Grandma's Fans is Complete!

 The brand new quilt finish is 'Grandma's Fans'!  This was started in 2021 sometime after my daughters wedding. Just felt like getting a couple of the fabric stacks moving and grooving.

Grandma's Fans Quilt is finishedd!

Didn't get the top together until September of 2022, but that's not really an extra long time for projects around here. You're probably thinking 'Wow! There's no applique in it.' but actually there is. All the wedges and quarter circle are machine sewn together, but then, well... I simply had to hand sew them to the background squares.

Doesn't really look like a quilt my grandma would have made

Just something that I prefer to do most of the time. Gotta have a couple hand applique projects in the works at all times. Might break out in hives otherwise! Plus, precision and circles are not my strong suit at all. 

Loving this hand quilting texture!

I've always really loved the fan quilts, such a lovely, classic design. Just never thought I'd make one in these lighter, brighter colors! The final inspiration {after soaking up many ideas for 'fan' quilts through the years, was this quilt. It's not very often that I make a quilt that so closely mirrors the inspiration but for some reason I fell in love with this particular quilt. 

Still happy about the change-up in fans presentation

I did change up the colors slightly and also, turned some of the fans, changing the look incrementally. My quilt just wasn't happy with all the fans pointing in the same direction! 

Love the text fabric backgrounds in mine sooo much. There's something about text fabrics that always make me smile and this design helped show them off a bit. Obviously, I didn't go off of a pattern, but made it up on my own. Always have to do things my way, don't I? It's going to be extremely hard to get rid of this quilt when the time comes. It's already earmarked for one of the nephew weddings someday! Probably. Maybe. Unless I change my mind....

Definitely a cuddly sort of quilt!

Mostly I'm just thrilled to have another quilt finish. Things are moving so slowly around here lately {in regards to quilting} that I wonder if I'm even a quilter? Ha. Nope. Not wondering at all. It's still my thing!

The background isn't stark white 'cuz of the text

Must be. Since I dream of quilts and see quilt patterns and ideas practically everywhere I go. And yes, I still have a notebook by my bed where I can doodle a quick quilt idea just before nodding off at night.*sigh

A happy looking circle of fans!

The hand quilting has picked up a little of late. 'A Tisket, A Tasket' quilt is the newest one in the hoop. It's got a very easygoing, cottage country sort of charm. I stitched in-the-ditch between all the blocks and now I'm coming back and doing some hand quilting with Perle Cotton thread. Always seems to makes the whole quilt perk up! The colors are very different from the prior quilt in the hoop, which isn't always a bad thing. Helps keep things interesting!

In the hoop

And the little baskets below are the current hand applique project finally finding its way to needle and thread. Got about half of them done now with the slightly larger {taller} baskets left to stitch. It's so lovely to sit and do hand applique. I know many of you detest the neede-turn application, but if everything is prepped and ready to go, I just love it. So satisfying! It's rather like painting a picture in fabric to my mind.

Baskets for 'Peace Always' quilt

That's it for now. Every now and then I pull out a stack of marinating fabric and fiddle around with it, trying to conjure up some good quilting mojo. Sometimes I go upstairs to my quilt room and try to soak it all in before I have to scurry and get back to whatever needs my attention more. It's been great seeing all the BBI quilt tops together--how very, very different they are! Have you seen how many there are now? Loving the creative response to the QAL prompts and how original everyone has been. Hopefully it hasn't been a waste of anyone's time. We only have so many quilts we can make in our lifetime, right?

Taking Some Time Off!

 I've been puttering around, sewing the wedges together from a project that got cut too small. It just seems like a waste to have it sit in the orphan totes forever. The plan is to hand applique these wheels to a background block and then figure out a center circle fabric. Perhaps blue? Some of the Dresdens are a little bit wonky, but I'm crossing my fingers the hand work will ease it out.

The new applique project

In other news, my mother got this lovely quilt in the mail a couple weeks ago. One of my cousins had found these old blocks when she was going through her late mothers belongings. 

A quilt made from my grandmothers blocks

They were hand pieced by grandmother years and years ago, and had never quite made it to quilt top stage.

Making do, making it work!

My cousin quite generously paid to have someone sew these blocks together and then finished into a completed quilt top! Then, in the sweetest of sweet things to do, mailed it off to my mother. 

Takes me back to the days of
fighting over my grandmas quilts
to sleep under....

My mother was very appreciative and actually in tears as all of the quilts from her mother had burned in the 2014 fire. I especially love the 'mistake' block, don't you? Many of my grandmothers quilts used cut up remnants of clothing the family wore and greens were always a favorite of hers to make quilts out of. My mother said the Drunkards Path was one of her moms favorite unit to work with and that she had made several different quilts with it through the years. So many of her quilts have been lost, either to fire or to mildew from improper care of them after they had moved back to Oklahoma in the late 70's.

As usual, I have been a busy, busy girl this summer. Starting to sound a little whiny with it I'm sure! This is a picture of me after I had thrown together an apron to wear at another cousins wedding. A couple of my sisters and I had to man the kitchens and replenish the buffet table after the wedding. A little ironing and it was all set to go!

I'm taking the rest of August off from blogging as there is simply too much on the schedule to keep up. Take care and keep quilting! I'll probably check in on your blogs and lurk if I have a spare minute or two...

All the Current Projects

So one of the questions I get asked pretty often is this: how many projects are you currently working on? Well, most of the time, it's a number somewhere between 5 and 10. And that doesn't even count the quilt in the hoop or if I'm finishing off the binding on yet another quilt. 

The new medallion quilt

Right now there are 8 work-in-progress type quilt projects. They have fabric stacked up, blocks started or applique prepped, designs doodled onto paper, or something serious going on. They are the real deal and not just a dreamy little idea for the future! The first one is 'Peace Always Medallion'. Just barely got the centerpiece stitched down a couple days ago. Love, love, love having a free-style medallion quilt in the works!

Needing a sashing

'Primrose Path' is a project based on a textile print that I pinned on Pinterest years ago. Just love the naïve look to these  flowers. Took me a couple years to finally decide that yes, I did actually want to do the backgrounds in dull black colored fabrics. Next up is working out the measurements for the pieced sashing. Really intrigued by the way the sashing forces the applique into being front and center.

Getting ready to stitch these down

'Melon Patch Blossom' is part of the ongoing Melon Patch series. It will be the third one in fact! When I changed direction in mid stream, these petal look motifs didn't relish being completely abandoned. The bright green rectangles are probably going to be a sashing element in this quilt. Maybe. We'll see where things end up.

All ready for the love and attention!

'Improv. Hourglass Abstract' is something that has been nagging at me for a very long time. Really wanted to do something with the leftover hourglass units {wrong size so more like useless hourglass units?} and this seemed like the answer. Will need to be figuring out a larger scale applique flowery vine to stitch down over the top of this. Don't want it to be so small as to not make a proper impact!

Looking pretty sweet!

Then there's the 'Happy Accident' project. Cut out all the Dresden units much too narrow for Ring Around. Are you getting the message yet? Many of my projects seem to originate from leftovers and random mistakes...

Piecing is not my strong suite anymore. Feeling a bit boring...

'Old Fashioned' is just a sappy, mellow yellow quilt that I wanted to make. Supposed to be answering a Sun challenge prompt, but can't quite get there in my mind until I work with these quieter yellows. Don't know why it works that way sometimes, but there's really not a lot of point in fighting it.

Making sure I want to do what I think needs to happen

'Good Vibes' is the next quilt in the Circle Game series. #3 I think. These circles were cut out from behind Lillabelle. It's interesting how the circles are getting less and less truly circular and more obviously lopsided. Do I care? Hmmm... Probably not. I also find it fascinating that the circles really aren't getting substantially smaller with each new set. For some reason that has surprised me more than it should of. 

All prepped and ready to go

And then there is 'Prickly Pears'. Yep! Another quilt with cut-outs from a previous quilt. I thought they would be kinda weird looking pears in the gray, but this is looking rather sweet and spunky to me. Will see how it plays out in the larger layout, but for now, my fingers are positively itching to get started stitching! 

So that's that. Lots of applique as usual which tends to keep my skirt blowing up and the endorphins running at high. Will probably try to finish up another project or two before I dive into more brand new projects. The next ones should probably be something other than orphaned bits and bobs too. The thing is, we should all work on exactly the amount of projects that make sense to the way our quilty ebb and flow work best. I feel very good about this amount. Not overwhelmed and too over stretched, and yet not too tied down or boxed in. Isn't playtime fun?

Hanging In There

We're mostly doing fine, just feeling headachy and stressed. Very thankful that so many of the people we know and love have been able to return already to an intact home. Today though, the fires are a few miles away and across the Columbia river. Much closer than we can possibly be happy about. No evacuation notices for our little town just yet, but it could come. Uggh. I've got a file box of important papers ready just in case, but nothing else. We're just tired. Weary. Sick that this particular fire was started intentionally. Some people have mental health problems, that's all I'm gonna say.

4-Block Tulip Medallion

In an impulsive move, I decided that there really should be something hanging up on that little design wall of mine. There needs to be something to look at and consider whenever I come into the quilt room. Something that doesn't take me having to pull it out of a tote just to look at. Decisions are hard right now. Even the silliest of ones.

All the pieces were cut using a small template

called a 'Mini Dresden' I picked up at Walmart

So  out came the 4-block Tulip quilt project. You know, the boring blocks? I'm making these pieced sashing strips to frame them. All the blues were cut strictly from the scrap bin totes and so the straight of the grain isn't always exact. I'll deal with the foibles of that later. Eight more sets to go and then I'll have to figure out the inner strip color and all the cornerstones. Probably gonna be applique there. I mean, why not?

Trying not to man handle them too much!

I've also been plodding through the steps to bring the T blocks to completed quilt top phase. This isn't a particularly inspiring quilt top, but all of it has come directly from the stash totes or a cut-up plaid shirt or two. It's kept me busy in a totally non-pressure way. 

Vintage T quilt top is completed!

In this quilt I focused on 'old tired oranges' and found some success with using up some languishing bits. Like I said in a previous post, the color palette was found in one of my favorites of my dads well-used plaid shirts. I'm pleased to say that another of his cast-off plaid shirts has also found its way into this very quilt. I've had it for a very, very long time and never found a good use for it until now. Seems rather fitting. And yes, he's still alive. Mom and dad both are, though getting more fragile with every year it seems. Much better to make this sort of quilt now than later when I would cry buckets, right?

Loving this green fabric so much...

I changed out the fabric on the plus block below three different times. Or was it four? Don't know why I even bothered as eventually this quilt will probably be used as a comfort quilt. Or not. There is that sentimental attachment after all! Some of the smaller orange rectangles are pieced as are the longer orange strips. It's all make-do and somehow sort of sweetly old fashioned. I don't love it, but I'm happy with the simplicity and {un}pretentiousness of it all.

It may not be special, but it's keeping me busy...

One evening I couldn't settle and finally went scrounging for a new fabric pull to cheer myself up. Funny how melancholy it looks with only blues, greens and blacks being represented, ha ha. Not so cheery after all unless you're a quilter. Then you probably understand.  Guess it will be a moody Judy sort of quilt if/when I ever cut into the fabric and give it a go!

I also have given the quilt room another good tidying up in the past week. Had a lot of fun opening up all the smaller totes of fabric stacks and also gave all the simmering stacks on the counters a good long look. Nothing went promptly back into the stash totes, so I'd say there's still some potential there in each and every one. In fact, my heart actually did the little 'pitter-patter' thing just imagining a couple of these worked into a quilt design. Couldn't quite bring myself to actually cut into anything this week, but ideas are slowly bubbling up in the back of my conscious. I can feel it happening.

A new stack of fabric to think about...

Finally found a window to watch an episode of 'The Quilt Show' featuring Sujata Shah and Freddy Moran. You can find the link over at The Root Connection though time is running out to access it for free. Am so glad I took the time to watch this as both quilters are long time faves of mine. Really made me aware {once again},  of how much I NEED a source of creativity in my life! Especially right now. Wowsers. Some nights it's all I can do to pick up the hand quilting hoop and stitch part of a hoop. The thing is, no matter how difficult it seems to be to get started, I always, always feel so much better afterward. Crossing my fingers this publishes properly as our Internet has been very erratic this past week. So there you go, another post from Debbie Downer desperately trying to keep her chin up. Things could be much, much worse and we're thankful they're not. One day at a time!

 

Loving This Scrappy Dresden Border!

Late last year I almost started the Love Entwined applique BOM. Almost. I even printed out the first two months directions. Then I just sort of kissed it goodbye in an effort not to tie myself down with such a huge, detailed, applique project. Someday I am going to make a very special quilt like that, but for now I'm enjoying the freedom to go my own way.

Flowers and Flying Geese

Like these scrappy pink Dresdens. I just sort of stumbled into this idea after seeing the pink fabrics fanned out next to my quilt--me sitting there thinking, 'What next? It's gotta be pink!'

It worries me occasionally that all all my ideas will dry up and blow away before I can even get a solid fix on what they are. So silly when I think about how I work. It's not like I draw out an entire quilt idea before even getting started! (Okay, once in awhile that happens, but it's a very rare thing.) For me it generally starts with the fabric. I love to dig into my totes of stash fabric for the unlike-lies, the less than lovable and the ones that are so very shy they are easily overlooked.

If I dig deep enough, there are usually fabrics to be found that have been lurking around for a very long time. Then I have to wonder why they're still there! What is wrong with me that these fabrics haven't been given their special moment in the sun a quilt! Eventually I gather a neat little stack of fabrics together and the quilt starts taking on a life of it's own.

Take this Flowers and Flying Geese quilt. So far I've haven't had to buy any new fabric for it at all. Which just makes me so very happy.  I have finally managed to use the last little bit of fabric bought for a baby quilt for my youngest son (he's now 13). There are a couple fabrics given to me by an aunt at least 8 yrs. ago--originally from the late 80's maybe (a particular ugly time in the life of calico). Then there are the flying geese units which are from the baby quilt I made for a niece (going on 8 yrs? now). The modern looking pinks are from a quilt top I made for my sister back in 2005? And I know the blue flower fabrics are from a challenge project I attempted at least 10 yrs. ago.

A closer look

We should never be afraid of our stash fabric. I can't emphasize that enough! Mostly, stash fabric is just patiently waiting for the right blend of components to help us love them all over again. Sometimes it takes a new piece or two of fabric to help boost them into the limelight, but not always. One of the greatest merits of blending the old fabrics with the new is how the shades and tones change through the years. If you can figure out how to get past the fact that certain colors don't 'match' anymore, you might be pleasantly surprised by how your quilt starts talking to you, maybe even singing. It's brilliant and we have it all right here at our fingertips!

In the interest of full disclosure, I think it's only fair to admit that the biggest challenge usually ends up being the process. Uh huh. How do we make those oldy fabrics blend with the newer ones and still get a quilt that looks 'present'? (And what if we inadvertently make a quilt that takes everyone straight back to the 90's? Ack!) Obviously we have to find block patterns and layouts that resonate with us as well as our fabric choices.

All I can say is TRY, TRY, TRY. Success comes with experience, which is only possible when effort is expended.*sigh  If I find the magic formula I'll be sure and let you in on it. In the meantime, I'm still digging around for some unlikely blues for the next border....

Loving These Dresdens!

It's been crazy busy around here, but not so much on the quilting front. I guess all the Valentines Day stuff finally motivated me to start sewing the Dresdens on my Flowers and Flying geese border.

Flowers & Flying Geese border

I can totally see why people fall in love with Dresdens after working on these scrappy pink ones. Loving how this looks so far! Only three more borders to go, but it isn't going super fast for me. Probably because I went ahead and tacked the bottom of the Dresdens down to the border fabric. There's just too much stretch from the bias to cut the back out of the applique just yet and I need it nice and secure when I sew it to the main part of the quilt.

On to the Next Border(s)

You know me, always jumping around from project to project. It keeps me from being bored (as if that's ever a problem with quilting) and the color change-up from quilt to quilt is a wonderful thing. Some calming, others not so much!

Geese Tracks & Improv. quilt

Most of the baskets are appliqued now for my Geese Tracks & Improv. quilt. Just a few more and I can start sewing the borders together. They are SO blueish! I may have to add a little more color in to help that border out, but then there is that single red basket to think about. Mustn't take away from it's moment in the spotlight....

Flowers and Flying Geese Medallion

I finally sewed my Dresden wedges together for the Flowers and Flying Geese quilt too. Can you believe that I once didn't even like pink? (Having little girls probably took care of that problem!) I found a great fabric in my stash to fussy cut for the half circle centers and I am loving how it makes the Dresdens 'pop'. It's a bit brassy and bold for the rest of the quilt, but my heart is saying go for it. The border lengths are cut out, my Dresdens are ready to applique and I am getting excited about this border. Can you tell? I know if I would have plowed through the entire quilt last July when I first started this quilt, I would never even have come up with this border. It wouldn't have happened because Dresdens were just not on my horizon then!  Okay, lots to do today. Basketball games tonight and I'm still not through with everything that needs done for the day.  Never enough time to quilt like we want to.*wink

Prep, Prep, Prep

So much prep just to get started sometimes! I have been wanting to make another subdued looking applique centerpiece and the fabric I got from Ellen was the perfect spark to get going.

Muddy Creek prep

I love the purpley browns especially--so very wonderful to me. I drew up a basic plan to figure out how many leaves I need etc. and then cut rotary cut rectangles. I cut the leaves out (freehand) from those rectangles, skipping the tracing step completely! Love that, but now I need to go back and trim up my leaves because some of them aren't the exact shape I want--working on auto-pilot will do that to you!

Cutting the leaves

I still can't believe I cut the linen out of the backs of my Happy Flowers. Talk about working on auto-pilot. It took me a little while to get all the fray check on the edges of the linen, but I do think it's going to work out better in the long run. As you can see, I also zigzagged the edges of the block, so it's official now. I don't like the extra steps, the extra thinking things through, being careful etc. Mixing linen and quilting is not my thing, no matter how pretty and supple this fabric feels to me!

Adding fray check to the linen

I've also started cutting out Dresden wedges for my Flying Geese and Flowers quilt. The Dresden block is so timeless, it almost seems crazy to use it in this particular quilt! Oh well, I'm hoping to make them out of this stack of scrappy pinks and that way they will look kinda fun and give the quilt a little extra 'pop' of color too. My red, white and blue quilt has definitely morphed into something a little different!

Cutting out my Dresden wedges

I do love making things as scrappy as possible, adding in the maximum amount of different fabrics I think a quilt will allow. It really gives me a warm fuzzy feeling to dig to the bottom of my totes, find fabric that has never played well, and then give it a good place in one of my quilts. Scrappy quilting just seems to lend itself well to disguising older, less exciting fabrics if you're willing to make the effort. And I am, because it's just that charming mix of old and new that I love the most about quilts!