A Good Finish

Not getting very far with the paperwork, but at least there has been time spent there. Just like with quilting, I figure every little bit accomplished equals forward progress. In better news, there's a new quilt finish! This has been such a cheerful quilt to work on. Can't believe it didn't end up in the hoop much sooner. Totally sanity saving, believe me! Why do people tend to believe that yellow isn't a positive mood enhancer?

Sweet Tarts

Maybe it's the combination of yellow and pink that works all the charm? This was a quilt top that was maybe started back in 2018? Can't find the original post now and don't want to scroll through pages and pages to find it. The beginning was sparked by an attempt at improv., free-style cut baskets and one of those stacks of simmering fabrics that are always begging to be next in line.

The full quilt

I seem to remember struggling with the inside of the baskets. Flowers? Leaves? And then somehow that morphed into adding little baskets too. Why not do both? There was a rough drawn design at one time, but it didn't take long to figure out that all the other border ideas didn't quite belong in this particular quilt. There is generally always that point in sewing a quilt top together, where the whole thing just kind of shrieks at you to 'go away' and leave it alone. Pretty please and thank you, with a cherry on top.

Close up of the little baskets

I loved the idea of framing the little baskets in simple half-squared triangle borders and using the bright, intense cheddar fabric just made the most sense at the time. Been itching to use it for years! And that pink floral fabric was just pleading to be included too. Didn't really know the very best use, but finally settled on super easy blocks. I like how the floral acts more like a background fabric in these understated blocks. Sometimes this sort of simplicity feels a bit like 'cheating', but what's the use of pretty printed fabric if we can't enjoy it?

Loving these larger baskets

I hand quilted around the edges of the baskets in organic, radiating rows {like usual}, but left the inside area free this time. It looks a little bit rumpled in the pics, but looks great in person. It's interesting when there are areas not quite as heavily quilted as the surroundings. See how the fabric looks so much lighter inside the baskets? It must be the thread color I used that appears to darken the outer basket fabric. It's a variegated cream/tan/light brown thread that seems all but invisible, but apparently not!

So happy with the cheddar/pink mix

After I posted the picture of this quilt being 'next up in the hoop', an observant reader emailed me and let me know that the cheddar triangles frame {on the very bottom right little basket} had a row turned upside down {check the second picture in the post}. Super kind of her to give me a heads up before the quilting actually happened!

In the end I decided to leave it be, though you can bet that I considered it very seriously for well over a 24 hour period--pretty much the time frame where it would have been the easiest to start ripping things out. It's something that I find to be charming and whimsical in another persons quilt, so whats the point of being fussy in mine? And there you go. Sometimes the mistakes just have to become part of the quilt around here. I had this feeling that it would be something to regret if this quilt ended up looking a little too perfect. And you know that I sometimes rip things out. I do! And would have this time for sure if I thought it would be something to bother me forever.

Some quilts just need the hand quilting love...

So funny that I had actually never noticed this mistake until the exact moment that it was pointed out! This quilt didn't seem demanding at all about the binding and so I went ahead with the scrappy look that seems to be my fall-back these days. There were several orphaned binding pieces in various shades of pink to make up the needed length. One of them is probably a little bit on the 'too light' side to perfectly compliment the quilt, but does it really matter? This quilt is striking enough not to have to rely on binding color for needful spark. For the life of me, I cannot figure out why those two little totes never seem to run out...

This one might have to stay with me

You may have noticed the sweet vintage-look floral used as the backing fabric. It's something that was bought last year at a senior citizens rummage room sale. Love it so much! Totally made my day to use it so successfully, though it probably would have been a fun challenge to incorporate it into the front of a quilt too. I had to smile at one of my daughters when she first saw it. Her face! Apparently this floral is an acquired taste. And here I thought it was absolutely fantastic!

Spring Flowers

All 18 of the Spring Flower blocks are finished up now too. Once I started hand stitching the leaves to the background it went really fast. Of course it helped that I was stuck in a vehicle for most of two days traveling to and fro a family funeral. While this was a very sad occasion, it wasn't exactly unexpected as the health issues had been ongoing and/or progressing for a little over five years.

All orphaned 'cut-out' circles and scrap bin fabric leaves

Of course, there's never enough time with loved ones, and I don't have a clue what to say to my sister.that would be the least bit comforting. Losing a companion is heartbreaking under almost any circumstance. We were just relieved that the graveside services allowed accommodation for all of the family who wanted to attend. Even a month or two earlier, the numbers would have been severely limited which would have made a distressing situation even more traumatic. As it was, my sister had to make unhappy choices within the Covid safety rules and just do the very best she could within those boundaries.

As far as these quilt blocks are concerned, something needs to be done to wake them up. I'm completely rethinking the colors/ideas for alternate blocks. Right now the blocks look very soft and cozy close up, but absolutely boring from a distance. Am keeping them on the wall until something interesting floats through my brain. Not feeling especially creative right now, but the hand stitching and hand quilting feels super soothing. Gotta take the 'feel goods' where you find them these days. And the rare moments of inspiration too...

 

Always Trying to Get it Figured Out

Why are you even here? Didn't you know blogging was dead? hehe Don't you just love the people who write a post after being gone for 9 months, tell us how wonderful the blogging community is and how they're recommitting? Then after another post or two they disappear forever. We're like, 'Hey, come back here! We love you!'. But it's no use, they're off over at Instagram scooping up the 'likes'.

Autumnal Tulips quilt

It does seem easier, prettier, and wowsers, so much less time consuming as per the posting. Oh well, you're probably stuck with me at Blogger for the long haul. Just too much to say! And after all, every new quilt has a story behind it, right? It doesn't make sense to wordy people like me to show off the latest fantabulous completion without giving you at least a tiny glimpse of the back story. I am dreadfully sorry for all the problems some people have experienced in trying to comment here. Have done a lot of research to fix things on my end and it appears that we're at an impasse until Blogger addresses the third party cookie issue. Basically you have to allow for cookies when commenting on a site that has threaded comments {such as mine}, and some people just don't want to do that. Or their favorite browser doesn't let them. That's okay, perfectly understandable, but I'm not moving to a site where I have to pay a monthly or yearly fee either. So yeah. Kinda stuck.

I've mentioned before about how strange it is that a bright, shiny quilt idea can occasionally, 'instantly' morph into brand new quilt start. That's what happened here with a previously unintended quilt just this past October. I think it was entirely unintended, but now I have to wonder. It all sort of fell into place so quickly! Captivated by a thought, surprisingly willing to be lead off on a tangent {so shocking}, and then, all of a sudden, there I was, cutting out the parts and pieces to an applique flower quilt. All because I fell in love with the word 'Autumnal'.

A close-up of the blocks

Of course it wasn't quite that simplistic, but you know how it is when a very vague idea, {one that's been hanging around in the shadows of our subconscious}, suddenly steps forward and demands some attention. Of course it had to be tulips, because that's my fave flower for applique. Will I ever truly have enough tulip quilts made to satisfy? Or basket quilts? The mind boggles. So many potential variations!

A finished quilt top!

And now the quilt top is finished up. Just had to plow thorough 30 blocks of applique. Why so many? I seemed to have this yearning for an old fashioned, antique-look vibe. Something like what you'd expect Lucy to take a picture of. Or make. Which means I'll probably have to do an enormous amount of hand quilting too, but we'll leave that thought for another day....

The flowers are all placed just a little wonky and it's only now that I wish that some of the flowers had been made to lean left as opposed to an enthusiastic placement of right leaning flowers. Why did that not happen? And no, we are decidedly NOT talking about politics here, but only sweet looking flowers. The leaf shapes are a tiny bit different per color, but of course the stitching there is very 'eye-balled' and organic. Did not do any of them absolutely identical. And I never, ever use a placement diagrams if a reason can be conjured up to eliminate the need. In this case, I would have had to draw up one of those fussy diagrams from scratch and honestly, I couldn't be bothered. No regrets!

Loving this simple quilt so much...

It was tough to determine the little connector square color between the sashing strips. I originally thought to use navy there. Everything auditioned looked pretty dull though, or took way from the tranquil look of the quilt and created a spotty effect. In the end I kept coming back to a fabric that was a touch deeper than the lighter gold flowers, and a lot happier {brighter} looking than the stems. Not perfect, but available in the stash. Whatever shade it ended up being, the main thing was that it not compete in any way with the flowers.

Crossing another off the list!

People often want to know about the original inspiration. Well.... here it is. A shirt worn {during the fall usually} underneath my sweaters. These flowers are a bit too chaotic to reproduce in a quilt setting, but the colors always sort of melt me. It felt like a fantastic piece of inspiration to pull the likely quilt colors from. Looking at it now, it seems obvious that there should have been more of an effort to use a sharper cheddar color as well. Mostly I was bogged down in trying to decipher the true oranges. Oh no, do I really have to use that color? Up close, some of them are almost ugly looking, but combined with the whole, give the entire color range something important. It was also from intense study of this particular floral print shirt that I came to the decision to keep all {or most} of the fabrics to a solid or very low key print. Not sure how important that was in the overall scheme of things, but for sure, it was interesting. Very nice change-up in how I normally do things and one that I will no doubt return to again in the future.

The color inspiration

Of course, I went immediately to an old book of mine, 'The Collectors Dictionary of Quilt Names and Patterns' by Yvonne M. Khin to find a likely pattern. There wasn't anything that struck my fancy right off, but after cruising Pinterest for awhile, I came back and found this middle block 'Four Tulips'. Though I didn't want the four-block look, it gave me something to start with in drawing up my own design.  

And that's how this particular tulip quilt came to be. Is there too many tulip blocks after all? My quilts usually end up with 20 blocks instead of 30, but these are 8" finished. That seemed like a better size for these blocks. Maybe it should have some sort of border, but for now I'm pleased with the simple floating frame. It feels finished.

A great quilting resource...

Also back in October, I went a little crazy and dumped out one of my scrap bin baskets. Now is a season for 'finishing' but back in the fall, apparently it was a season for chasing squirrels! I didn't dump the basket to sort everything by color and put away. No, I did it to play with all the bits and pieces. Somehow the current U&U quilt on the wall, also known as the AHIQFlowers quilt, made me think of opportunities. It was like the maker of the original quilt had dumped out her very own scrap bin and well, had a play. Like I did that very evening. Initially I just sorted fabrics that looked interesting together and grouped them into similar size piles. Then I ironed and sorted into stacks of squares, strips etc., slowly developing a more focused color palette, all the while cutting and trimming. Basically trying not to get too fixated on what the final result might end up being, and just letting the subconscious do its thing.

The start of something

On a whim, I sewed groupings of similar sized strips together and then sewed a setting of rectangles together, similar to what was in the U&U quilt. Having absolutely no idea where any of this was going, but still, somehow determined not to let this seed of an idea slip away. It was a very fragile idea indeed. The next day I impulsively sew a few 'plus' blocks together and then after several days of nothing, no ideas, nada, zip!, stacked it all up and put it away in a tote to simmer well out of the way.

Trying to figure out where to go from the middle

These sorts of Improv. quilts have always seemed the most impossible to me. How to know what length to cut the strips and if/when it was time to add a different element perhaps? How to control the chaos and make something cohesive? Working on the AHIQFlower challenge quilt {that U&U quilt again}, plus watching Kaja  for years, puzzling out her bits and pieces until she ends up with a masterpiece, had finally given me just enough courage {and insight?} to want to try my own version.

Taking pieces out and trying to puzzle them back in....

After letting it simmer for a couple months! I pulled the project out of the shelves and fondled the fabrics just a bit. Yes, I actually did think they all belonged together in the same quilt! I spent a tiny bit of time dithering over which piece to start with, and then, in total exasperation, just grabbed a length of sewn strips and slapped it on the wall. There. That's the starting place! And then I started placing different fabrics and/or sewn units around it until something eventually clicked. Okay, that looks fine. Maybe this is better? Then I did more. And more, until ending up with the first smaller pieced unit {See the very first Improv. picture above}.*Whew! That wasn't so bad!

A Wing and a Prayer Improv. quilt in the making.

The next day I found time to play a little more, focusing on the area below the initial, squarish pieced unit. It was at this time that I determined that everything was going to work better if I had something to focus on 'balancing' throughout the quilt. Otherwise, I might end up moving fabric around forever and getting absolutely nowhere!

You might think totally different than me, but when working on Random Sampler, Orphan block or these Everything-but-the-kitchen-sink sort of quilts, it helps tremendously to have a base plan. Are the pieces divisible by the same number? That can work, but no, not here. Are the colors working in a very narrow repeat? No, not at all. Is it a copy or a specific look that I'm aiming for? No, no such reference. Okay. How to get unstuck? I mean that seriously. Though just starting the quilt, my brain was already spinning in circles, considering a million directions to go! Nothing concrete you understand, but still, the possibilities seemed rather endless. So confusing. After pondering the initial pieced unit on the wall, I decided that I really, really liked the 'plus' blocks. Out of everything, they spoke to me. How about making more as the underlying theme and using that as a pathway forward? And just that easily, 'The Plan' was formed and I was ready to play again.

Not that it's all come easily. That would be ridiculous! I'm still in the learn-as-you-go stage for sure. But now the entire left side {14" wide} is sewn together now and also the centerpiece {16 1/4"} down to within about 7" from the bottom. None of the right side is sewn as yet. I'm having to partial piece here and there, but not too much as I try to avoid having to do that. Because it's being done in the Improv. method, I am definitely sewing and trimming without regard to measuring. Just making sure the outside width of each larger unit is a set number works fine. That set number becomes fixed only when I particularly like a small part of the much larger unit and say, 'Okay, that particular area doesn't need to be any wider!' So simple!

I can see a couple clunky areas in the larger piece as I look at the last picture, but we'll see if I opt to pick anything apart. The right side is of course, very fluid, as things will change marginally when the seam allowance starts to come into play. Though parts and pieces are overlapped to take into account that seam, it never ends up being totally accurate until sewn on the machine.

So far I'm having a great time playing with my own scrap bin pieces and hope to get comfortable enough to try again at a later date. I greatly admire quilters such as Kaja who have a way of making this all look very easy peasy! So gifted!  I've tried cutting all the scrap fabric down to uniform widths and lengths etc. in the past, but always end up getting burnt out on the sheer time involved. This way takes a short amount of time ironing, sorting, simple piecing, {perhaps longer amount of time simmering if you're me!}, and then it's time to play!

Another interesting thing about this quilt is that it seems to be turning into my own version of a quilt that I've long wondered about making. Never quite found enough oomph to get going on though!  Nancy made this great looking 'Primitive Crosses' quilt that caught my eye years and years ago. I've pondered and pondered making it, but always felt like it was bit more 'mourning' than what I was perhaps comfortable with at this time in my life. My Improv. attempt doesn't have cross blocks like her quilt, but the plus blocks remind me of them somewhat, somehow? It's vague I know, but connections? Quilters have some odd ones for sure! Lots of stuff going on in our life presently that require deep thinking, and I do try to be a prayerful person. For now, I'm calling this my 'Wing and a Prayer' quilt. It remains to be seen if there will also be a bird included.*wink

Start With the Foundation and Then I'll Work My Way Into the Details

I finally dove into applique prep like I've been threatening to do for weeks now. The brand new project, inspired by the fabulously creative Jane Ormes, was a dig-deep-and-see-how-seriously-you-want-to-do-this type of project. Jane had responded very kindly to my request, to try and interpret one of her prints into a quilt, which honestly kind of shocked me.

Freezer paper templates ready to go

I figured it would be an 'Absolutely Not! How about a restraining order?', but no, she was very, very nice about it and even thanked me for asking! This particular print, 'Elephantjunglematissetypething!' might seem like an odd choice, but I'm so in love with the leaves and flowers. Wonderfully whimsical. It feels like something that would continually result in feel-good endorphins while working through the stitching. Ha! Not at the start though. I spent almost 3 hours just on drawing the leaves. Erasing and drawing and erasing some more. They will not be exact, but I wanted the vibe to be very, very similar. 

Still wondering if I have what it takes to include the elephant!

Once again I don't intend to go out and buy any fabric but will try and make-do from the stash totes. Luckily I had a piece of white fabric that seemed plenty large enough. Unbelievably, it still worked when I had to throw all of my painstaking measurements out the window and start over. Yep. Just had to piece every iota of the yardage together and try to make it as large as possible. Yikes! Now my stomach is feeling a bit queasy as I never, ever intended for the background to be 68".*sigh  Plus, there's a seam right through the middle-ish of the quilt. After spending that much time on the leaves, I knew there would be no going back and trying to re-draw them in a smaller size. And, I love, love, love the larger size. They just look amazing already!

Getting started with placement for reverse applique

Many of you are probably squirming just from looking at all the rumpled fabric, but this is the wrong blog to be coming to for immaculate quilting projects or stunningly arranged quilt pictures.I slog away at the details and iron when I have to. Take pictures only when it seems necessary to keep up with the blog.

The background above? I was in a hurry and pushed for time. Ended up sewing the two large pieces of yardage together without measuring, cutting and pinning. Just sewed them together and then... just sat and looked at the rippled seam. Gag. Ughh. Agghh! How does that even happen after 20+ years of sewing? So out came the seam ripper and of course a little pity party. {Again, how badly do I want to make this quilt?} So yes, it does and will lay flat. NOW. But go ahead and judge me if it makes you feel better.*wink

All the rows are ready for initial applique stitching

The baskets are all ready to go for the Patchwork Garden quilt too. They are all some shade of navy and though this isn't the best picture, I am enthralled with the color palette thus far. A couple of the baskets are folded down at the top as everything possible will be appliqued into place per row before starting to join a couple rows. Step by step is how it goes and as always, I will be adding more of the applique details as each phase progresses. So very difficult to do hand work on a large background. Which is exactly why the previous quilt is a bit of a problem even before getting started!

Failed flower block #1

Another project that has been seeing a little bit of attention is the AHIQflowers invitational. I had this flower applique quilt in mind that for some reason made me think that all the flowers could be machine pieced. After playing around with several ideas, using scraps from the scrap bin, I ditched all the potential flowers. I don't want to spend a hundred hours making something 'not quite good enough'.

Failed flower block #2

I give up. The only look that will truly make me happy is if they are all appliqued. Do I really need another major applique project right now?  Plus, none of it seemed very improv.-y to me which feels strange knowing that the AHIQ is usually all about improv.  What really interests me right now is recreating old utility style quilts.

Failed flower block #3

So I just chucked all the previous play, ideas and assumptions and went straight to my favorite book 'Unconventional and Unexpected' by Roderick Kiracofe. What say? Anything there to make me start thinking about flowers in an intriguing way?

The new stack of fabric! Kind of a weird blue
for me to be working with....

Oh yeah. The quilt below, which is just a jumbled up mix of shapes and cast-off fabrics jumped right out at me. See the lemoyne star shape in the far right bottom corner? That's gonna be my flower right there, some how, some way. The entire quilt will be a huge improv. puzzle of sorts and that easily, the decision was made!

Unconventional and Unexpected quilt

I have friends who definitely don't understand my desire to recreate weird, scrap bin style, utility quilts. They might even worry about me a little. It's perfectly okay. Us quilters know good and well that the time to make a quilt is the time when it lights all of our fuses on fire. Not tomorrow or the next day. Does anyone understand the entirety of how inspiration works? There's a lot of books out there, but nothing definitive.

Closer look at the future flower inspiration

What I do know is this, whatever we make today, undeniably informs what we make tomorrow. In the process of [happily} following our muse, we can make something very personally compelling and then that can and will usually help generate enthusiasm for whatever the next project might be. See how this works? We don't have to understand all the whys and wherefores. We just have to make sure that the logical side of our brain doesn't succeed in drowning out our muse and stifling new growth. 

This quilt won't be an exact duplicate either. Close perhaps. Is an exact replica even possible? And more importantly, what are the benefits to stressing ourselves out attempting to? Mostly I just intend to eyeball things {skip the math} and try to make a single row before moving on the next. At most I hope to create a quilt that gives off the same kind of spunky 'I am good enough', 'I am not ashamed of being humble', or 'I am worthy' vibe. Wish me luck!

Yes, I Still Quilt Occasionally

I'm not sure I even know how to do this anymore! Taking pictures, blogging--it all feels kind of odd after taking so much time off this summer. We left on our trip August 13th thinking we'd be back home again on August 27. haha Life had other plans for us tho as we only got back last night. So good that I had my applique bag all prepped and ready to go or I'd have probably went (more) bonkers.

Getting the project bag ready to go.
No time for details, so I prepped the bias vine,
chose some coordinating fabrics and just went
with a freehand applique look.

We left Washington state, headed east thru Idaho and then Montana. Jumped down into Wyoming and then took a fast road through Nebraska to end up at some cousins in Witchita, Kansas by Saturday night. We left there and headed to Oklahoma where we spent the next seven days, visiting with family and friends and getting to see our son graduate from OSUIT. Woohoo! Big smiley face moment right there, let me tell you! Somewhere in the middle of all that, we also made a flying trip to Missouri to visit some of my mothers family. Whew! The things we do for family and do we ever have a lot of that between my husbands and my own family. We were hopping busy all week long but got in a bazillion good visits and ate way too much good food.

16 blocks down, 4 to go!
I'm making these up as I go along, can you tell?
The plan is to put these with my Baskets Galore blocks

Got our son all packed up, had a nice celebration at a Texas Roadhouse and then back down the road we went once again. We headed out to the panhandle of Oklahoma where we loaded up a 1925 Model-T to bring back to Washington state for some good friends of ours. (My husband is very nice that way.) Anyway......., things went well through New Mexico and then even part way through Colorado when we finally realized that the transmission in our Suburban was dying. Yes, dying. Those good ol' Rocky Mountains totally did us in. Thankfully we weren't terribly far from some cousins in Olathe, Colorado who were very good to come rescue us. Can you imagine being stranded in a resort town for a week without a driveable car, three kids to feed and entertain plus a valuable old car to keep track of and make sure it didn't get stolen?

A little closer look at what I'm doing, all without a pattern.
The only thing pre-planned was the background block size
and the fact that I'm working with a red/green flower theme.

Finally we were able to hit the road again on Friday morning, drive across the state of Utah and then on into the edge of Oregon where we stopped again for the night (only one driver after we started hauling a trailer). My husband and I badly wanted to go straight home, but Saturday evening found us in Creswell, Oregon being the good parents, getting our sons stuff unloaded and temporarily settled into my sisters house. He already has a job lined up in Eugene and lots and lots of family around to help keep him honest. lol  It took a little extra time to line him up with a runabout car before we left town though. His back up car in Oregon wound up with serious problems at the last minute and he needed a way to get to and from work. Gotta be able to make some money to pay back the parents and those lousy school loans!

The 1925 Model-T

Traveling long distance with an antique/vintage car was very interesting at times. Fun, but interesting. We certainly aren't used to all the attention it garners and plus, the road time increased by a serious margin just hauling a trailer up and down all those mountains between Oklahoma and Washington state. We had to make several unscheduled stops just to check straps and make sure parts weren't about to fly off into the ether. So nervy being responsible for somebody else's toy! Also, in our past life experiences, whenever someone passes our vehicle and starts making hand gestures or smiles real big it probably means we have a flat tire/something billowing black smoke or other imminent disaster. This time it meant things like 'cool car' so eventually we were able to stop panicking and just do the smile and wave thing.

I'm not sure how we're going to recover (financially) from this trip, but it sure took our mind off of things back home. I'm raring to get back to my quilting, maybe even catch up on some quilt blog reading if I can find the time between doing endless loads of dirty laundry.  Next time I post, I'm hoping to tell you about all the wonderful quilt stores I got to buzz in and out of on our very long trip!