Such a Good Finish!

 The HaHa quilt is totally finished up! So hard to believe after all these years that everything is done {except for a label}. It's been such a long time coming!

The HaHa Quilt is done!!!

As most of you know, I've always been just a little bit doubtful about the addition of the outside triangle border. Did it need it or not? I thought the added color would help make the center 'pop' better and give the entire quilt a bit more of a solid feeling. Then later I just wanted to rip it off because something about it didn't sit exactly right.

Looking so much better than I ever dreamed

Once again, I am tremendously relieved to see that yes, this design decision was meant to be. Every time I wavered or questioned, I ended up leaving it 'cuz what was going to replace it? With the hand quilting doing that lovely texture thing, it all suddenly makes perfect sense!*sigh  Did you notice the scallop hand quilting in the center area? First time I've ever done this motif and though I adore the look there in that spot, I'm very glad that I didn't end up stitching scallops over the entire quilt. Which I definitely considered doing for five or ten minutes. Hmm... No. Not today. So tempting and yet, it just didn't quite resonate with me at the time.

Loving the scalloped stitching texture

The color in the pictures is a little weird. The contrast between the creamy white fabric and the grayed down cream sections is very hard to get a proper representation of. And yes, I know it's not everyone's preference to blend all these shades of creams and whites into one quilt, but I personally love the juxtaposition. Looks so, so good close up and in person. No regrets there at all!

We'll all just laugh together...

I still have to laugh at the idea that the 'Ha Ha' portions of a quilt were due to me totally and completely miscalculating the measurements of the outside border. Obviously by a lot! Now I can say with absolute conviction--That was the very best mistake ever made around here!

So glad that I stuck it out with this project!

At this time that this quilt was started, zeroing in on solid colored fabrics and using lots of  'white' fabrics seemed very challenging to me. Lots of decisions felt excruciatingly difficult in terms of trying to 'see' through to the [imagined} end result. 

Testing out the look in the guest room

I wanted a quilt that gave off a whimsical vibe. Something cozy, not in the least bit cold or contemporary looking. The very last decision made, using the large, old fashioned red/white gingham fabric for binding? That almost seems like serendipity. One of those moth ball smelling fabrics given to me by my aunt last year. You know I would have never in a million years thought to go looking for that exact fabric, and yet it works wonderfully in that position. This turned out to be such a sweet, happy looking quilt. So thankful to see it finished up at at last!

The perfect binding

And 'Seedpod Flower' is next up in the hoop. I've been anxiously awaiting the time that I could spend with this beauty in my lap.

The new quilt in the hoop!

There's just something about the mixture of colors that makes this little heart of mine feel mushy and sentimental. Maybe it reminds me of colors that my grandmother used in her quilting? I did manage to slip one tiny fabric of hers into the quilt so there's that....

Scrappy, scrappy

It's been the usual CRazy around here so it took a couple nights to hand quilt the centerpiece of this quilt. Nothing flashy or extra special, just some basic big stitch diagonal lines and a little bit of echo quilting here and there. Next up will be the same, same, same throughout the rest of the quilt so mostly having to figure out colors of thread.

Just getting started with the hand quilting

All of my sisters have been in town this week, so yep, the six of us have been up to all kinds of trouble! Just kidding. Some hiking {not me}, celebrating moms birthday, thrifting, eating out, lots and lots of visiting. The thrifting stuff is right up my alley of course, and now I'm continually looking for shirts to repurpose for use in quilting. 

Adding some shirts to the fabric stash!

I try to leave the out-of-town family plenty of time to visit the parents on their own and not crowd in every moment of the visit. It's difficult not to want to be in on all the fun, but mom and dad are getting older and need some time for those good visits which only tend to happen during the quieter moments. 

So proud of her!

On a different note, mom had recently finished the machine quilting on her Improv. quilt and I had assured her that I could put the binding on for her. Just like I always did in prior years. Can you believe this is the very first quilt that my mom has completely finished since their house burned down in a fire back in 2014? She has definitely started several quilts in the ensuing years, but something changed after that event and she became very insecure about her quilting, often forgetting many of the things she knew about the process. She had difficulties with her new sewing machine. Her vision would get bad at the times she wasn't feeling good, which was often. Or her design wall too small to bother with. Long story short, we believe she has been dealing with Alzheimers for many years now, no doubt set off by that trauma. 

She was extremely excited to take part in the Improv. meetings I held earlier this year. Crazy happy to have a plan of attack. Often trying to jump ahead with the project even though she had zero experience with this method! Early on I determined that if it was remotely possibly, we were going to make sure that mom ended up with a true blue finish at the end of this effort. And so it happened. Just take a look at her proud smile! Lots and lots of hand holding and seam ripper sessions. Me trying to give suggestions and/or talk her out of something she was determined to do. Sometimes mom got mad at me or ridiculously irritated with 'Improv.', blaming all the mistakes on the method, her machine or 'the thread'. Other times she went ahead with the way she wanted to do something and then I had to come in and help her out of a bind. 

I am positively blown away by how much this quilt looks like a 'mom' quilt {colors etc. she would have used years ago} but still holds true with the improv. formula everyone used. Her memory might be a little tricky these days, but she remembers more than she knows that she knows. This was a very sweet moment, her getting to hold and peruse a quilt that was made by HER. She gets all the credit. Then she got to show it off when her daughters came to town. How perfect is that?

It Feels Good To Be Making Progress On Something

I actually managed to get quite a bit done in spite of the fact that we had a busy, busy Easter weekend! I went ahead and added a very small coping border between the main part of A-Tisket-A-Tasket and the red hst border. 

A-Tisket-A-Tasket getting a border or two

I'm pretty sure there will only be one more border, of much larger red and gold hst units. It's all cut out and ready for sewing, just need to find the time. Super happy with how it's turning out though. That lighter yellow/gold just made everything shine! So weird because I had dismissed the idea earlier thinking that color would fade into the bottom part of the baskets too much and totally ruin the look. 

It's the whole kit and kaboodle. 61" square

I also managed to keep working on Country Stars. It was sooo tempting to put it up for a good long sleep, but I was not too sure that it might never see the light of day again once that happened. And I do want to get it finished up and gifted sometime this year!

It doesn't look like much, but it makes the quilt look better

I took the larger leaves in the middle of the applique and cut into them again. This time making into flowers with a red bud. It's all so much better now. Then I went ahead with the little stacks of berries, mixing up the colors. Red didn't look right and neither did pink, so I combined the two. It's still not a fabulous top, but overall I'm satisfied. Especially after all the applique was finished up {I thought} and on a whim, decided to sew the darker brown cross circle over the center compass block. 

It's applique and that's important sometimes, to
some people...

It just finished it off in a way that I can quit stressing about now. And I'm sure our friend will love all the little details eventually. It's really not easy to work on a quilt where the connection was never really there in the first place. But I did it. Got all the hand work done and dusted. Now I just need to take a deep breath and find time here this coming summer to get it sandwiched and pinned, ready for quilting!

Getting ready to hand sew the binding

Got all the hand quilting finished up on the AHIQ Hourglass quilt. Would have been done sooner, but the backing fabric was a heavier, tighter weave than I normally work with, something my aunt gave me awhile back. I love all the freebies, but occasionally it's nice to use something that wants to work better with a needle!

Almost ready for the hoop!

Next quilt in the hoop is the HaHa quilt. So crazy, it's been almost four years since this has been a completed quilt top! This one has been such a very long time getting in the hoop. It took over two years to even make quilt top stage. Some quilt tops are just plodders I guess. I don't know what to say except that I've just had very mixed feelings about this quilt from the beginning.

I really do like these words on the quilt

Love it and I well, worry about it. It's been too solid fabric-ish, too white, too many disparate elements, too much, too much. And I had zero ideas about how to hand quilt it until a couple months ago.

The ric-rac borders around the blocks are still a fave too

When I suddenly thought about stitching scallops over the center part. Huh. Maybe that will be the thing to make sort of 'make sense'. I went with the cardboard, make-it-yourself template since the plastic template sheets are so expensive these days. Didn't want to ruin a whole sheet experimenting. Anyway... It's not gonna be perfect and you're gonna see where I adjust, adjust, adjust the design. 

Home-made template for the win

Which might actually make me like it better. There's just something about it not being absolutely perfect that sorta calms me down and puts a smile on my face. Onward ho!

These girls.....

And here's a recent picture of our granddaughters. We had an enormous amount of fun getting to spend Easter weekend with them. I mean, we are The Easters, so it's always been a special holiday.*wink  Loving how chunky little Ellie is getting and how chill she was with us even though it's been months since we've got to squeeze on her. Like my father-in-law always said, if we'd have known how much fun grandkids were, we would have been sure to have them first..... 

6and6in2018 is Getting a Few Results!

The 6and6in2018 for July crept up on me pretty fast. I've been working on my oldest quilt top off an on, trying to get it finished up for this particular linkup. It was part of a series started a very long time ago and one that ended up being monstrously large. So big {105" x 107"} that I never wanted to actually quilt it myself. Do you blame me? What was I thinking?

9-Patch Building Blocks is a finish!

For awhile I planned on having it professionally quilted and then decided it wasn't worth spending that kind of money on. I tentatively decided to hand quilt it and even had a grand stitching plan, special piece of batting bought and everything. Meh.  Still not feeling it and quite honestly, almost gave the quilt top away to a group of ladies I know who make a quilt every year for a fundraiser.

What was holding me back was all the hand work along the edge. That applique border took me forever and was something I felt pretty proud of at the time. It felt so creative!  In hindsight I wish it could have been completed fairly quickly so it could have been one of those celebratory finishes we all love so much. All's well that ends well though as my youngest son really admires the size and simplicity of the design. Yay! It's only been a year and a half since he got a new quilt, but if he likes this one, then I'm a whole year ahead of the gifting-a-quilt-for-graduation thing that I do. Bonus!

It's a big one...

Oh yeah, the details. I finally broken down and decided to sandwich and pin this quilt for machine quilting on my Bernina 740. It has a larger harp than my old machine {the backup these days}, so it seemed doable, at least in abstract. Lets just say that I will probably never, EVER do that again. The machine handled it just fine, no problems there, but the sandwiching, pinning and marking took forever and many more days. Ughh....  Not fun at all.

I used an orange/gold Aurifil thread for stitching and various pieces of green fabrics {pulled from deep down in the stash totes} to make a scrappy binding. It's all done now and washed up in a very loose, drapey feel that my son will love. After he popped a bunch of quilting threads on the last quilt {pushing his feet into it and stretching out like the total dork that he is}, I have given him the big fat lecture on how to properly treat a quilt: Feel free to use it, maul it, snuggle up in and generally wrap up and/or drool on. Wipe your Cheeto fingers on it if you must! but please, please stop with the gross mistreatment!

The basket is my favorite part

And no it wasn't old, sun faded thread or anything like that. It took awhile and much pondering and panicking about other quilts that I've gifted. Would people tell me if their quilts are coming apart at the seams? We finally narrowed it down to the problem child though.*whew! I take care of my threads and don't use garbage for machine quilting so that's that. This new quilt will be a great test quilt to see if he's learned anything or actually even heard a word that his mom said. Hmm... How does this even happen to a quilter? Not sure I'd place any money on this particular bet though and you can be sure he won't be getting a very impressive quilt anytime soon.....

Patchwork Triangles a new quilt top!

The quilt top for Patchwork Triangles is done now too. It was on the 6in6in2018 list as well. Just cut-off triangles in the beginning, but they certainly shaped up into a fun looking quilt top! So glad I challenged myself with these as I always get such a charge out of figuring out something to do with the orphaned bits and pieces. The sharp yellow solid fabric was bought at a quilt show last year just because I couldn't resist. Love seeing it end up in something like this! The top ended up being 62 1/2" x 68 1/2", so a nice sized lap quilt that could be a sweet gift for one of our extended family members some day. Loving the slightly vintage looking vibe of it all and feeling more determined than ever to keep playing with the castoffs.

A good border works wonders

And you've already seen the quilt top pics for the HaHa quilt. So glad that one is finished up and out of my hair for now. I knew it had to be on this list to receive any more attention this year, and yep, that's exactly what happened. I'd look at the list and start to feel guilt pains if I kept pushing it aside. It's so interesting that with some quilts we can't hardly make ourselves quit working on them and others? Wow! Such a slog. Never seriously want to get busy with them, although that doesn't mean we don't like them just as much in the end!

HaHa quilt checked off the list too

I haven't been keeping very good track of new quilts as this list has been more valuable for keeping me on task for finishing. There is never a problem with wanting to start new quilts around here so not gonna worry about that for now!

Washington cherries are the best

My cousin unexpectedly dropped off three boxes of cherries this afternoon. After making a few phone calls and unloading two of them {they needed immediate attention}, I decided to freeze the rest. It doesn't take much time, just have to wash them, pick all the stems off and toss the bad cherries. They don't even have to be totally dry before putting them in freezer Ziplocs and then later in the year they are a great snack for the {bottomless stomach}, youngest son. We ate frozen cherries like candy when we were kids. Junk food? That was for summer picnics and vacation. Linking up with Meredithe and Anne for 6and6in2018-July!

How The HaHa Quilt Came to Be

Yay for me! This Solids Challenge quilt is finally, finally, finally at completed quilt top stage. Whew! It only took 2 1/2 years. If you remember, back in June, I mentioned cutting the border triangles a little too large. That promptly took me to the next challenge, what to do for an intermediate border?

The middle border

Somehow I ended up with the idea to sew a HaHa border based on a gorgeous quilt over at Nifty Quilts. That left me with a small coping border in between the HaHa's and the middle of the quilt that had to be addressed.

Contemplating using red...

I auditioned different colors, quickly realizing that it was going to have to be a neutral to play nice. Red was definitely a no go.

Black is too stark

 As was black and gray.

Gray is too 'meh'

And much to my internal resistance, white was the obvious choice. You may think that my instinctive balking is odd, but I'm just not into all those stark 'white' quilts that are so popular. Like the only color that responds wonderfully to COLOR, is a non-color.

And white makes perfect sense....

 So I earnestly set my biases aside and sewed the quilt top together with the white inner coping border. Honestly, I almost just left the entire triangle border completely off! Doesn't the first picture look wonderful 'as is'? But then the quilt would be too small to do anything much with and the thought of all those wasted triangles just made me feel queasy.

Another square quilt!

So I forged ahead and yes, it felt good to have the triangles sewing together nicely. Sometimes I seriously start doubting my math skills and it's good to have a reminder that I can occasionally do something right! lol

It looks positively lovely in some light....

And the more I looked at my quilt, the more it started feeling okay again. Maybe the outside borders weren't a giant mistake after all.

The HaHa border was a good decision

I've changed the name of this quilt to the 'HaHa' quilt. It sorta named itself and seems more appropriate now than ever. Such a challenge all the way through! My family thinks the HaHa blocks are very weird and strange, but then they don't get the connection to an antique quilt or my crazy fumbles and missteps through the entire evolution of the quilt.

I think it might already be growing on me....

I wish the green triangles framed the quilt all the way around as they look best next to the HaHa blocks. That's what happens though when ideas have to be changed and tinkered with halfway through! I'm very excited to fold this quilt up and have it languish a good long while in the quilt top drawers. Maybe when I pull it back out in a few months or a year, I'll have a new found appreciation for it? In the meantime, I'm making a big 'ol check mark next to one of my most prioritized goals for this year. The Solids Challenge quilt top is DONE! Never, ever give up or you'll never get where you're going.....