It's a Finish!

 Ta-da! Primrose Path is a finished top! Black was the only color that made sense for the outside border, so easy-peasy. The original inspiration was a tapestry or rug {not sure} in black and white. Just couldn't quite bring myself to make a pure black and white quilt. Much too modern for me!

Primrose Path is a completed quilt top now

Thankfully I had enough of a solid to cut out what was needed for borders. Just enough actually. Really surprising as I tend to use it up in bindings and I had already used quite a bit in the sashing borders of this top. Would have loved to use a black fabric with some sort of floral print, but then that would have made things over-the-top busy. Probably. We'll never know now!

A little bit funky, a little bit charming

I love quilts with blocks set in two different directions and this fit the bill nicely. It's not immediately obvious, but I find it kind of sweet and charming.

Probably too graphic to have the cozy vibe I like

This quilt is dark, quirky and not nearly as prim as I normally prefer things to look. Still, it's got a lot of character and will hopefully, fingers crossed, look amazing with hand quilting some day in the future! The size of this quilt is 78" x 82 1/2", so a bit bigger than a large throw quilt. Love having it at finished quilt top stage after years of wondering if I wanted to make this, how to do it? In what colors, yada, yada yada. So it's not my favorite quilt in the whole wide world. That happens sometimes. I'm definitely pleased with how it looks though and happy for the experience!

Lotsa pink in this quilt....

I also finished up the hand quilting on Practice, the improv. strips quilt that I'm gifting to a nephew for his wedding. Big sigh!  I was sweating it a little with all the other things that needed attention this week.

Improv. Practice is finished up!

This quilt was started with the practice strips from the winter quilting meeting two winters ago. I had gathered up a stack of old, less than admirable fabrics for all the gals to practice free cutting on. It seemed easier to let them 'practice' before asking them to cut into their good fabric. My thought was that I wouldn't care how this stack of fabric ended up and it might be interesting to play with strips cut in widths intuitive to other people.

It's been a great practice quilt 

Later on, I used these strips to make my own quilt top, only needing to add in another couple fat quarters of color, plus the cream of course. The cohesion of the cream fabric really helps pull the whole look of the quilt together in my opinion. Good call there as the other fabrics ended up being fairly blendy looking without the offset of the much lighter color.

So glad to see the hand stitching texture come alive

Once again, I was reminded at how much better some fabrics can look when they are cut into smaller pieces. Funny how it can make an 'ugly' fabric look so, so much better!

Very snuggly looking quilt!

Mostly though, I was just done with these particular colors and style of fabric prints. Obviously, I have been spending a lot more time with brighter colors in the past couple years and have gotten away from the overwhelming earth tone phase. That being said, this was a good trip down memory lane, while also allowing me to freely play with improv. strip layout. Absolutely no pressure with this project!

Loving this backing

When I went looking for a suitable quilt top for my very masculine, duck hunting nephew, this quilt top jumped out as the best possible choice. Feeling sorry for his wife to be, I went ahead and added this Kaffe floral to the back. Well, this fabric and about five others. ha! Anyway, it's DONE! Yay me! and now I can start finishing up the two baby quilts and maybe even start on another....

Is this Not the Best Quilt?

Well, I'm definitely going to blow up this post with waaay too many pictures of Ormes Inspired! It's totally finished now, a true blue finish. And wowsers, it looks so much better with the hand quilting! Why does it always, always surprise me to see the difference between a flat looking quilt top and one with yummy texture from stitching? You'd think I'd learn by now.

Ormes Inspired is done!

But you know me, always a roller coaster of emotions from the start of making these beauties, clear up till the final showing! Once again, I want to thank Jane Ormes {a wonderfully talented artist in the UK} for her generosity in agreeing to let me sew up an interpretation of one of her prints, titled 'Welcome to my jungle'. {She certainly took a tremendous risk not knowing me in the slightest!} This was started in 2019 and took approximately a year to bring to quilt top stage. Probably wouldn't have come together even that quickly if not for the pandemic lock downs and all the time in the world for hand applique. Ughh, don't remind me.

Seriously wishing I had some quilt holder-uppers today

While I considered the quilt top finished, my mind just wouldn't leave it completely alone. Nag, nag, nag. Months later, in January of 2021, the missing piece occurred to me out of the blue. I mean, it was SO obvious! Everything sort of clicked into place and finally, finally, the design problem from the addition of a border treatment got to be resolved in a satisfactory manner.*Whew!

Loving the look of the stitching

Why are some quilts so tricky? But you know, it was totally of my own making, all the hullabaloo with the border. I was the one who took a perfectly good design and decided it wasn't quite right for a bed quilt 'as is'. Oh yes, got a lot of feedback about that, which was super interesting when points resonated and also difficult when they didn't at all. And maybe, subconsciously, it was all about attempting to make the quilt a little more mine. Because I've NEVER done that before! hehe  Whatever. It somehow ended up being one of the coolest quilts that I have ever put together! 

So much fun in the details!

I will confess to having a bout or two of insomnia over how in the world to do the hand quilting. Part of me very badly wanted to echo stitch inside everyone of the applique motifs and then perhaps do a subtle cross-hatch etc. stitching across the entire background. Possibly little bit of the antique vibe? The quilt mostly laughed and jeered at that idea and told me it felt massively underwhelmed by that particular idea. Well. If you have to be that way!

Inspiration is always a blessing

It wasn't until the top was sandwiched and pinned that I reluctantly decided on an overall stitching effort, the 'hills & valleys' one in particular. {Baptist fans just seemed a little bit too formal, even done in the freehand method.} Then I got sidetracked by being sick for a couple months, which oddly enough gave me just enough time to properly cement the idea in my mind. Soooo, here it is. Subtle, but seemingly funky and a little bit modern and whimsical too? Definitely nothing to distract in any way from the fabulous design, which was always going to be a concern. Better to push it to shine!

Don't ever be afraid to add the elephant

I want to say that I have had the most fun making this quilt! I'm laughing while I say this, but believe me. All the hair pulling aside, this has been an exhilarating quest, up to and including the last bit of stitching. It challenged me in so many ways that have positively influenced the confidence that I have in attempting whole quilt applique efforts. I'm a better quilter today for puzzlements just like this one. 

You can take a look at the original print here and compare and contrast the very small changes I may have made here or there. One of the most valuable things I have learned about attempting an interpretation is that the final result will NEVER be exact. And really, why would you want it to be?

The awkward flowers are sooo sweet

The goal {generally} is to take a look at the final interpretation quilt and instantly be able to recognize the original inspiration. But.... not get too caught up in agonizing over where the math may or may not work out or how your color choices perhaps changed things to slant in a 'you' vibe. I'm not saying the original design ever needs improved upon. Not at all! We were impressed and amazed enough to feel compelled to do something with that starting point. It's just that we're all human and inevitably something is going to be different, because for one, our eyes see color differently. Our perception of what is pleasing is tuned individually. Our hands create in distinctively unique ways. It's perfectly okay and it's a beautiful thing.

This quilt ended up being made up in these precise proportions mostly because I ran out of background fabric after making a serious math error. Then I had to pick apart fabric and basically start over. Wasn't going to ditch the starting Matisse looking leaves and well, why not wing it? Make-do with what I had available using the original as the framework and not the absolute. I've always been a little shocked at how closely the quilt did in fact replicate the print! Still shaking my head in disbelief... These are life long lessons that I've already put into good use since the finishing up of this quilt top in 2020. Start out as you map out, then be very willing to adapt, adapt, adapt.

Crumples up nice and cozy looking

I get so weary with quilters who fret and stress about how the original pattern maker will feel if they change up colors or an element here or there. If they will 'like it'. For goodness sakes, just do it!! That's what quilting is all about. Taking timeless quilting motifs, patterns and elements and doing our thing, making it our own. Putting our personal little stamp on it. {In this case, it's an artists' rendering and I tried to give Jane fair warning that the outcome would likely not be identical.} Do we need to give respect and honor to the original inspiration? Absolutely! 100%. Then it goes out into the world and morphs again 1000 more times, and where are you in this equation? Probably being a tiny, little spark to a couple of people you'll never even have occasion to meet! Isn't it wonderful?

The hot pink binding ended up working out perfectly!

Okay, enough about that. At this point, I don't know how I will be able to let anyone ever use this quilt, at least until the shiny wears off. It feels a little too precious and special. I had been thinking about gifting it to a granddaughter, but yeah. It's a lot of quilt and they're pretty little yet! We'll see. I might think about putting it into a quilt show some day. Just not sure about mailing off my quilts these days.

Making a statement in the guest room

In other news, I am still pushing forward on the Improv. Hourglass Abstract quilt. The open floor is only mine for a couple more days so really, I need to get off the computer and go quilt! All the hourglass units are where they will probably remain and now I am working on sewing improv. string units to fill up all the empty space. Right now they are just loosely plopped down into the pertinent space until I can determine how many still left to cut out and sew.

Trying to piece together a background 

There should have been plenty of them, but quickly realized that I needed a whole lot more. So bad at the guestimating! Back to the stash totes to dig for more fabric, grumble, grumble... Improv. strippy piecing takes much more fabric than single pieces of fabric, but if you want that background texture? Gotta do it! Basically, I need the empty areas to be lower volume fabrics because it will provide a nice background for the large scale applique vine I'm wanting needing to do. Uh huh. It's all starting to make sense now. 

And you may or may not know this, but I have a terrible time letting go of pretty pieces of creamy white background fabrics. Yep. I'm usually quite positive there is another much more worthy quilt waiting in the wings and of course it will desperately need this or that specific fabric....

Lots of lighter areas for better flow in the quilt

In case you're interested, here's a picture of what I see when I'm rounding the corner from the quilting 'room' back into the open floor plan upstairs. Back to my design floor. Wish I had a design wall as big as the floor area, but hey! We all do what we have to do to survive. To the right is the back of my husbands desk, which is always interesting when he's working upstairs and I'm just over the partial wall, merrily quilting on the other side. Good thing we like each other, though his music now, that's not always as palatable....

Having fun stitching the details

And here's a picture of the current quilt in the hoop. Making good progress with this one, though the individual hoops are taking much longer than expected to stitch. Somehow I always think that I can breeze through the hand quilting and get a hoop done in an hour or so. Uh huh. Right.... Hoping you all have a great Easter weekend! 

Moving Slowly in the Month of May

I'm just sort of plugging along because that's what I do. Rain or shine, quilting seems to make up a little tiny bit of my day. All the scallops are quilted into the mid portion of this quilt. It was so simple and easy to do, I just sort of wallowed in it and didn't really rush at all.

Ah Ha quilt in the hoop

Now I've moved into the 'ah ha' section and that's going well too. Mostly I'm just having trouble actually getting the quilt into my lap these days. So many things are interfering with hand quilting time that I just wanna scream. Once the hoop is in my lap and the needle is doing its thing, we're all good. A completion should be coming along in a month or two at this rate.*sigh

Ring Around applique blocks

There are 20 'Ring Around' blocks to do in all and as of this moment, I've completed 7 of them. I purposely chose the off colored background blocks to stitch first and so then of course, I had to second guess what in the world I was thinking. Now I'm starting to see an overall pattern emerge and well, it's a bit stronger and bolder than expected. Hmmm...  The background with the center medallion pieces have been done since 2018 so it's more than time to do something with them. Especially since they were kicked out of the original project. Oh well. I'm not feeling panicked or anything, just sort of bemused. Definitely not unpicking anything at this point!

The back of the 'guy' quilt

When things get especially busy and/or stressful here at the home front {and boy howdy, have the troubles been piling up lately}, my creativity seems to go into a serious hibernation mode. One way of coaxing it out is to dive into open ended projects that are mostly about chain piecing.

Very little truly wonky looking strips

I started this particular project back in March when I was knee deep in improv. strips. Oh hey! Why not start another one! The idea was to make a quilt geared toward the masculine with my youngest son as the potential beneficiary. 

A little bit of interest going on

I'd been thinking about this for quite awhile and basically what I wanted to do was to make a very simple quilt with a compass like motif and the letters NW near it. 

Loving the addition of the old blue gingham
and red/blue shirting fabric

Simple, basic and something my outdoorsy, hiking loving son would appreciate. All made with the oldy moldie fabrics at the bottom of the stash bins though, which obviously complicated things. There was just not enough good greens to go with the true 'outdoors look' route. Gah. Okay, Just gotta 'make do' as usual, and that is why the quilt ended up being rust, blue, red and cream. Some day I am going to clear out the big 'ol pile of rust colored fabric, I promise you!

Figuring out the applique on the front

Anyway, long story short, I jumped into the BACK of the quilt first--ending up with the improv. strippy rows. Just sewing, sewing, sewing. That is not the front as you might have assumed, but the back of the quilt. And now I have the measurements for the front of the quilt and where to start thinking about how/where to begin. 

Confession time: I went and bought a chunk of the blue striped fabric for the largest piece of the background. Yep. It felt necessary in order for the applique to make sense. I'm starting with the plaid, slightly off-perfect compass and the red NW letters and then.... well, who knows what will happen next. There are still quite a few of the improv. strips leftover from the back so some of them might end up finding a home on the front as well. Everything and nothing is on the table for this project. So far it's not exactly thrilling me, but overall the look is comfy and comfy is good. If it resonates with my son then that's the real win. Not gonna spend too much time overthinking this one, that's for sure!

p.s. I might, maybe, thinking about still, putting one more wider cream/red strip on the far left side of the quilt. Just 'cuz it's looking a little too balanced for me. Might be good to shake it up a little bit? Even if it is the back..... lol

The New Improv. Quilt and Taking Stock of the Completed Quilt Tops

I've been working on this Improv. strip quilt, trying to get the top finished up for my first quilt meeting. It was started with the idea of it being a baby quilt for one of my nieces, and then I changed plans midway through and went a different direction.

The new Improv. Quilt Top

Sometimes there are certain pieces of fabric that just seem to be shouting for their chance in a quilt. For this fabric pull, the demanding fabric was a mauve solid {you can see it buried there in the middle between the darkest pink and the purples}. I've been trying to use it for eons and it never gained much traction. Possibly because it was a moody tone?

Starting with a fabric pull

Finally, this specific color palette hit all the right notes and we were off and running! The mauve in question had more lavender in it than pink, but because it was so light colored compared to the purples, it easily slid in with the light pink fabrics. Okay. That'll work too! I love finding areas in a quilt to sneak in a slight blend, so this made me super happy.

Strips all ready for sewing...

All the strips were free-cut, very fast and easy to do. As you can see, the basic formula was first: determining the color pairings, then secondly, determining which color in each pair to cut in the wider or more narrow strip. Cut, cut, cut, then sewing pairs of strips and on and on till here we are at the individual rows being sewn. Very organic looking until it came time to put parts and pieces into proper rows. Then it's time for some measuring and squaring up so that everything lays flat.

13 rows all sewn

For the strips, I {mostly} started with chunks of 10" x 18" fabric and then further cut the strips from there. Generally, 2 chunks from fat quarters, but as always, some were already slightly depleted and on occasion, the piece was more like a half yard. Basically, for a baby quilt, you'd probably need 20 full fat quarters {5 each color} and for a throw quilt, 28-32 fatquarters {7-8 each color}, or the equivalent amount of fabric of course. 

For the purposes of the quilt meetings, I'm definitely figuring 20 FQ's for the baby quilt. That feels like the bare minimum for a scrappy result and too, I really want extra sets. People tend to get so frustrated by awkward looking repeats and it always helps to have enough to play. There are tricks and tips. Hopefully I'll be able to convey them adequately!

The full quilt top. Might gain a border before I'm through.

The first two meetings have been postponed for various reasons and now we're set for Thursday evening. It's so nice to have everything ready to go and now, I can concentrate on other things in the quilt room that already seem more interesting! Had to laugh when I glanced over at the wall the other day and then really looked again. How funny that I just unintentionally made a quilt project based on the color theory in the bottom right hand corner! The poster is from one of my daughters so then of course I had to let her know how she's subconsciously influencing me!

The poster in my quilt room

And for Quilting Babcia {Pat}, here's the post with all the completed quilt tops. They're a bit wrinkled from being folded up, mushed and shoved into a drawer. The Improv. one that was previously shown will probably get a border before I'm through, so that one isn't included and... the Christmas Stars in the hoop isn't included because it's well on its way to a finish. 

Completed quilt tops

The first two quilt tops {above}, red, white and blues, are the ones that my sister was going to throw away. Uh huh. They are not fantastic, but I couldn't bear for them to end up in the trash, especially because the bow-tie one is hand pieced.*sigh  The other two quilt tops are probably some of my least favorite so all of these usually reside in the very bottom of the quilt drawers. Very hard to get to and I don't care. They probably won't see any stitching until I find a good recipient or need a camping quilt.

More completed quilt tops

The first quilt, {above}, Moody 9-Patch is actually the next one that I'm hankering to get into the hoop, but alas, I don't have any backing fabric for it right now. {I've got the sads about that in case you were interested.} The next two feel too 'new' to jump the quilt top queue {plus I don't have backing fabric for them}, and the last top, Roman stripes will probably not get quilted until I'm certain of the recipient. So boring 'cuz I've already finished one that is nearly identical. Which always feels like a good idea until it doesn't anymore.

And more

These quilt tops {above} are: a Christmas quilt--not getting quilted until the 2022 holiday season, the Melon Patch Jubilee quilt--too new, HaHa quilt --needs to be next, definitely first in line and well... I just don't wanna. Too much white I think. I'm always squeamish when I think about it so yeah... I just tend to avoid it. And the last one--Crazy Daisy is too new. Obviously. Needs to marinate awhile yet. 

And more

Okay, Ormes Inspired {above}--gearing myself up for that one. Trying to subconsciously figure out the stitching pattern because consciously thinking about it isn't working. Next is Big Kiss--Probably gonna happen here pretty soon, but I did something dumb and sewed up the backing already--it's batik. Ughh. Always a bit more difficult to hand quilt! Then there's Love Apples which could be quilted soonish. I'm thinking about it. And last is the Seedpod Flower quilt which I love, love looking at. Saving it for when I need an extra dose of quilting love in my lap.

And still more

Then there's the Pink Tulip quilt. Yaasss! Gonna happen this year for sure. Crossroads which is entirely too new, The 16-Patch pink quilt top that I made for my sister {years and years and years ago} and somehow found its way back into my stack of 'To-Do's'? Yeah. It's 100% Next-Up-In-The-Hoop. I want it done and moving on so I can get back to mine, all mine. Which just might be Spring Flowers, the blue /cream one at the end. It looks very easy and might be the right quilt to soak up the leftover irritations of not getting to work on WHAT I Want to work on.

The last of the lot!

And last but not least is the 4-block Tulip Basket quilt, backing ready to go and just waiting for the right time, Ode To Joy--too new just yet and then there's the last one... Glory Be. Everything ready to go for that one too. Probably be in the mood around 4th of July or sometime like that. We'll see! Can only hand quilt so many in a year and the machine quilting is getting sparser and sparser around here as time goes on. How many finished quilt tops do you have hanging around your quilt room? If I have an exceptionally good year, I might finish half to three quarters of these....