Moving Things Along

 Trying to get a couple more finishes in before the end of the year. Moody 9-Patch has the initial phase of binding sewn on, all the clips on and now is waiting on the hand stitching time.

Moody 9-Patch getting a binding

It was a huge relief to get Country Stars all finished up and ready for gifting. I even managed to get the label stitched on! 

Country Stars all finished up!

Next up will be making the time to deliver it. Gotta wait on my husbands schedule as we want to do it together. Sort of a 'Merry Christmas' and also a housewarming gift. 

The compass stars are never a bad idea

It's kind of funny how it ended up with a vaguely holiday vibe, which was never intended at all. I just hope our friend likes traditional look quilts as much as she proclaimed to. Kind of a trip down memory lane for me and though I don't LOVE this quilt, I'm happy with the way it turned out.

So happy the hand quilting grid proved out

The applique could have been a little bit more exciting, but then it would have been difficult to give away. Right?

Should be a good couch throw!

Next up in the hoop is the #AHIQStringTulipsQal project. This is the top that I thought was done and then  months later, had to pull it back out of the quilt top drawers and add on an applique border. So much better looking now. I thought surely, surely I would want to hand quilt the one and only Christmas quilt top left in the drawers, but nope. Absolutely no interest at the moment. For some reason this one thinks it needs to be next.

On to the next quilt

Oh well. It should be very easy to jump into and get started. I went ahead and machine stitched in-the-ditch around the large center area and also, at the outside border. Not necessary, but something that will make the overall stitching move just a little faster. And it won't ruin the look of the hand quilting one iota. Win, win.

Ready for the next step

All the applique for the thirty Primrose Path applique blocks is done now. The little flower centers went lickety-split. Now I will be adding little corner triangles to the blocks. Just need to decide on the right color for that. Originally I thought to do a white texty fabric, then I moved on to a mixed palette of pastels. Now I'm leaning hard toward shades of the med-pink used in a couple of the blocks. I never intended for this to end up a 'pink and black' quilt, but hey, what do I know?

A quilt that refuses to be taken seriously

You can see that I've sewn together eight of the nine blocks necessary for making the 25-Patch Hst quilt. Of course it doesn't seem like nearly enough {color me shocked} and so I will be changing it to a sixteen block quilt. I started out following the original quilt look for block colors but eventually just sort of gravitated toward changing things up here or there. Now I'm in good shape to make up the next eight blocks willy-nilly and then afterward I'll probably have to mix all the blocks up to make everything make sense once again. 

I'm crossing my fingers this will be a joyful, happy looking quilt, not a sad hst vomit type thing. I went ahead and cut out more of the darker brown and medium blue fabrics for more units. So far the green is the very hardest to introduce into the quilt which is pretty on par for normal around here. Don't want to leave it out though as there will be more green used in the sashing pieces. Probably. It's been a lot of fun though and coming together without much trouble. In my head, I'm calling it a 'palette cleanser', but I'm not sure why. Maybe because it's a quilt that refuses to be treated as precious?

In The Works

 Okay, things are extra hectic here lately so this post needs to be short and sweet.

Primrose Path--the alien looking flowers

After the hand quilting series, I've found myself betwixt and between projects. Nothing really looked amazing to work on. What I'd like to do is to start five new projects, and well... hand stitching wins it all. In the picture above you can see approximately half of my Primrose Patch blocks are mostly finished. Still need to figure out the color for the inside wobbly center. Obviously I'm thinking black.

Who says I can't make a guy quilt?

I've also bitten the bullet and put in some hand stitching time on Tag's Quilt. It's been hard to get in the mood, 'cuz I'm not really a lodge, outdoors, deep-in-the-woods sort of gal. I'll probably put a tree or two or three on this centerpiece and then call it good. Next up will probably be some cheesy machine pieced words around the centerpiece. Ughh. So not looking forward to that! Love the look, but don't always enjoy the process.

Starting a new project

It feels really weird to only have two applique projects in the works. So of course I had to start another. This is the fabric for the #AHIQColorPalette prompt. Apparently I'm taking my inspiration and tossing everything up in the air for a completely different look. Got the background pieces cut out {pieced together} and next up will be the applique prep work. The new name for this quilt will be 'Revised'.

The vintage block pillow project

Off on a tangent with the pillow making too. The blocks that started this particular project were vintage, hand-made blocks picked up at a second hand store somewhere. I needed something personal to add to an end-of-the-year gift exchange thing I take part in. Didn't want to make a quilt, but home-made sometimes feels a bit more special. They might be brighter than this persons decorating can handle, but I'm sure her rowdy kids will maul them half to death and shorten the pillow life expectancy! 

Country Stars

I also got another quilt in the hoop. Another one of those 'don't wanna' projects that need to be wrapped up before the years end. Went ahead and did the stitch-in-the-ditch around the compass blocks and now I'm hand quilting everywhere else. Finally made the decision to do a loose cross-hatching all around the outside of the quilt. It would probably look marginally better with echo quilting on or around the applique vine, leaves, berries etc, but I just want it done! I made so many quilts in these colors back in the day and now I don't find a lot of joy in working in this particular palette. Am surprisingly pleased with how much better it looks with the addition of hand quilting, but then.... don't I always say that? lol

It Feels Good To Be Making Progress On Something

I actually managed to get quite a bit done in spite of the fact that we had a busy, busy Easter weekend! I went ahead and added a very small coping border between the main part of A-Tisket-A-Tasket and the red hst border. 

A-Tisket-A-Tasket getting a border or two

I'm pretty sure there will only be one more border, of much larger red and gold hst units. It's all cut out and ready for sewing, just need to find the time. Super happy with how it's turning out though. That lighter yellow/gold just made everything shine! So weird because I had dismissed the idea earlier thinking that color would fade into the bottom part of the baskets too much and totally ruin the look. 

It's the whole kit and kaboodle. 61" square

I also managed to keep working on Country Stars. It was sooo tempting to put it up for a good long sleep, but I was not too sure that it might never see the light of day again once that happened. And I do want to get it finished up and gifted sometime this year!

It doesn't look like much, but it makes the quilt look better

I took the larger leaves in the middle of the applique and cut into them again. This time making into flowers with a red bud. It's all so much better now. Then I went ahead with the little stacks of berries, mixing up the colors. Red didn't look right and neither did pink, so I combined the two. It's still not a fabulous top, but overall I'm satisfied. Especially after all the applique was finished up {I thought} and on a whim, decided to sew the darker brown cross circle over the center compass block. 

It's applique and that's important sometimes, to
some people...

It just finished it off in a way that I can quit stressing about now. And I'm sure our friend will love all the little details eventually. It's really not easy to work on a quilt where the connection was never really there in the first place. But I did it. Got all the hand work done and dusted. Now I just need to take a deep breath and find time here this coming summer to get it sandwiched and pinned, ready for quilting!

Getting ready to hand sew the binding

Got all the hand quilting finished up on the AHIQ Hourglass quilt. Would have been done sooner, but the backing fabric was a heavier, tighter weave than I normally work with, something my aunt gave me awhile back. I love all the freebies, but occasionally it's nice to use something that wants to work better with a needle!

Almost ready for the hoop!

Next quilt in the hoop is the HaHa quilt. So crazy, it's been almost four years since this has been a completed quilt top! This one has been such a very long time getting in the hoop. It took over two years to even make quilt top stage. Some quilt tops are just plodders I guess. I don't know what to say except that I've just had very mixed feelings about this quilt from the beginning.

I really do like these words on the quilt

Love it and I well, worry about it. It's been too solid fabric-ish, too white, too many disparate elements, too much, too much. And I had zero ideas about how to hand quilt it until a couple months ago.

The ric-rac borders around the blocks are still a fave too

When I suddenly thought about stitching scallops over the center part. Huh. Maybe that will be the thing to make sort of 'make sense'. I went with the cardboard, make-it-yourself template since the plastic template sheets are so expensive these days. Didn't want to ruin a whole sheet experimenting. Anyway... It's not gonna be perfect and you're gonna see where I adjust, adjust, adjust the design. 

Home-made template for the win

Which might actually make me like it better. There's just something about it not being absolutely perfect that sorta calms me down and puts a smile on my face. Onward ho!

These girls.....

And here's a recent picture of our granddaughters. We had an enormous amount of fun getting to spend Easter weekend with them. I mean, we are The Easters, so it's always been a special holiday.*wink  Loving how chunky little Ellie is getting and how chill she was with us even though it's been months since we've got to squeeze on her. Like my father-in-law always said, if we'd have known how much fun grandkids were, we would have been sure to have them first..... 

Maybe The Solution Will Come To Me If I Take a Nap

I've been working on the border for the A-Tisket-A-Tasket quilt. Lots of hst's which are not difficult, just annoying.

Trimming the hst's

Before sewing them into rows and getting locked into something I don't want, I went ahead and auditioned some ideas for the next border after.

Auditioning some possibilities

Definitely loving the red and blue hst's, but the rest is slow going. I had this idea to use up a lot of that really light yellow oddball fabric. Maybe in random 9-patches etc., but noooo it's not working. So I switched to applique ideas which, funnily enough is not working either.

Nothing looks right

Will have to leave it be for a bit and come back later. In the mean time, I finished up all the hand work on the Orphan Annie tulip blocks. All 20 of them! They are looking very yummy I think. Those olive green colors used on the leaves are just enough different to make me smile.

Hoping these look good together in a quilt!

I finally remembered to check back with the inspiration pics for the Country Stars quilt. It's a blend of two patterns from my inspiration folders. Both published in the early 2000's?

Original inspiration

It was all started as a quilt for someone and so I used colors and a style that I thought they might particularly like. The hand work is 'next on the list' so here we go. Definitely wanting to move on to more intriguing projects!

Should have left it alone....

When I started stitching down the leaves everything in me just rebelled. Ughh! I just hate doing sharp curves and there would be so many? So without really thinking it through, I cut four of the leaves down to a more simplstic shape.

All the weird shaped leaves

Yeah, it was probably a bad, bad idea. I've only stitched down four leaves on the right side, 1 large one, 2 small ones and 1 large simple shaped one and it's looking pretty iffy already. My regret meter is pinging off the charts.

Might have to get the seam ripper out

I threw some berry shapes on the quilt top {oversized on purpose} and am not sure if it all looks better or just more train wreck. Why do I ever think it's a good idea to make things that I'm not feeling the love for? Somewhere the seam ripper is calling my name, all the while laughing its head off....

Loving these colors together

I've been hand quilting on the AHIQ Hourglass quilt lately which has made me think about all those languishing hourglass units. Hhmmmm....  I made that first batch the wrong size so had to start over. Yeah. It was a very fun and relaxing couple of hours pulling fabric to put with them. Not sure what's gonna happen there, but I could tell my heart was all in.

Preventative maintenance

One of the results of digging through all those marinating fabric stacks in the past couple weeks--totes and buckets of fabric soaking. There's a gorgeous green fabric that had just a little bit taken out of it, looked so bright and bold. Uh huh. It's been releasing dye for almost three days now. No worries. I only used it in my Coronacrazy quilt.*sigh 

A Sweet Finish

This ended up being the perfect finish for February. I was able to get the last stitches in the quilt last Friday and then throw it in the tub for a quick soak. Nope! No bleeding from any of those darker red fabrics. Yay! Write out a simple label and then it was time to hand deliver to my sister on Saturday.

Petra's quilt is finished!

She had forgotten that I had promised to hand quilt it over this winter! Too funny. I was hurrying, trying to get it all done before she left for a month long vacation. Oh well. Now it's done, totally checked off my list and hopefully, just in time for a little Valentines Day lift. 

Love the scrappy 16-patches esp.

I ended up doing a machine, stitch-in-the-ditch grid around all the blocks and in the seams of the inner border. I was hoping this would free me up from doing an intensive hand quilting effort, but in reality, there was plenty to do regardless. This is a big quilt. 82" x 98" before washing!

Surprisingly serene looking

Though the piecing was done years and years ago, it felt like an old friend. So many memories were brought to mind of the time spent making this top. Lots of the fabrics felt very familiar to me too as she had gifted me with the scraps and leftovers afterwards. Those pieces have made their way into many of the quilts made later on though honestly, I had totally forgotten the connection!

Very cuddle worthy...

The Geese Tracks block is still one that I favor, although I can only recall making one other quilt with it. Love the old fashioned simplicity and charm of the block. How different it can look depending on the color/fabric it's made with. 

Lots of sweetness

So very happy to have this quilt behind me and know that finally, finally it's going to be used, loved and appreciated. It's very sweet to know that my sister still loves it even after all these many years! Neither one of us mentioned that it was also used as decoration for her wedding reception, hanging on the wall behind her cake table. That part is just sad as she's now a widow. I tell myself that it's much more useful now as a finished quilt than it ever was as a quilt top. Let the new adventures begin!

I think she likes it!

In other quilt happenings around here, I've been going after the 'Country Stars' quilt project like a crazy woman. I keep making mistakes and then have to make corrections somewhere, somehow. So far I'm not letting it get me down as this quilt really doesn't need to be fantastic, only nicely done. I'm currently working on the applique prep work for the outer borders, with high hopes that the whole thing will perk up just a teeny tiny bit. Still so very bemused to be working with this particular color palette once again. Just doesn't feel as natural as it once did!*sigh

Country Stars before applique

And I'm also trying to keep up with the improv. quilt projects for my quilt meetings. We just finished up with the 3rd meeting and now I've got everyone sewing their blocks or 'slabs' together. Next meeting will be all about trimming and cross cutting for the rows. I'm trying to keep the meetings at a pace to work well with both the beginning sewers and also, the long time ones. Don't want anyone to get overwhelmed to the point of quitting, but as of meeting #4 I'm expecting to lose at least one young mama. Sewing machine problems and too much going on as she currently home schools her children. Really can't move any slower though or the experienced sewers are going to start getting super frustrated. 

Quilt Meeting progress

I've worked it out so there will be 7 meetings in all {ending the last of March}, with everyone potentially bringing their finished quilt top to the last one. At that point we'll regroup with anyone interested in moving forward with hand quilting. Technically I could probably show the basics of machine quilting too, but I just don't feel very good at that part of quilting. I'm very hopeful that our one 'long arm' quilter lady will jump in at that point and offer to help whoever wants to go that route. 

Always finding new inspiration

On a different note, I have been admiring this particular fabric in my latest quilt in the hoop. Just love that flower shape, how simple and easy it looks. Might have to keep something similar in mind for a future quilt!

New Applique Beginnings

 As per usual, the lure of the applique trips me up. No matter which projects are supposed to be 'next' in line, you can guarantee there'll always be time found for applique prep. Gotta make sure the hand work bag stays full!

The start of Orphan Annie

Orphan Annie, the pink tulip blocks {above} are one of those impulse things that I so love to do. The tulip shapes were cut-outs from the AHIQHourglass/Tulips quilt and I just can't bear to throw them away. Ughh! Can you even imagine? So I sewed up some scrappy backgrounds {20 in all}, in odd, random greens and green blues just to change things up. I'm using darker olive green fabrics for the leaves and a dark teal blue for the stems. They look fun to me even though the tulips are going to be very short, shallow blooms!

A Tisket, A Tasket

Then there's the 'A Tisket, A Tasket' project starting to take shape. I wanted to make basket blocks, but not really. Maybe something that tricks you into thinking it's a basket? After dithering over free cut triangles or the wedges for the base of the basket, I finally fell down on the side of the wedges. So much easier. And then of course I had to go ahead and add applique handles because why not? And now it's definitely a basket. 13 of them if you care about the total. Yeah. Color me surprised. Mostly, I've just been hankering to give that dark greenish/brown fabric a play. While not a huge fan of yellow and blue quilts, this is one challenge that doesn't scare me. All you have to do is add a basket or flower element and I'm all in!

The start of Country Stars

Next up is the quilt project that I will be calling 'Country Stars' because I can't really call it by its real name {Mrs. X's quilt}. I don't think she reads my blog, but just to be sure we'll keep it anonymous. And yep. It's brown.... Lots and lots of brown and oldish, sweet, sappy colors and prints. That's what she prefers so I'm gonna rise to the challenge and smile while I'm doing it. Reminds me soooo much of my older quilts. Wait? Didn't I make these stars once before? lol  

Uh huh. I've seen her roam around my living room where all the older quilts live and ooh and ahh. Okay. I give up. Apparently the newer quilts are just too bright and boring. Thankfully there are only 5 of the stars to sew as this is not something I'm terribly good at. In case you think that I've totally lost my mind, bear in mind that there will most definitely be some applique added on to the border surround. Maybe I can spice things up there in that area?

Ring Around

Another project lurking in the background forever has been these Melon Patch background blocks. After getting rid of the original backgrounds {and going in a different direction}, these little medallion 'starts' have been haunting me. 20 of them. Just too intriguing not to do something worthwhile with them! So I gathered some lovely fabrics together and conjured up a plan to make some wedge unit arches. This one is called 'Ring Around', loosely based on a quilt in a Kathy Doughty book, 'Adding Layers'. All the inspiration for the wedges is from the book, but the end result should look a little bit different. The fabrics looked much more interesting before I cut them out than they do now.*sigh  This might be the biggest flop of the year, we'll see.

Lillabelle blocks

Then there is 'Lillabelle'. This is part of a new series I've started with larger circle cut-outs because I just cannot resist the challenge. The siren call is pulling me in no matter how much I try to go do something else! When Gold Crossroads quilt top was finished up, there they were and who am I to say no? Absolutely no will power when it comes to these sorts of projects. And so you can see that this series will just sort of self generate. After these flowers are sewn on, the back side will be cut out and wallah! That will be the start of the next in the series, only this time they will be in the cheddar range instead of cream. And then the next, and then the next. Right now these blocks are quite large, 20" or so, but we'll see what happens as the series continues.

Spring Flowers getting sandwiched and pinned

With the hand stitching on Petra's quilt winding down, it was time to get another top ready for the hoop. Spring Flowers caught my fancy and so that is that. Decision made!

Sweet flowers

I don't think there will be any attempt at fussy stitching, just echo quilting etc. I'm looking forward to having a quilt in the hoop without a deadline, self-imposed or otherwise. Still wondering what in the world happened to make me want this wavy, striped fabric on the outside of this very calm and peaceful quilt. There are times that I make my own eyeballs twitch. Can't even imagine how the rest of you feel following along with all my odd and somewhat unexpected tangents!