you understand how much fun I was having...

Saturday was more normal in terms of attitude towards my quilting--I had the gift of a very long day of piecing work, of which I thoroughly enjoyed. It was marvelous to play with the fabric and all the lovely colors, just chain stitching away and not having to think anything through. These will end up being the borders on two similar but different projects. I don't know why I'm working in pairs these days, but whatever works, right?

Two Medallion-Style Quilts in Progress

I love to click onto my quilty blog list and see what all my fellow quilters are currently working on. See the progression of a specific project or where their muse is currently leading them. My favorite part is that 'Aha! moment' or the times we shake our heads and say, 'of course, why didn't I think of that with a similar project?'  There is so much inspiration to be had from following along on another's journey and making the inevitable connections--viewing the process from such unique perspectives.

Everything has a starting point...

I often wonder what it is that people see in my quilting, why they keep coming back to this blog. Does anyone really know what I'll be doing next, because I certainly don't! And then I think about the connections and inspiration gained from checking in with other quilters. Oh yeah. Maybe it's the same right back.

So, having said that, how bout some background on my latest? This little centerpiece was started a couple months ago. I found the background fabric {a fat quarter} in a box of oldish fabrics my husband bought at an auction. Probably the best find in the entire box! Immediately my mind jumped to ideas involving an applique centerpiece. Which lead to all sorts of vague ideas about a sort of 'cameo' applique used at the center of oh... a medallion quilt perhaps? You know how I love those medallion quilts.

The ideas sort of ebbed and flowed and finally I had a plausible rough draft drawn up of what my quilt might 'possibly' look like. The problem was, the cameo was not being cooperative. So I dithered around until eventually there something to move forward with. Not nearly as much applique in the center as imagined, but oh well. This is what 'fit' into my oval--everything else had to go.

The Cameo quilt

On to the next phase then. Which involved a border with diamonds. Yikes! I hate those! But the drawing. It just had to be! So, stall, stall, stall. A few tentative looks into border books and templates. Ughh.  Stall, stall, stall. Until finally {I love that word don't you?} parallelograms made their way into my consciousness too. They seem just a teensy bit easier to understand than diamonds. Uh huh. 

Fast forward to last Saturday where my entire day was made up of constructing that little bit of green and white border. I played it safe and did not try to wrap the pointy bits around the corner or make them fit together into nifty little lemoyne stars. No siree, I did not. What happened was more like this: how many repeats does it take to extend beyond the corners? And then where do I chop them off to make it look like I did it on purpose? Oh and what about a coping strip in between borders? Because, gulp, it's looking very wan and anemic without that sparky bit of color. Whew! It's done now and no-one in my family seems to get how hard all that calculating/stressing and speculating is for me.*wink

Folksy Flower with one border added

I also finally dug out my Folksy Flower centerpiece in the last week or so. It's a fallish looking project and I have not been in the mood. The first border is attached now though and awaiting the second before I trim off the corners. The plan is to turn this one on point with multiple borders on each corners. It has sat simmering in the tote for months while I pondered the setting. On point or not? Pros for? Cons? I am a ditherer plain and simple, and refuse to rush my projects just for the sake of simply moving ahead. Details matter, and sometimes more than you might think!

I have also been stealthily working on my rising sun {twirly ball} blocks. All the middle circles have been sewn together forever. You knew that. Well, now the outer rings are sewn together as well. All 12 of them! And so now, all that remains is the part where I clutch my head in terror and try to sew the inside circles into the outside rings. I may even stall for another year or two. It's not completely outside the realm of possibility when it comes to something I dread so very much.

Starting to see the blocks come together....

And looky, looky what the postman delivered the other day! This is the results of winning a giveaway over at Kyle's lovely blog. I can't get over how cute the little bag is and of course I am always thrilled with getting to add new bits of fabric into my crazy fabric totes! Talk about inspiration, Kyle is always making the sorts of quilts you and I positively drool over...

Winning is so much fun!

So that's it for now. I'm finding myself in the quilt room a little bit more these days as the days have turned cooler and fall is a lovely time to quilt!