A Surge of Productivity

So nice to finally have Dried Flowers completely finished! This one was started in July of 2018 and has always felt like a sweet little gem of a quilt. I love when a quilt starts out with a whisper and then gradually morphs into something so much greater than the initial seed of inspiration!

Dried Flowers is completed!

This one originated from a thorough deep-dive through the orphan totes one day when the lure of working with cut-out-from-the-backs-of-other-applique seemed especially enticing. At that moment, all I really wanted was something quick and easy to start stitching on.

Looking across the quilt

Once in awhile I don't bother to draft out a full quilt idea and just plunge straight into the making of blocks. For this one, I first layered the circles and then later, decided what to do with the flower 'body'. The colors to this quilt were chosen on the fly, all very much based on those original circles and what might emphasize them to the greatest degree.

The full effect

After that, the whole quilt just sort of fell into place piece by piece as was needed to properly move on.  The strings were decided on because I love cutting/sewing improv. strings and I felt they would be a good relief block to the formality of the flowers. It also gave me opportunity to further play with some old, tired fabrics, something that {surprisingly} continues to be of interest to me even still today. The decision to make the applique rows pointed instead of just chopping them off at the same width as the rest of the quilt was partly a coping strategy and partly true serendipity! How could I ever have imagined the totality of this quilt in my head before starting to see the pieces emerge right in front of me?

Why don't I applique interesting leaves
more often?

I personally adore the stringy improv. blocks alternating with the sweet pea look to the flower blocks. It comes together as very quiet and soothing looking, with pops of what I like to call  pure deliciousness! Add in the hand quilting and the texture jumped up to a whole 'nother level. Love it!

Can't get enough of these flowers...

In case you had any doubts whatsoever, I am seriously thrilled with the end result of Dried Flowers. It feels like a good me quilt and I'm so very glad for impulsively deciding to start stitching those circles together on that day!

Hoping it looks sweet and girly enough!

In a spontaneous surge of productiveness, I also cut out, sewed and machine quilted a basic looking quilt for the brand new great-niece. Honestly, I was scared to wait until later in December as it might never get finished! The Fons & Porter 60 degree pyramid triangle has been lurking in my drawer for years and this seemed like a great way to test it out. I have had ideas for making another quilt with that same ruler but somehow never have managed to make the first cut.

Lovely to use up some of these fabrics

This entire quilt would have looked loads better if I had taken the time to cut smaller triangles for just a few of those solid triangles. {Hanging my head with chagrin just a tiny little bit.} Wouldn't it have given it lovely depth? Alas, this was one of those quilts where the saying 'done is better than perfect' kept looping through my brain. Best to whip it out and get it gifted. Expending too much of my precious creative time on something that only has to look 'cute and girly' doesn't sound like a real winner in the long run. I have important quilts to work on!*wink

Baby quilt for the new niece

Did you see the periwinkle fabric that I ended up including in the baby quilt just because? It's been hanging out in the stash totes for a million years and never, ever plays nicely with any other fabrics.  And you know me, just because I was in a tearing hurry doesn't mean there's not sufficient time for a wee little personal challenge...

Quarter Triangles quilt

And here you go for those that keep track, the 'Next Up In The Hoop' quilt is this Christmassy Quarter Triangles one. I totally forgot to take a picture of it until the top was sandwiched and pinned, about to be folded up in the quilt bag. The top was finished up in January of this year after I went on a Christmas quilt top sewing binge. This particular quilt top was also a So-Tired green fabrics challenge to myself. Lots of oldie moldies got whacked up and included in the mix for this particular making! The other quilt top is prettier, but this is the one that felt perfect for sliding into the hoop and burning through for a quick finish. Yes, I could definitely have tried to machine quilt this quilt without ruining anything about it, even with my paltry skills. The thing is, I need uncomplicated right now for the hoop business. Pick it up, settle into stitching and not THINK. Sounds like my happy place right about now!

Checking In to Say I'm Alive and Kicking

There's a new quilt in the hoop. Something easy and lighthearted. Possibly a little bit fallish too! It makes me very happy to have this in my lap late in the evening. Good vibes!

Dried Flowers

Of course I'm hand quilting it. Most of you know that machine quilting is definitely not my forte!

Getting sandwiched and pinned

I have a fond spot for this particular quilt. All the improv. strings make my heart sing. Plus using up the abandoned bits for the flowers was just pure fun. I'm probably overstating the case, but can you tell that this quilt makes me smile?

Looking at the applique

Then there's this Four-Block Tulip quilt on the wall. The color in the picture is not quite right but I confess that it still has an old fashioned vibe. Honestly, I'm loving that! Looking forward to putting a wide scrappy yellow border on next. Got to have a good background for more applique! And yes, I deliberately chopped the corners off of the square-in-a-square cornerstones....

4-Block Tulip Medallion on the wall!

I've also been staring at this small pile of fabric. Need to make a baby quilt and these just appeal so much! Pretty much every spare brain cell is dead though. Not coming up with any good ideas!

The fabric stack is marinating

Somehow in the busyness of life, we found time to take a family picture. Don't have our oldest son and his wife {and grandkids} in it, but we were super happy with the fall tones. And it was all very impulsive one day {after church} when we somehow realized that our clothing matched very well. Hopefully I can get organized enough to get this on some Christmas cards here in a couple weeks.

Family is everything

And yes, I have most definitely gained some Coronavirus weight this year. My youngest daughter and I have been getting some walks in on a regular basis lately, trying to improve our mental health and hopeful get me {a little tiny bit} closer to a healthier weight. 

Pumpkin bread

But you know how it is. Fall is in the air and doesn't that mean it's time for pumpkin bread? I'm just not gonna stress too much about it. There's enough of that going on in life! We actually had snow yesterday though it didn't stick here in town. Thank goodness! I'm so not ready for winter! On a good note, I'm thinking that one more week in the home office and then that particular backlog will be finished up and out of my hair. Yay! Is my creativity completely dried up and blown away by now? You don't even know how very, very sick of paperwork I am....

Dried Flowers Quilt Top is Finished!

Some quilts come about from sheer whimsy. Completely unplanned, nonetheless sparked  by something deep within our conscience, we feel there is no choice but to start stitching. Only later do we gradually realize that there needs to be an end to the story! Picture me scribbling madly on notebook paper, drawing up potential layout ideas. This of course after impulsively coming up with these flower blocks! Hmm.. What to do, what to do....

Dried Flowers quilt top

This quilt was one of those deceptively simple, but madcap sort of starts and no-one is more surprised than me at how it has turned out! I'm not sure if this is a end-of-the-summer-flower-garden or an ode to spring but, whatever! It's all good! I am loving the use-it-up feel of starting with cast-off circles and then winding my way through the depths of the stash totes, and then finally, having a play with a bit more formal looking applique! Where were the seeds of this quilt hiding and why didn't I even realize they were always there, lying in wait?

A closer look at the coin strips

Having slowly plodded through {most} of the details for the applique work, all that was needed was to add on the outside border strips. Then I impulsively decided to applique the small orangey squares at the corners too. The brighter coral flowers in the center rows were overshadowing the poor Dried Flower blocks. These little spots of color seemed to help bring a little more focus back to the sweet looking flowers. Plus, it felt whimsical and that's usually a win in my book.

The little add-ons at the corners....

I'm so pleased with the improv. cut coin strips in between the flowers. It's getting to be a default decision, adding in strippy free-cut piecing to so many of my quilts.  It might seem silly or maybe even pointless to sew them with such blendy fabrics, but the resulting texture absolutely thrills me on such an elemental level. How could I resist and why would I even want to to try....

Such a feel-good sort of finish!

Figuring out the side borders was always going to be a little tricky. I had a {perfectly perfect} brown fabric with a subtle stripe that hopped on board almost from the beginning. I knew it had to go somewhere, and eventually that 'somewhere' became obvious as an outside border. The horizontal applique border strips just kept insisting that they needed to spill out into that border. Okay, fine, but I didn't want to break up the flow up those subtle stripes either. So, yeah. Nobody was ever going to notice but me, and we all know how these things wind up. Gotta make it happen so it won't drive us insane later! Oh I should have, could have, knew it would have been better the other way.... Right?

Trying to decide measurements for the border...

It finally came down to cutting the horizontal brown strips at exactly the width of the sewn together flower block/coin strips; ie, the current width of the quilt. Then I measured {and measured again}, finally cutting the cream applique background just long enough to extend beyond, and over, into the outside border. So yes, I sewed the horizontal brown strips to the flower/coin strips in a huge big unit, then cut and sewed the outside borders onto the sides of the quilt. At that point, I then unpinned the folded up ends of the cream fabric and laid the excess lengths out over into the outside border. I used a paper template that I had drawn up to gauge where to cut the 'triangle' shape, and then finished appliqueing the rest of that strip down.*whew!  So much trouble for a a very stubborn idea.

Where the center strips extend into the side borders...

It looks a little ruffled in the picture, but in reality it lays quite flat. Maybe if I wouldn't leave my quilt tops laying around for awhile before taking pictures or even, better yet, ironed things more carefully? You wouldn't be scratching your heads at any or all of the quilts that do {amazingly} end up looking fairly square around here...

In the initial layout drawing, I had drawn two stacked circles where each of the black circles are, kind of like a colon, but it didn't look right. Eventually I determined that only one circle was needed but that it needed to be larger. Thankfully there was just enough of that particular fabric left to cut new, larger circles because for some reason that was the very best black fabric available from the stash. You know how black has so many different tones? This fabric was a super subtle woven, but spot on in intensity. With so very much brown represented in the quilt, I definitely didn't want a too-saturated black to come off as jarring and strident. And it couldn't be a modern or contemporary print. Fabric is important to the feel and vibe in a quilt. I care about these things quite a lot actually, as do many of you!

Now it'll be time to work on the baby girl quilt which was made up of the cast-off coin strips from this project. Only a week or so till the shower! Linking up with Wendy's Peacock Party!

I Love Applique. The Round-up Post You Didn't Know You Were Waiting For

Just kidding. You can skip the reading and just skim the pictures. It's no secret that I love applique. If it even comes close to a time where all the applique projects are finished up, then you can be sure that I'm quite, quite busy in the quilt room trying to get yet another one prepped and ready to go! This time of year it is especially nice be doing hand work while enjoying the gorgeous afternoon lighting, a direct result of all the gorgeous snow on the hills and mountains around us.

Just a little ways downriver from where we live....

I can't take credit for that fantastic picture above, but that, my dear friends is often our winter wonderland this time of year. Isn't it beautiful? Though I'm starting to get weary of winter, it's hard to be upset by our views. You can see more of my sisters very talented photography over here if you like, she's really got the skills. In the meantime, I humbly asked to borrow her photo as mine are not proving to be very exciting. Ha! Not telling you anything you didn't already know!

Dried Flowers progress

I went ahead and attacked Dried Flowers {which looks way better than the photo might indicate}, getting the string columns all figured out and attached to the flower blocks. There ended up being a little more of the blue/greens included than I originally thought would be necessary. Still, I'm fairly happy with the results, especially the old time look of the scrappy lighter strips. It took me a couple days to {cut and} sew the large slab blocks together and as always, I was perturbed by all the excess. No matter. I simply drew up a simple baby quilt to use up all the leftover narrow string columns. It just hurts to throw away that much fabric!

An applique addition

Now that the three largest parts of the quilt are sewn together, then it was time to address the horizontal applique strips. I've been envisioning these in my head for quite awhile and was puzzling over how to put it all together. For now, I'm only planning on sewing two of these and placing them between those larger sewn units.When the hand work is finished, they will be stitched onto darker strips and then, possibly? extended into the outer border by a smidge. Still working out the details of that.

I'm pretty sure the original applique design was sparked by a piece of fabric somewhere along the line, but at this point I'm not sure if it was in a quilt or maybe even a shirt that I've worn. It was something that sparked an interest because of the repeating pattern, not because of the specifics of the flowers or leaves. Those elements were drawn and redrawn freehand, until I ended up with something that I feel will work and blend well with the rest of the quilt. Amazing how frustrating it can be to draw simple leaves and/or flowers sometimes! Pretty much the only thing that you can be sure of is when the drawing looks terrible and when the shapes aren't right! Perseverance though, and eventually you end up with something you're originally shooting for. More or less....

Antique Crows before

Speaking of which... Sometimes you just can't get it right no matter how you try! I previously failed to mention that the two bird templates used in this Antique Crow quilt were directly from Cheri Payne Saffiote's 'Wednesday's Best' pattern book. After drawing several different bird fails, I went looking for the person who did the best primitive-look birds ever. She was an incredible Folk Art/Primitive quilt inspiration and always will be. Wouldn't want to deny her any well deserved credit!

Already folded up and put away in the drawers, that quilt just kept nagging at me. Every time I looked at the pics from the last post, the missing leaves on the largest flowers bugged me. Okay, fine. FINE. Have it your way!! And now the largest flowers have their leaves and all is well again. The main reason I left them off in the first place was because all that green felt 'too bright'. Well, now it has more of it and suddenly, it looks more 'right'. Go figure. 

Antique Crows after

Another one of the applique projects lurking in the background is the Melon Patch blocks. They've been around now for a couple years. There are 20 blocks with four stacks of four petals per block. The other day I grabbed the third layer of petals and assigned them to appropriately matching/blending top petals. This means that I am almost ready to start stitching on them. Some day. Do not lose hope. Eventually this forever, slow, mind-numbingly tedious quilt will be seen to be making progress once again. It's really too late to back out now.

Melon Patch petals

And that quilt might be the main reason I have not started on the quilt below, even though I have have fabric picked out and the photo bookmarked for approximately three years.*sigh  One of my aunts {since deceased} bought me this book years and years ago. The Oak Leaf quilt was my favorite quilt in the entire book and I've been quite determined to sew it together one day. Well.... I've recently decided that those particular fabrics stacked up together and simply languishing in a tote {for three years} makes me a little queasy. I could be doing something good with them! There has got to be an answer somewhere for how to accomplish this without marking and cutting out the oak leaves.... and then leaving them languishing in the applique bag for another three to five years.*sigh again

You see my dilemma? I really feel that I want to make this quilt as it will be a lovely reminder of one of my favorite aunts; however, it's also clear that my get-up-and-go is not going anywhere very fast these days. At least as it pertains to this project. So the latest solution I have stumbled upon is to take out the entire center of the quilt and maybe do a centerpiece of sorts. Keep it basic, but intriguing enough so that it will hold my interest, then only sew two rows of those leaf blocks. It might sound crazy to you, but knocking the number of applique blocks down to 40 from 49, sounds a bit more manageable to me. We'll see. This is still in the contemplation stage for sure. I might even do an every other oak leaf block thus cutting the applique down even further! Do I really need more medallion quilts? Sure, why not? And speaking of medallions....

Oak Leaves quilt pondering

When a person loves applique like I do, it's easy to see possibilities everywhere. Do you remember the large cut-out circle from another applique project I posted about back in January?  Well, the other evening when I was hand quilting, this flower shape on the background fabric specifically caught my eye. It's there inside the bottom basket handle, partially cut off if you want to take a look. So my mind starts spinning and I'm thinking about how cool that would look in a quilt. My mind goes to repeating blocks and all those sorts of traditional settings and then, bam! I'm suddenly wondering about taking that large circle cut-out and somehow turning it into one of these gorgeous {similar look} flowers!

Improv. Postage Stamp Basket in the hoop

Can I? Should I? Dare I? Oooh, I just live for these sorts of connections! Once the inspiration was sparked, then I just couldn't hardly wait to get started. But of course, my quilt room is through my sons bedroom and it was late, late in the evening and how rude would that be....  So I had to patiently wait until the next day just to see. And yep! It's going to be a big 'ol seedpod flower for sure. After about 2 hours of drawing and cutting and drawing and cutting, it got to this place.*whew  Those leaves, the proportions of everything.... You certainly didn't expect it to be a walk in the park, now did you?

Seedpod Flower Quilt start

And that's exactly how it works in my crazy, wonderful quilting journey. One thing leads to another and another and then yet another. Lots of work and just 'putting in the time to make things happen', intermixed with wild, fun moments of lightbulb-like inspiration. These squirrel quilts...  So restorative and beneficial to our creative selves when the right one comes along. Too bad we didn't know in advance which ones were most important to pay attention to! Linking up with Wendy's Peacock Party!

One Little Step At a Time

Back to work on the pineapple blocks. It's been almost a year since they were set aside, but you have to know they were never forgotten. I've played with all kinds of layout ideas and background colors since, dragging them out for a brief consultation and then putting them away in frustration once again.

The Pineapple Quilt

Finally, this fall, I settled into the idea of vertical rows {how boring!} in a background of a light, almost coral pink fabric. All the various yellow and gold fabrics used were bound and determined to squabble, and nothing seemed to bring peace but that particular pink. I didn't have quite enough yardage, but found a couple small pieces of other prints that blended well enough that most people will never notice the difference.

Then came the decisions for the connecting strips that I had determined were necessary. Blue was my first choice, but no....., it had to be yellow. Oh, but what color yellow? And round and round we went. Eventually I took a very muted gold striped fabric and paired it with a bright, spunky yellow in an effort to create balance throughout the quilt. Too much yellow? There is a green-blue fabric lurking in my stash that might, possibly, fingers crossed!, pull everything together as the next border.

Prep work

In my minds eye, the quilt needed connecting strips filled with busy applique work. Try as I might though, in all my rough drawings, nothing would satisfy. So here we be, at the last phase of stitching down some very simple stacked {but slightly wonky} diamond shaped pieces of color. When those 6 diamonds are stitched down, then I will sew the connecting strips on and move on to the question of how to finish off the quilt. At this point it is still just a few inches longer than than it is wide. That helps as I often struggle more with square quilts.

Just needs a little more stitching

As the applique work has stacked up around here, I've tried to be diligent about finishing one set of applique pieces before moving on to the next in line. These are all of the 12 Dried Flower blocks now, 72 leaves later! Funny how it looks so easy, but the time it takes... Wowsers. Sometimes I think I must be the dreamiest dreamer of all. Oh, it's only a few leaves and how cute will that be?

All the flowers on the wall

But it's always worthwhile as anyone who loves applique detail will attest to. Now I'm starting to get a bit of anxiety about how to put these odd shaped {8"x20"} blocks together without totally ruining the look that I 'see' in my head. I know that it often looks ridiculously easy around here, but yeah, about that... Behind the scenes there are definitely moments. Aghhh!!! What was I thinking!!

You know exactly what I'm talking about, because it has to happen to others. Occasionally I have even caught some of you slipping up and admitting to being human as well--creativity button malfunctioning for the day/week and all that. And thank you for your honesty. Sincerely, we all need reassurance that we are not alone in the land of sporadic, but acute, brain dead fog.

Anyway, for right now I'm seriously considering setting the blocks in three rows of four and connecting them with a coin type strip of lighter greens and cream fabric. So often it just boils down to making a decision {any decision!} and moving determinedly forward. Allowing ourselves to be paralyzed by hesitation and doubt never truly wins the day.

Auditioning some fabrics for connecting strips

And of course there will probably be more applique in this quilt. I can't seem to help myself at times. Plus, it just seems to be demanding it, in a foot stomping sort of way. Goodness, who knew some spindly flowers stalks could potentially be so bossy?

A Little Here and a Little There

There's been a lot of hand work around here of late. It's so very calming compared to the hectic days and weeks we've been having. I know some people will say, just slow it all down, get off the fast train--it's your call how you spend your days. 

Moving on to the next layer with the Melon Patch blocks

Well, and so it is. We absolutely choose to be involved {or not} with our family and friends lives, and if that creates a bit of a whirlwind of activities at times? then so be it. This past weekend saw us attending the funeral of the last of my uncles on my fathers side. Along with the service was the church dinner {with which we always help out} and before and after, numerous gatherings of family, both from in town and those who came from elsewhere. These times are quite precious. We got to see a cousin and his family that we haven't seen in close to 10 years. The fact that these times usually come along in connection to a funeral is one of lifes little ironies.

Five out of twelve Dried Flowers blocks finished up!

And not to dwell on the sad, but we'll probably be attending the funerals of two of my husbands uncles before the year end as well. Definitely before the next year is through. So all the births, birthdays and family/holiday functions that come along will be a celebration of life to help balance out the melancholy. Are we living a life that will create a hole in our families lives when we're gone? How important are we really? It's always much, much more sad to me when someone passes who seemed to not made as much impact as they could have. Someone who lived more on the fringes of peoples lives than right in the middle. Yes, I'll grieve deeper for the ones who left that huge, gaping space in my life, but the memories will be sweeter and I'll absolutely remember them longer and with more fondness.

The Candy is disappearing....

Okay, on to happier things....  It's been a beautiful fall so far. I'm just baffled that it's already Halloween! Wowsers, where does the time go! Sometime between all that family stuff, there was a 'Trunk or Treat' at our church parking lot as well. With a 'princess' granddaughter to admire, we were NOT going to miss out on that! The funny thing was, we were also able to raid our tote of Halloween costumes to help deck out some of the visiting nephews and nephews. No reason for them to miss out! They proudly sported three musketeer, viking and nerdy fairy costumes {who knew that was a thing?}. And to think I've been been threatening to throw that 'junk' away for years! Anyway, my candy bowl is in dire need of a refill before the local trick-or-treaters start arriving this evening. I'm hoping they totally clean us out as the chocolate quota has already been filled by this family for the entire month!

Quarter Circle Round #2 progress

Oh--lets not forget the hand quilting update. I've also been slowly hand quilting on the Quarter Circles Round #2 quilt. My initial goal was to have it finished up by the end of October, but well, that isn't looking too good. Still have to go back and hand quilt in the long connecting strips of fabric, plus one more row of the circle blocks. No real stress though, just enjoying the stitching every single time it ends up in my lap. That's easy to accomplish when the pattern is kept super simple and the marking to a minimum....

Linking up with 6and6in2018-October for the progress on the Melon Patch blocks, but not much else from that list!

More Progress on the Applique and the Start of a New Project

The Dried Flower blocks are ready for the leaves now. As of this posting, they are cut out and ready for stitching. Nine blocks of the larger, more rounded leaves and three of the narrow, wavy leaves. We'll see how that works out, but I'm really looking forward to seeing how these odd shaped blocks finish up! 

Dried Flowers

 I've also been steadily progressing through the chunky New York Beauty blocks. Only 10 blocks to go when I took this picture, but as of last night, all that's left to do are the gold arcs across the bottom of the 'points'. Whew! It's been a real slog getting through all 64 blocks! It's time for a break though, so now I'll probably stitch the leaves for the Dried Flowers before coming back to these.

Quarter Circles/Chunky New York Beauty Blocks

I also jumped right into the middle of a project that's been simmering for a very long time. At the last minute I switched the colors around and decided to make the baskets yellow and coral/pink instead of using the yellow for background color like originally intended.

Improv. Baskets

Not sure why I did that, but it made sense at the time. Now I'll probably go with a boring cream as the background but that's okay--the basket is probably busy enough already! The vintagey fabric above was the one I was most worried about, but now that the basket is coming together, it's my favorite. Just have to be careful when ironing as it doesn't appear to be 100 percent cotton. Love, love, love the more intense colors of that block though!

I'm calling it 'Sweet Tart'

No pattern for these baskets, just kind of winging it improv. style. Basically I cut 5 1/2" squares on the diagonal and then crosscut them again, arranged them on the design wall, and then sewed them into rows. I have a certain final block size in mind and so there's a rough template for the outside dimensions too. One more to go and then it'll be time to figure out the handle and start doing the prep work for the flowers that will be stitched 'inside'. After the last bit of marathon applique, it feels wonderful to stop at only four blocks!

Never Enough Time

How about a good long catch up post? First off, the HST Medallion quilt has been front and center for well over a week. I made the determination that nothing was going to get between this project and the sewing machine until all the small hst rows were sewn on. Two hundred breaks later for hand work or changing out the laundry or whatever else I could invent and....

More progress on HST Medallion!

Here we are, finally, at hst row #10. Woohoo! That's three more row sets added onto this quilt since the last time I posted any progress! I was pretty sure if I didn't do all three of them, one right after the other, this quilt would just die a slow death. It took days longer than I expected. It's all just so very tedious. Made me want to pull my hair out sometimes. Scream. Run away. What is it about excessive repetition?

10 rows finished

I mean, look at how innocuous these hst's are. So simple and unassuming. Ugghh... Who's idea was this anyway? The last round brought the total count up to just over 1300 hsts. Which is a lot. But honestly, it feels like about 5000! All that's left now are the last two rounds {if I follow thru}, which are larger. That should help, larger is good.

The last light pink border was a calculated risk. I totally know you've been eyeballing that one and wondering....  Audrey? Hmm.. What?  I'm still using fabric from the stash and thought maybe a 'disappearing' border would be interesting in the big picture of things. Taking a look at what fabric was left helped to make the final decision. If the quilt would have stopped off at that round, then yeah, it would have been a huge mistake. So far I'm perfectly okay with the look. It's not like I do polished looking quilts. Gotta have some quirks!

So...  accuracy? I'm within an inch or less of where its supposed to be, no matter if I measure directly through the center or along any particular side. That's pretty impressive {for me} considering how many, many, many seams there are. Sometimes I pay more attention to accuracy than others, but seriously, who has the time? Mostly I fudge if its close and the black single fabric sashing rows tidy things up before the next round. The saving grace has been that my cutting efforts have been more precise and careful. Daylight hours only!

Doesn't look like much

Lots of hand work to choose from when I'm fleeing the quilt room. I've really been enjoying do some hand stitching on my Dried Flowers {squirrel} project. The colors are particularly soothing right now--spot on for early fall.  At this point I'm stalled on what kind of leaves to add on though. Maybe I'll just have to do some of both!

Auditioning leaf shapes...

The project below is one that was started from leftover quarter circle pieces cut out from the back of a long ago quilt. It's been keeping me company as well. Instead of some complicated piecing thing that would be driving me bonkers, I decided to do an applique version of a simple New York Beauty block. After all the chunky spikes are sewn down, then I will probably stitch on an arc of gold fabric, over the bottom part of the spikes and covering the edges of the curve. These colors still make me very happy, which I find interesting as I've been playing with this particular color palette off and on for years now.

Getting started on a pile of 64 blocks total

And then there is the Off On a Tangent quilt. All the hand work is finished up and yep!, I made a mistake that always makes me feel a little twitchy. All the letters are in green fabrics that blend well with the quilt, but do not show up very emphatically when all is said and done.

Got the hand stitching done

Much too late to take them off now and start over and I don't want to anyway. They look just fine up close so that is that. Don't know why I keep making this same mistake after all this time. If you're gonna go to the trouble of adding words, for goodness sakes, do them in a color that has some impact!

It's not the best color, but it'll probably do

I guess I was thinking of serenity and peaceful feeling vibes? This quilt has already jumped to the head of the line for sandwiching and quilting. Very fast turn around for me, but this quilt is determined to go live with someone else.

Ughh... Sandwiching and pinning

In fact, I already machine quilted {stitched in the ditch} thru the inside of the quilt. Now that Basket Love, shown below, is out of the hoop, I can do some quick, big stitch quilting around the borders and move it on down the line. Oh how I wish that every quilt was as easy and rewarding to stitch as the quilt below. I adore hand quilting on string quilts! I'm sure it would get boring though if that's all that ever passed thru the hoop.

Ready for binding work!

Because the HST Medallion quilt took so long to work through sewing on the rows, I totally blinked on getting to the AHIQ work this month. That kind of annoys me 'cuz I love the improv. stuff, but there will be time for that later. Right now, things are happening that are a bit beyond my control. My sewing machine is scheduled to go in for a maintenance {in order to keep up with the warranty}, and that totally rearranged my priorities as well. The only machine quilting I do these days is on that particular machine 'cuz it has a bigger harp! Quick, what needs done before I have to do without! The quilt store where I drop the sewing machine off is three hours away so that means I'll be using a back-up machine for quite awhile, maybe even a month.*sigh  Not going to tackle big quilt work on the smaller machine.

I managed to arrange the initial drop off with the same timing as taking my kids to the airport and also an Apple store appointment. My phone desperately needs a new battery and apparently we can't do that without their help. If Bloglovin' gets any slower, the phone will be in total meltdown. Or maybe I will? Anyway, when you live out in the boondocks, these sorts of trips take some strategic planning. There is usually shopping involved. Things like that.

**Per the question asked after my last post, referring to the days when I said I would never, ever hand quilt? Well, that was 20-25 years ago, when I first started quilting. A lot has changed since then, including the fact that I don't have littles hanging on to my ankles and demanding every second of my attention. Also, I don't like doing machine quilting. Really, really don't care for it at all and in fact, when I attempt anything close to free-motion, it feels like the top of my head is going to come off. I push myself learn a lot of techniques and things that feel important to further expand my ability to make unique and personal looking quilts. Someday that may come to lessons in free motion quilting, but for now, hand quilting is as essential to me as air, both in the doing and the seeing. Quite simply, it's now part of my quilting voice, regardless of the time it may take... What elements of this craft are important to you and your quilting?