Dutch Comfort--2014 Spring Bloggers Quilt Festival

Dutch Comfort is my second entry into the Bloggers Quilt Festival. This is a quilt that I finished up earlier in the year although once again, it was one of those quilts that has been patiently waiting its turn in the hoop for a long time. My stack of quilt tops just continues to grow and grow until my poor fingers will never manage to keep up!

Dutch Comfort

Yes, this quilt was hand quilted, but I decided to put it into the scrappy category because of the many different fabrics included in the quilt. When making this quilt top, I dumped out my fabrics totes trying to find every single complementary red/yellow and pink fabric that I thought would work well with my quilt idea. I tried to add in a lot of florals, homespuns and 'pretty' prints, hoping that would add to the feeling I was aiming for with the overall quilt concept of coziness, romance, comfort, and an antique scrappiness that I always seem to be striving for.

Sorry, that's where I fold my quilt
 to lay it on the end of the bed!

I started off with a picture of a Dutch looking quilt as inspiration, changing the colors of blues and browns over to reds and yellows--a combination I'd been wanting to play with {again}. When that seemed too harsh a look, I added in the softer, more mellow looking pinks which definitely gives (I think) a more romantic look. The centerpiece is a block from a Blackbird Design pattern that I love, but didn't really want to make an entire quilt of. The use of monochromatic fabric choices makes for a very strong looking centerpiece in the quilt without taking anything away from the scrappy quality of the rest of the quilt--something very important to me. Does it sound ridiculous to say that I thought it a brilliant combination! lol Thank you to Blackbird Designs for the inspiration!

Dutch Comfort  in different lighting

This quilt was started impulsively on a weekend where I was trying to cheer myself up from the often disappointing and harsh realities of life. It turned out to be a great method of therapy (surprise, surprise!) and honestly, I think it's one of my favorite quilts just because of all the angst and emotion worked into the seams. Funny how life seems a bit sweeter when we are able to immerse ourselves in the beauty of fabric and color for just a little while.

The Blackbird Design block

Although there is nothing about this quilt that I could say is an 'original' design, it definitely feels like a me quilt. I drew out a rough draft, figured the proper measurements, made sure the borders to the centerpiece were mitered correctly and spent all the time playing with my many fabric possibilities to end up with a pleasing combination of lights, darks, mediums and brights. I completely used up lots of little odds and ends of fabric bits to include every potential print I could get my hands on! The pictures definitely do not do this quilt justice as the quilt literally sparkles in the right light. (It's quite possibly the coziest looking quilt I've ever managed to make too.)

Dutch Comfort in the more natural light of
my quilting room....

Oh yeah, for those that always want to know the size, Dutch Comfort came out of the dryer in all its crinkly goodness at approx. 77 1/2" x 93 1/2".

There's always a lot of stiff competition over at the festival, but I don't include my quilts thinking I'm going to win in any particular category. Mostly I just do it for the fun of showing off a couple quilts I'm proud of and hopefully share my love of quilting with other interested quilters. A big thanks to Amy for her genius at setting up such a great on-line quilt show once again!

You can check out my other festival entry here if you like!

Dutch Comfort

Dutch Comfort is done. Finishing up this quilt has brought a lot of what I've been thinking on lately to a forefront. I started this quilt back in June of 2011. It was a tough year. Thankfully I didn't realize that things would get even tougher before they would start getting better again.

Dutch Comfort in the sunlight

If I would have thought to have a word for last year, it would have been 'undefeated'. Sometimes you have to get down to the very bottom and rise above to understand where your strength is, and now I understand a lot more about that. Not dismissing God's help in my life one single iota, I look at this quilt and wonder how much my love for quilting has helped me through these hard times in our life. It's so incredible to think that this thing of beauty was conceived during such very difficult times.

Dutch Comfort

I'll be blunt for a moment here. We almost lost our house, our business and for sure it affected our marriage and our family. But we survived and maybe we're even the better for it. I know my quilts are. They've kind of absorbed the roller coaster of my emotions into something tangible and lasting--something sweet and positive.

A little closer look at Dutch Comfort

I feel even more affinity for the ones that stitched away on their little bits of loveliness hundreds of years ago, cherishing their moments of beauty in a sometimes bleak life. And don't get me wrong, I've had lots to hang onto and appreciate about our life. Money isn't everything. I wouldn't trade my kids or my husbands smiles and happiness for anything in the world.

A closer look at the hand stitching--the backing
colors are richer in actuality than the picture shows

But I'm glad I decided to delve a little deeper into my fascination for quilting. There's nothing quite like it for clearing the mind of cobwebs and bringing important things about life into sharp focus. And I'm happy to see for sure (as I work through the final stitching of these quilt tops that came together during these past three years) that I never did give up. Not on life or on hope. The proof is in the fabric, the piecing and the stitching. Oh I still have a stack of quilt tops to work through, but I'm not afraid of what they might say. I remain undefeated.

Plain Jane's Time is Coming!

Always like to get a quilt back in the hoop as soon as I can. I'm giving myself a week or so pass from hand quilting though so I can catch up on my applique. Lately I just can't seem to fit in any decent time in for applique so that is how I roll! lol  Excuses, excuses. Getting our son off to the airport today (brr) and then school starting back up tomorrow for the youngers will get us back into regular routine in a hurry.

My Plain Jane quilt

I thought I'd use Perle Cotton on this quilt and just go crazy, but the more I got to looking, the more I want to do a Baptist Fan pattern with regular hand quilting thread. Simple I know, but oddly compatible too. Feel free to tell me if you disagree!

A closer look at Plain Jane

I somehow managed to mislead everyone about Dutch Comfort being a 2014 finish, but it's not quite.*sigh  Hopefully this picture shows that more clearly. I have the binding sewn on by machine, but still need to turn it over and hand sew it onto the back. Was waiting for the proper color of thread as red seems to disappear quickly around here. Maybe all those applique flowers and berries I'm always adding on everywhere? Whatever. Now I have the thread (plus a few other colors just in case something else comes up) and will be waiting for the proper mood to strike for the sit-down time with the binding. I'm a little iffy about how and when that particular mood strikes, but hopefully it will be sometime this week as I would love to throw this across my bed and watch it warm up my room.

Dutch Comfort

Then I will be sure and bore you all with a picture of the entire quilt in its wonderful finished glory so you can rest easy knowing that I do actually wash out the blue markings.*wink  Funny how I'm less concerned about that than I used to be although I have been trying to keep it out of direct sunlight.

Finally Found a Name For My Quilt and More Strings Play

I finished the hand quilting on my Gold and Red Qtr. Triangle quilt which has now been graced with the new name 'Dutch Comfort'. If I would have pushed myself, I think this quilt could have been finished in 2013, but who wants to do that? The binding was laying towards the bottom of my tote of reds, a perfect sized piece of fabric to cut all my binding out with about 1/2" to spare through the width. Love it when it works out like that especially since this piece of fabric is at least 8 yrs. old!

Dutch Comfort

Then I was feeling restless. None of my current projects were doing it for me and really, I just wanted to dig through the scrap bin and play. Without consciously thinking it through (although my recently purchased used 'Old Swedish Quilts' by Asa Wettre book had to be an influence), I pulled these fabrics and made three quick string blocks. Okay now what? I need (at the very least) a little tiny plan of attack!

My starting blocks

I decided my perimeters would be like this: All the fabrics I pulled from the scrap bin would have to at least blend with these initial three blocks. Every fabric used would need to be just over 5" long (no little tiny piecings) and I would sew strings together willy nilly until the blocks were just over 5" wide whether they had two strings or five.

String blocks variation #1

After I had about half the design wall filled with blocks I stood back and took a good look. Very discouraging. Everything looked blah and uninspired (sorry, did not take a picture of this step). I felt that clench in my stomach that tells me my big, fun, play day had turned out to be a spectacular bomb.

String blocks variation #2

Okay. What to do. What to do. I turned off the iron and my sewing machine, left for a bit to change the laundry over and then climbed the stairs again to check things over with fresh eyes. Hmmm... I remembered my book and thought about connections. So.. after briefly perusing through the book, it occurred to me that scrap quilts should mean something. I rifled through my dwindling little stash of fabric from my Grandma and cut two pieces into however many string shapes I could get. Then I raided my scrap bin once again and pulled darks, more pinks and more rosy reds.

I know, I know--my fallback colors. Always and forever probably.

Getting the scraps organized

Gotta go with what you love. For some reason I respond well to quilts that have a dark edginess and also, for me, the pinks and reds make everything happy again. We'll see where this quilt takes me. I think it's coming along very nicely now and there's a quiet little happiness to working on it. That spells success to me.*wink