Quilting My Way Through the Summer Heat

Somehow I ended up with a quilt top that has a brown background. Still shaking my head over this one, especially after all my 'I'm so tired of brown' rant last year. The fabric has been all stacked up and simmering for at least two years. I've always really loved how the colors melded together and just seemed to hold a lot of promise. 

Sort of completed quilt top--ready for applique!

But then I could never get started because a cream background {my default} just felt boring. And the blue that I eventually settled on could never gain any proper traction. It wasn't until I had these cream off-cuts from the back of another quilt that the quilt really started taking shape in my brain.

Really hopeful that the applique will not look too clunky 
when it lands alongside all of that busyness

From the very start, the whole idea behind this quilt was that I would be making some sort of 'background' for a largish-tree holding a bird or two. I guess now you can see that the brown, pieced together section over on the left side of the quilt will be where the Folksy tree will reside.

Always a puzzle getting the random bits
and pieces of fabric to play nicely with each other

It was interesting piecing together this quilt, quite absorbing if you want to know the truth of it. First I worked on the rows of baskets, separating them by random widths of free-cut strip sections. Mostly I just didn't want them to be stacked in tidy looking rows. It wasn't until the four main rows were sewn together that I realized the quilt needed to have more length.

Will be covered by a lot of applique, but it's
nice to make sure it doesn't look hideous!

Which worked out very well as I suddenly had an urge to put the other half of the chopped off basket there at the top on the right of the quilt. Isn't that charming? Had to throw together one more 'half' basket too as I was lacking that particular piece of the quilt. Wouldn't look right with just the half basket at the top, right? Needed another partial basket for balance.

Loving the look of the random setting and
partial basket blocks.

All the while, I was carefully cutting and hoarding the strippy slabs, trying to ensure that I wouldn't run out. When most of the quilt was sewn together, I all of a sudden realized that I wanted a smallish brown area at the bottom of the quilt too. It didn't look right without the strip sections so in this case I had to go digging through the trash.*whew!  So glad there was just enough, even though I had to sew two really narrow pieces together at the far bottom right at the quilt!

Wish I would have had wider strips for 
the bottom of the quilt...

Overall, it went rather well, all of the myriad mistakes and seam ripping necessary to power through aside. I am super thrilled with the look of the cozy blues and violet coin strips throughout. There's one blue plaid fabric that is actually a shirt that I stole from my youngest sons closet a few years before he moved out. I mean, he never really wore it! So sweet to see it working so hard for this quilt.

Loving the look of this centerpiece! So sweet
that it's mostly all orphaned applique bits!

I also managed to find time to finish up the applique for the Joy Basket quilt. It needs a little trimming and then next will be decisions about the border or possible borders? to attach. I thought there would be the word 'joy' appliqued onto the centerpiece as well, but so far it's just not working out for me. Will hold the idea in reserve until later in the quilt and maybe try again. 

Starting to see the texture take shape

The hand quilting has been going very slowly on the Coronacrazy quilt, though I am working on it most nights during the week. Just can't seem to peel myself away from the phone and dumb scrolling early enough in the evening to get much done. Really annoying.

Had a hard time figuring out what to quilt
in the dark green border area.

I think the problem is that there is soooo much applique and there is a little more effort involved in running the needle through the quilt sandwich. Just doesn't feel quite as meditative as I generally prefer so yeah, I'm practicing avoidance. Ugghh.  May not even get 12 quilts finished up to the completed quilt top stage this year if I don't knock if off and get busy!

The Finished Baby Boy Quilt and Free-Cut Strips

The baby quilt is all done finally. It's bound, washed and even has a label! The binding was the last little detail to get figured out and luckily I had the perfect fabric waiting in the wings. On its own, it was an uninspiring piece of fabric, but for the purposes of this quilt? Just what was needed.

Grandsons baby quilt is done!

I struggled with this quilt all along. Mostly because baby quilts can be difficult for me these days. There's just no room for expanding on the original idea and that just feels a little suffocating! And it was a boy quilt so that feels even harder. As per usual, I gathered together fabrics from what was at hand. Then I went looking for more.

Simple quilting here in this area

I was able to use a couple fatquarters my mom gave me early this spring and also, managed to buy just a couple pieces that seemed necessary to convey the color palette my DIL wanted. When the quilt top stage was finally achieved, I have to admit to feelings of abject failure. Why oh why didn't I just keep going with the overall block theme and leave off the outside border inclusion? 

Want to know a secret? Because it was a very old fabric that I was quite determined to use up and this seemed like the best quilt opportunity ever. Huh. So muleheaded when I get an idea in my head. Was it worth it? Hmmm.... Ill let you decide.

Decided to add more quilting texture into the border 

Thankfully, after the quilting texture jumped into the quilt and the washing revealed the quilty goodness, I was able to stand back and view the quilt a little more kindly. Yes, it could have been better, but overall, it's a warm, boyish looking quilt. Goal accomplished. After all, a baby quilt doesn't have to be the best of all of our efforts. It just has to be sweet, cozy, cuddly looking and not too special to be used!

Crumpled and cozy looking

Bonus, my DIL seemed very, very happy with it! Gotta love that. Goes wonderfully well with the newly finished baby room decor of highland cows and little cowboys.*sigh  Also, what a relief to know that even though it was late by my standards, it was good timing for her.

A little bit of the back showing

In other news, our daughter gifted us with a trip to Alberta, Canada. We drove up to Banff {with her} from our home here in Washington. Very fast trip, but such a lovely drive and all the mountains and glacier fed lakes that we saw were just incredible. We were in awe! Wish we could have had more time to explore, but it was definitely a trip that we will treasure forever.

Lake Louise, Canada

I know this will make some of you uncomfortable, but we are actually quite poor at the moment. Which made the trip all the sweeter as it wasn't something we would have been able to do on our own! Though my husband is doing better now, he has had lots of sickness in the last several years with this past winter being the absolute worst. We really almost lost him and so our time together seems very precious. All the lost work, together with the poor economy, rising inflation etc. and we are just struggling financially. As I'm sure others are as well. I mean, have you noticed the price of groceries and fuel?

Got to start somewhere!

Which brings me to quilting. So very thankful for my totes of fabric. Even without buying a single piece of fabric, I can probably keep making quilt tops for at least a couple years. They might be 'interesting' color palettes, but then, that's my thing, right? No worries there. And then there is the bins of scrap fabric. Surely that could keep me occupied for another year or two? Ha! Not that I'm complaining. It is what it is.

The completed slabs of fabric strips for cross-cutting

I came home from the trip with an overwhelming need to get busy in the quilt room. Kind of like an ache in my heart just to play with fabric. I wandered around sort of aimless though, until finally making myself pick a project and sticking to it. Can't imagine why I landed on a project that featured so much blue, can you? 

Getting the baskets joined together

I free-cut strips until I had enough to make at least ten slabs of the mixed blue and violet fabrics. As always, it was tricky getting started, not knowing how exactly to set things up in order to not waste fabric. Eventually I decided that these final strip sets needed between two to three strips of blue for every addition of the violet ones. I know they are a little blendy looking in the blue sections, but that is by design. Hopefully this results in a calmer, cozier vibe for the baskets without competing too much for imminence.  

Each row of baskets will be slightly staggered if I can just figure out how to do the layout. Then there will be a section to the right with more of the dark brown fabric {no baskets at all}. This will be the 'background area' where I intend to cut out and applique a largish folky looking tree and perhaps a bird or two. It's all doodled onto a piece a paper, but putting it into fabric is wonderfully challenging as always....

All the Applique Projects

I'm having trouble making enough time for quilting these days. I so thought that I'd be back on track and plowing through all the many ideas percolating! Nope. Just having one of those years. Mainly,  I'm trying to quit pushing and just go with the flow, slow though it is.

A little basket border

I've got several applique projects all prepped and ready to go, though there hasn't been any stitching on that lately. First off, is the baskets for Peace Always. No forward progress since last September! The next border will be a little basket surround with possibly a little flower or something inside. We'll see how that goes.

Larger basket blocks

The second project is something that I just couldn't resist. These are the cut-out baskets from behind the baskets blocks in Berries and Baskets, a quilt top from a year ago. Just needed to figure out a background and then cut out some basket handles. There's something about baskets that seem to make my heart very happy!

Lots of orange

The third applique project is the borders for Melon Patch Blossom. It was super tempting to leave the quilt 'as is', but it was rather small. And..... you know how I love to figure out new ways to add applique onto a quilt! 

Love stitching tulips

The Fourth project I have with prepped applique is Good Vibes. It's part of the circle series that I'm playing with. Just thought it would look better with some sort of border so I guess it'll be tulips for the sides and maybe some pieced cross blocks for the top and bottom.

Gotta find time for the stitching

Then there is the impulse applique project from a couple weeks ago, all the flower, stem and leaves out of the the orphaned applique parts tote. It feels really good to have these projects ready for stitching, but so far it hasn't motivated me to find that time. Uggh. I'm starting to feel grouchy about not having time but I also know that potential 'available time' could be organized much, much better. 

This season of still having a somewhat recovering husband and all the other things has been challenging for this routine oriented person that I am. As to the quilting room, all that's really been happening there is mending. I had quite a few things that needed hemming or in the case of a couple skirts, a bit of alteration. Thankfully I've only gained back a couple pounds from last year, so I'm still in the smaller size than what I've been wearing for the last decade or so. Amazingly enough, I'm still keeping up on my Yoga! Ahh, it feels so good! Just can't give it up even if I find myself fitting it in at 9 at night. It's been a wonderful way to keep all my worries at bay this past half of a year. It's incredibly relaxing and I'm really appreciating how much more fit and healthy I feel these days.*sigh Was somewhat resigned to having the soft, traditional grandma shape and/or batwing arms, but hmmm... maybe it's okay if we go ahead and push that off for another couple years? Well.., the arms still needs an enormous amount of work but eventually, enough downward dogs ought to remedy the worst of it, right!

We went to a {friend of my husbands} wedding on Saturday, elderly couple. It was the sweetest, quirkiest wedding we've ever attended. The total number of people there was seven and that included the bride and groom! Coming from a family with 11 children, it was actually a bit shocking to not see more friends and family at such an important life event. They seemed very happy though so that's all that matters! We have a cousins funeral to attend this coming weekend and then, next week is when another of our grandchildren is due to be born. Our daughter, her husband and baby are flying in to visit for a week later this month {so exciting!}, and then next month is when we start getting ready for the church campout thing that we do annually up in the mountains.

Will no doubt keep plugging along with my hand quilting and other than the Bramble Blooms QAL, just grab the quilting muse whenever there's a spare minute or two. Expect me to continue posting erratically until things return to normal-ish. Whatever that is....