Long Rambling Thoughts About Making

Make Beautiful Things is a very bright, bold looking quilt for me. It was started initially in response to an AHIQ 'words' challenge. Sort of a 'What would our quilt say if it could say anything at all' prompt. The solid yellow and dark brown fabrics were chosen quite by default, if only because they had sufficient yardage available without going out and buying new.

Make Beautiful Things is finished!

Most usually, I am adding words after a quilt is started. There I go, plodding along with my latest masterpiece and the quilt suddenly insists that it needs certain words added. That is something that happens fairly regularly around here as I find joy in the quirkiness of including words or a phrase in fabric. This time, the words would essentially BE the quilt and so it made it all the more important to find the very best wording.

The Rising Sun blocks make me happy

As the years have flown by, most of my local quilting friends have all moved on from quilting. They have aged, {died in one case} or perhaps never became interesting in challenging themselves to grow in the same way that feels important to me. Though I am very blessed to have a wonderfully supportive family rallying behind my interests, it's not like they are invested in the details of what it takes to arrive at the finish line. They are much more interested in the finished product and where, or to whom, it might be going. lol

Very simple but effective

It might seem to some like the projects careen from one idea to the next without a lot of thought, but the truth is something altogether different. There is almost always a story or theme behind every quilt. A color palette that I am ardently pursuing, a pattern, design, block {or style?} that is currently intriguing, an antique quilt that is needing interpretation, a particular challenge that I'm earnestly trying to meet, or perhaps even a stack of orphan blocks that are feeling miffed about being left behind. Whatever the case, you can be sure that I am doing my very best to make the finished quilt absolutely as beautiful as is possible.

Hand quilting makes everything even better

The quilting process is incredibly personal as it pertains to the 'journey'. Decision after decision is made that stems directly from personal experiences, current skill level, preferences, and/or the lack {or plenty} of supplies on hand. This quilt for instance, includes some largish Rising Sun or Twirly Wheel blocks that were languishing in the orphan totes. Would any of you have similarly unused colored/patterned blocks tucked away in your quilting room? Maybe the blocks or the colors, but probably not both.

Hmm.. love it with sunflowers too

The quote, 'I just want to make beautiful things even if nobody cares' {attributed to Saul Bass}, really jumped out at me as the starting point for this specific quilt. It says so much! Yes, I have good, quilty friends here on the blog who 'care'. My family 'cares'. Sometimes even the people who receive a quilt from me 'care', even if only in the abstract.

My motto

For me, the quote zeros in on something integral to making authentic and/or original looking quilts. It's become a motto sorts. Basically, I don't care if you or anyone else likes my quilts. Not to be rude, but it's really that simplistic. Oh, I get a great big smile on my face when people appreciate whatever it is that I'm doing! It feels really good and I'd be a liar to say that it doesn't matter at all.

When we make for ourselves and the furtherance of whatever journey that WE are on, then the decision making process can become greatly simplified. It only has to make sense in our heads to be 'right' which saves a lot of time lost spent testing the winds.

Do I wonder sometimes if what I'm posting on the blog here will be well received? Of course that happens! I just don't let it bog me down either way. It feels much, much better when we quit over-complicating progress with ideas and worries such as, 'Nobody likes yellow quilts!' or 'Oh yeah, these blocks are so obviously imperfect that I should be terribly embarrassed to think of using them!' or worse yet, 'This is a really dumb idea!'. Uh huh. Because every idea can be a dumb idea. Or NOT. How do we know until we try?

Don't misunderstand. You will still THINK these things and you might even be right about some of them. Many people do not and will never like predominantly yellow quilts. That's a fact. What is important is that you don't let these 'facts' diminish your desire to play with the color 'yellow' or whatever weird color that is currently tickling your fancy. Over and over again if that's what makes you happy! I can tell you that if you love a color and it shows to the point that somehow you make an amazing looking quilt with it? {'Cuz you will if you love it that much.} It won't matter if that's my least favorite color in the whole world! Suddenly, I'm gonna start thinking of ways to incorporate that very same element into my own quilting!

Gonna have to keep this one!

If I would have started out by capitulating to all these silly {mostly imaginary} external pressures, this quilt would never have been. It would have died in its infancy and those fun Rising Sun blocks would still be buried in the orphan totes or maybe even in the garbage! Where's the fun in that? I just want to make beautiful {to me} quilts even if nobody else will ever be moved by them, understand them, appreciate them or possibly even be inspired by them. By starting from a place of  'even if nobody cares', then we free ourselves exponentially to the making of more and more beautiful things. It's like a perpetual motion motion. We make. We like. We respond positively and enthusiastically. We make more. Others like it too? That's just bonus and oh yeah. Inspiration flowing to them. See how that works?

Funnily enough, this is a quilt that I stare at sort of in amazement. I did this? Made this? SO not me and yet, very, very me all at the same time. I'm constantly learning and growing and pushing myself and slowly, slowly the quilts show signs of that forward progress. When this quilt was laid across the foot of my bed, there was this huge feeling of achievement. Wowsers! What a bright, happy quilt! The challenge was the perfect impetuous to try something a little different and overall I'm beyond delighted with where it ended up.

Easier to stitch the letters to a background fabric first

Next up was the Coins and Baskets quilt. Yes, it's finished too. It was another challenge from our AHIQ friends that involved 'coins'. This one seemed super easy at first and the ideas flowed very quickly. For some reason I immediately fell in love with the idea of using up older fabrics from the stash. Where have you heard that one before?

A mix of hand quilting and stitched-in-the-ditch

Eventually, it became obvious that the original spark for the quilt was proving to be a spectacular fail. Of course, that doesn't slow me down for long as frustration is an unacceptable resting place. The ideas were parceled out into two separate projects for two completely different looking quilts. Other ideas got dumped, as well they should be.

Last minute words that seemed like a good idea

Can I just say that improv. coins are sheer fun to cut out and sew together? There will definitely be more of these in the foreseeable future! I thoroughly enjoyed the idea of grouping together several narrow rows and then creating an every-other block out of the result. Of course, something needed to be done about the rest of the quilt, but as you can see, my beloved element {baskets} to the rescue!

Really glad it has the brighter greens included

It was a fairly interesting quilt to make once the proper direction were sorted out. You can read more about that here. Lots of quick, simple decisions with the minimum of stress. Will that fabric work? yes. How about green for most of the baskets? Yes. Things like that.

Count Your Blessings is the obvious new name

Though I wanted this quilt to look good, it always felt like it had unspoken limitations. Sometimes its not a bad thing to know absolutely that the current project is never going to win the beauty pageant. We do our best to make it into the running and then just finish it out. By starting with the old gold, rusty reds, browns and black, {not to mention the improv. coins}, my default position went immediately to the 'primitive' vibe and never veered off of that particular path.

Always good to get in another finish....

I talked at the start of this post about making 'beautiful things'. You can believe that this quilt got plenty of attention too though I never believed it could end up looking 'amazing'. Close-up, there are some lovely fabrics used and I for one, happen to think that the baskets are very sweet. I even allowed myself to be persuaded into adding words onto the quilt--at a point where it probably seems ridiculous!

This quilt washed up very nice and wrinkly, giving it the proper cozy feel that every good snuggle quilt needs. It's being gifted to a friend as a comfort sort of quilt. Hopefully no-one would ever assume it was meant to be an heirloom {hands-off the precious textile!}, but rather, sit and drink coffee or tea while having it draped comfortably across their lap. No doubt you've gleaned that this quilt isn't nearly as exciting to me as the previous quilt, but I'm not a bit reluctant to claim it as one of my 'makes'. I gave it lots of love and now it's going out to spread some love. What can be better than that?

Nothing Very Inspiring

Where to start? I don't seem to do very well with being over-scheduled and/or missing out on having good chunks of time for my own pursuits. In fact, it really messes with my creativity which we all know is of absolute importance in the general scheme of things. Right?

Patchwork Garden applique prep

After fiddling around in the quilting room here and there, mostly wasting time, I finally was able to buckle down and get the applique prepped for Patchwork Garden. This quilt has been quite the roller coaster ride of loving it and then hating it. You know how some projects seem to have the highs and lows primarily intended to keep us on our toes and second guessing every other decision. 'Ha, ha. You only thought navy blue was the absolute perfect color for ALL the baskets.' And many other self defeating thoughts that can lead to hair pulling and a dreaded feeling of malaise.

Replacing some of the fabric

The lovely tiny-print floral fabric that I just had to put into the quilt has turned into an eyesore. It is way too yellowed looking in contrast to the other whiter background fabrics. After wincing at it one too many times, I decided to take some of it out. Make it less obvious. Not having a lot of extra of the background fabrics {or actually anything else that might work well} created another dilemma. Do I buy? Turn fabric over and use the back of something? I did all the problem solving, decided to piece and make-do, and then happily found justification to add the stripey larger floral print in two separate places. 

Trying to figure out the best placement for the new fabric

When you throw a much loved fabric out at the start of a project and then later find reason to add it back in? Yass!!  Lets just say that it felt really good...  The seam ripping didn't even faze me at that point! As a reward, I started a new project, 'Roman Stripes'. The fabrics had been simmering together for over three years and were really starting to annoy me. I wanted to throw it all back in the fabric totes but just could not make myself take that particular step.

Roman Stripe, the new project

I love and adore this blend of fabrics, but.....every time I thought to start the project {a forever type applique project}, something held me back. Finally, in thoughtful, contemplative sort of reasoning, I ditched the slow approach and went at it from a totally different angle. If I love the fabric, how about making the quilt all about that and forget the fancy hand stitching details? You all know what comes next. Of course you do. NOW the fast and easy seems boring and so I have shelved the entire project until a later day when I am almost craving the tedium of chain piecing. Because that's a real thing.

Starting to see progress already

Being so very busy tends to make my brain feel sluggish and awkward. Hand quilting is the very best antidote, even if the quilt that's being stitched on is not terribly exciting to any of us. It's very important in my day to day survival of all things life, and so I tend to jump into the next quilt up for the hoop with reckless abandon. {I'll have to throw up a post for the finished Make Beautiful Things here in a couple days so you can see the extremes to which I swing, hand quilting-wise.} Not sure that's a good idea to go from such a bright, happy quilt to such a dullard, but well...., what can I say? Things happen.

Coins and Baskets getting sandwiched and pinned

It's mostly because here is a LIST that keeps up a steady drum beat in the background of all conscious and probably, subconscious decision making. Coins and Baskets was next up on the list of Have-Too's and my brain was just too fuzzy to fight it. I started out with machine stitching in-the-ditch style to stabilize the quilt and make the successive hand quilting a breeze.

A little stitch-in-the-ditch work

Then into the hoop it went and wowsers! While the colors weren't making the endorphins sit up and smile, hand quilting the pieced coin sections definitely made everything feel much, much better. Repetitive hand stitching and minor amount of marking? Total walk in the park. Which just goes to show that even the subconscious knows what its doing at least some of the time!

In the hoop for maximum enjoyment

I hand quilted all the baskets, coin sections and then was quickly moving on to the top and bottom borders when.... ta-da!  I had a late night brain wave. What if? Oh yeah. What if I took this really unexciting quilt and added some sweet little 'Count your blessings' words onto the quilt?

Trying to cut out the perfect letters

Having decided the quilt was destined to go live with a friend of mine, it all made perfect sense.*sigh  Even sleeping on the idea and revisiting it in the morning didn't diminish the 'Oh this is such a great idea' balloon taking up real-estate right above my head.  No pressure for myself at all. None whatsoever. Just needs to be done by this weekend!

Ready to trace the letters onto fabric

Want a piece of advice? Don't applique words to your quilt after it has been sandwiched and MOSTLY quilted. Really bad idea. I tell myself that every single time that  I've ever done it and the fact that I've done it more than once tells you an awful lot about me. The time to applique is before the sandwiching and quilting, and anyone who thinks otherwise is a blooming idiot. So sad. I'm not even sure it makes the quilt look better 'cuz this one is design challenged as well. It's just that, once the idea presented, it wouldn't leave. It felt right. Like I would be denying the quilt the very most important thing it needed in order to be loved. So it got done in spite of a very intense feeling of resentment. Do I dare admit to liking the quilt better now? After all that work has been accomplished and that cramping feeling in my hands has faded away?

Time to finish up the binding!

So yeah. That's my brain waves on stress, over-scheduled days, exhaustion, inward pressure and the importance of having a good dialogue with my very own quilts. I'm not crazy, my quilts are. Or my quilts make me crazy. Or I'm crazy about my quilts. Something. I'm sure I'll figure it out some day.

Having that out of the way makes room in the hoop for something that I'm lots happier to look at every single evening. Even though it will end up being gifted too and there's sort of, kind of a deadline here as well. Nothing hard and fast though. It could take clear up to Thanksgiving to work this quilt through the hoop and that would totally be fine.

Loving having Tidbits is in the hoop

Plus, it's unlikely that I'll be able to generate an excuse to add applique to this one. It probably already has too much of that, and in fact, is another one of those clunky design efforts. At this house, not every quilt is going to end up amazing, but hopefully it will end up 'finished'. That's a good thing. Finished is better than perfect! Too, this one has a wonderful 'feel good' sort of vibe while in the hoop. {I'm loving these serene looking fabrics!} Hopefully its the sort of vibe that will translate well into good times snuggling and sleeping. Gotta get our priorities straight!

Coins and Baskets a Good Journey Toward Completed Quilt Top

Once I changed direction with this quilt project, then it started going together like a well oiled machine. It finally dawned on me that these colors feel completely comfortable to me. It used to be my safe zone for so many years and so there is almost zero drama involved in the process. {Or challenge or real inspiration}  Aha! That's what I thought initially, but then had to reconsider by the end.

The middle part of Coins & Baskets

My daughter refers to this quilt as one of 'my old lady quilts'. I'd prefer to call it the antique influence or a cozy, homey look. But yes, I'll admit to drifting away from these colors for quite some time now and starting to embrace the lighter, more colorful palette my daughters prefer. Quilters do have the option of evolving and growing you know and part of that is reverting back {on purpose} when desired. It's always an interesting exercise because it feels like going straight back to our roots--often our comfort zone. And that's a simple place to easily make comparison within the basics and perimeters of our process.

As I've mentioned before, the coin sashing was cut and sewn together very improv. style {a relatively new-to-me process} and then carefully cut into the proper measurements required to make a 3-row wide block of  6" x 8" sashing. The original plan was a dud, color-wise, and so the project ended up being split into two quilt tops. It just couldn't seem to be resolved with the combined elements previously proposed. These baskets seemed like a no-brainer with these particular sashing colors, and so the quilt evolved. A basket pattern was drawn from a quilt in 'Treasures From The Barn' book by Linda Collins. It had to be made larger to fit in with my quilt plan and also the handle was changed to make it wider. Why not if that's what I prefer!

Adding on an outside border

When I started sewing the quilt layout together, I ended up taking out some of the extra coin sashing blocks that would have enclosed every basket block, sort of stripping down the busyness of the quilt {see the first picture}. It happened almost without conscious thought {actually, quite a few of the design decisions did}, which was quite interesting. Normally I spend some serious time making a decision like that, but this time I was just doing. Then once the process was fully realized, I just sort of shrugged my shoulders and continued on.

With this part of the quilt sewn together, I could have quite easily folded it up and called it a finish. Very cute and it feels pulled together in all the important ways. But.... you know me. The quilt was too small {52" X 71"} which totally annoyed me. I get irritated at little quilts that force us to decided if we want our torso covered or perhaps our toes? And also, there was approx. 25 coin sashing units left which really bothered me. What a waste!

Coins & Baskets a finished quilt top

It was quickly determined to add the extra coin sashing blocks on as an outside border. Perhaps not the best design decision, but I personally love how that imperfect border looks. It looks especially wonderful to me close up, such as how we would view it if perhaps the quilt was 'in-use' and laying across our laps. Working with coins was the original challenge {later amended with Kaja's challenge to combine with a second block} and it felt right to include the leftover blocks. This felt important, trying to include all the coin sashing without wasting or abandoning them. Sort of a nod to the old utility style of quilts that I love.

The border just makes me happy

While not a fabulous or particularly exciting quilt top, this one feels like a rather good finish. It has definitely served its purpose in underlining some basic things about my quilting process. While working practically on auto-pilot through much of the decision making, I later realized how incredible that actually is. Not obvious to anyone but me, the single most interesting thing about this entire project was how working with these specific colors felt like slipping on well-worn shoes. Other design decisions seemed far less complicated in the immediate comparison. Ding, ding! I needed that realization as I so often tend to over-think and complicate matters.

Am I making sense at all? The final result in regards to this quilt is this: I'm quite happy with the antique mood of the fabrics and elements mixed into the quilt. The make-do look to the stacked coins in the border just make me inexplicably happy which gives me permission to leave the quilt  'as-is' rather than removing the outside border like some might think would be necessary. It might not be perfectly balanced, perhaps it doesn't make sense to others or it might even be considered a dull looking quilt now that I've inserted the rest of the coins. That doesn't matter because quilts down the line will no doubt be the better for this little exercise. I needed to see this border to understand.

We need to continue to emphasize making for our own pleasure and knowledge--let the process take us to the next level in its own sweet time. There's no shame in adding another 'learning and growing' quilt top to the stack and in fact it could be considered a positive thing. There will be many of these before we make that rare fabulous quilt and then many more mistakes, learning and challenges met before the next great quilt. I'm determined to show my struggles along with my successes, record them along the way. How about you?

Linking to Sew, Stitch, Snap, Share!

May AHIQ Update

Just wanted to update before the big holiday weekend engulfs me completely. Too much to do and not enough time to get it done in! Finally managed to finish the applique border on my Improv. Woven Basket. It finishes out at approx. 73" square, so I think it's probably large enough to leave it be now. It seems I have had a steady diet of applique work lately. When I get one project finished up, the next two crop up right behind it!

Improv. Woven Basket quilt is finished!

The basket started out as an Adhoc. Improv. strings challenge to myself and then the appliqued flowers jumped on board. It's ended up being so much brighter than I expected with the flowers in the borders having a sharp, intense look to them. I think this is a quilt that will be wonderful looking with some hand quilting texture. Right now it feels good, but like it's missing something. Possibly, just an appliqued year up on that middle, pale lavender border unit directly above the basket handle. Will be pondering this for awhile I'm sure.

Then there's the brown/red/gold coin sashing that crashed and burned on the last attempt. I went very old school this time with some classic looking baskets in antique-y colors for the alternate blocks. Still haven't managed to find time to piece the rows, but the handles are appliqued down on the basket blocks and that was basically the only thing holding me back. Now I don't have any time to spend in the quilt room so they're on hold once again.

Coins & Baskets

All these baskets are making me want to make more baskets, which is really not surprising at all. I do rather have a fondness for them.*wink  The coins in the above quilt have been interesting, but I think because the project has had a couple false starts, I just want it done and over with. My mind keeps spinning around with the what-if's and too, the colors could be a little more fun. I'm actually quite relieved to see the vintage/antique direction it's taken, but just not in the mood this season.

Basket Love

So I just went and did it. Started another adhoc. improv. project. This one will have vertical columns of coins as I've never done that and they just keep coming back to haunt me. Also, there will be columns of improv. baskets, all very simple, in various sizes. This satisfies the '2-block' challenge that Kaja set up and lets me continue to play in this series of ideas that all seem to be generated by the one before. {Would you believe I'm also thinking seriously about making another big basket quilt?}. I dithered and dithered and dithered some more, about whether or not to make all the baskets the same size, finally deciding they had to be 'make-do'. Don't want this quilt to look too purposeful.

The basket columns will end up being a bit of a puzzle piece trying to get them all to fit properly but I'm looking forward to the challenge. This project feels very fun already. haha  Remind me of that when I'm trying to get the baskets to play nice together next month! Just need to get these free-hand handles stitched down to the background fabrics and then it will be full steam ahead. 

All the squares for the baskets background were cut without a ruler, then matched up to a similar sized square in the basket fabrics, crosscut and then one half of the basket square {a triangle} was used for a basket handle. I just grabbed the scissors and started cutting so there are short ones, fat ones, and skinny ones! There are no repeats in basket fabrics used, but for every background fabric {the brown} there will be two similar backgrounds. Are you confused yet? Don't worry. There is a plan that may or may not be jettisoned as soon as the project progresses! 

As an interesting aside, I had a touch or two of anxiety while free-cutting the squares for the baskets, but overall I feel very optimistic. No matter how it shakes down, I can make this work. As Monica observed in her recent post, some of us work better within some boundaries, whether self induced or not! Thanks to Ann and Kaja for another interesting Adhoc. Improv. challenge!