Improv. Wheels My Pick for 2018 Bloggers Quilt Festival

Oh my, how the time does fly. I've been working on this quilt for over 2 years now! It was a project started in order to play with an improv. method from Sujata Shah's 'Cultural Fusion' book. Finishing it up at the time of the Bloggers Quilt Festival made it a shoe-in for entering!

A closer look at the blocks

I liked funky pinwheel look to the blocks, but it just seemed like they needed a bit more focus. Thus the idea of trimming the edges and giving them more of a 'wheel' look. I do tend to veer toward a more circular look at the slightest provocation.

All washed up and crinkly looking

Then of course, the centers appeared to be in need of a brighter, more unifying color, of which I was happy to oblige them with. But what to do about those white, vacant looking connecting squares?  That yawning emptiness?

The birds are little but I like the whimsical touch

It only seemed right to add a busy little bird and on and on like that, it just happened. This quilt seemed determined to tell its own story and it was my job to figure it out and narrate it properly.

Improv. Wheels finally a finish!

Looking back, I'm not sure the flower border was the right element for finishing off the quilt. It does give it a rather dated look! Oh well, I fell in love with the way that floral motif blended in so well with the rest of the fabrics in the quilt and all along, I was rooting for a vintage vibe. Just might have to wait another 10-15 years for the 'vintage' to kick in. lol

It looks good for snuggling

The entire quilt was hand quilted in perle cotton #8 and #12, my go-to threads for the last couple years. It's part and parcel of what tipped the scales in the direction of being happy with the ultimate finish. Hand quilting texture in a quilt is just so very yummy. I'm quite the addict by now and still have to grin when I think of those years when I was so vocal about never, ever hand quilting anything!

I'm also very pleased with the recycled mens shirts included in the quilt and the one vintage piece of fabric I bought special at a quilt show a few years ago. I don't do much of that, but it always feels good. Plus, as an added bonus, there are many oldy, moldy fabrics in this quilt that have been languishing in the bottom of the stash totes for sooo many years that it feels quite ridiculous at times.

Not my normal colors, but it all came together in the end...

There is a very real resistance to throwing out fabrics on the basis of 'Well, I haven't used them thus far, so I probably never will!'. Oh no. That's just like waving a red cape. Throw a few beautiful new fabrics in with the lot and just wait and see what I can come up with. Challenge thrown down, challenge accepted!*wink  Now to find times to peruse all the wonderful quilts over at Fall 2018 Bloggers Quilt Festival. Always a good time to find new inspiration!

Just Plugging Along

Apparently it's a good time for taking a blogging break, the dog days of summer and all that. I am so tempted, but keep having one more thing I want to blog about first! I feel like I've been working in very 'slow mo'. Homebody that I am, traveling every other weekend starts to feel very emotionally draining. Especially the extra long days of driving where an eight hour drive unexpectedly takes ten or more hours.*ugghh...

Improv. Wheels getting a little hand quilting done...

Why is it that family always has a good reason for filling up our vehicles coming and going. Oh, you'll be in close vicinity, why don't you just go pick up some exercise equipment for me as a favor? And all of a sudden our leisurely trip is taking a detour straight through a traffic packed Portland, Oregon on the way home, instead of being able to skirt the edges like we normally do. That's when I get my hand work bag out and start stitching like a crazy woman. Deep breaths Audrey! Coming from a town of minus 700 people, traffic in places like Portland and Seattle make me a wee bit stressed.

Laundry and other assorted necessary, {but time consuming} chores pile up quickly of late, and of course quilting often gets shoved way onto the back burner at the least provocation. It seems that all the quilting getting accomplished here is with the quilt in the hoop or maybe a little bit of applique. Grab and go kind of stuff. I was so excited and looking forward to working on Improv. Wheels, but now it's feeling a little flat. The time spent with the hoop has been really broken up and something feels weird about the quilt now. Makes me compare it to what having a brown eyed child after having a passel of blue eyed children would feel like. Oh, it's definitely all mine, but still, I'm having to reconnect every single time I pick the hoop back up! It's probably just the normal chaos of winding down the end of summer.  I'll feel better after a good week or two of normal quilting routine.

On a side note, take a look at this gorgeous quilt below! A reader of my blog, Denise St. Sauveur, said that she unofficially followed along with Quilty 365 and then looky, looky what she did with the border! This is the flower block from my Vintage Red quilt just finished up this Summer. Oh my goodness, what a seriously creative streak this gal has. Wish she had a blog to see other work,  'cuz I love this so much!

A quilt made by Denise!

I am, as always, amazed and humbled when someone finds creative inspiration from anything on my blog. It's such a boost to open our email and find a picture like this or a note that says 'thank you' for sharing our quilting journeys in such a public way. Completely made my day. Thank YOU Denise!, for so generously sharing your lovely quilt and allowing me to post a picture showing this wonderful creation with other readers too. It's how we're all inspired, day after day, seeing different quilt ideas merge, blend and grow. I would have never come up with this on my own, but now want to make my own Vintage Red border in a brand new quilt project! Ooh, but there's just never enough time for all the ideas is there?

The Improv. Wheels Quilt Top Finish and A Walk-Through

Ever since the creation of this quilt several years ago, I've been intrigued by the idea of how very much difference a tiny, little addition can make to a quilt. Just adding that simple little bird makes me love the quilt a whole lot more. Mostly because it makes me smile! And that's a good thing.

A few little applique birds

So I kept thinking this quilt needed something to cover up the big, fat, white areas {created by the corners of my wheel blocks meeting}, They just made me uncomfortable in some very odd way. Like I had walked into someone's house that wasn't mine and people were saying, 'Well, yes it's your house, don't you recognize it?'

A new quilt top finish!

 And so finally I relented. Even though I wanted the wheel look, chopping off the corners of my improv. pinwheel blocks just to get that particular look. It really doesn't make sense does it? Oh well. Nothing to do now but forge ahead. I searched and dug around for fabrics that would be capable of adding that tiny little spark of 'me' without pushing the quilt over the maximum 'busyness' factor. Everything was sort of 'meh' until the bright, cheerful plaid popped up. Can you even see that in reality, the blues and blue-greens sort of clash in the quilt? Yep. It was meant to be! Just that beautiful surge of cheerful energy and I was sold.

Some fabrics are more clashy than others....

And then it wasn't finished. Still! It kept insisting it needed a border, which just made my head hurt. Everything auditioned was cluttery and such a distraction. Piecing was a definite 'NO'. It wasn't until I went back to the floral fabric {tried out as a sashing fabric earlier in the life of the quilt}, that it started coming together for me. And if you notice, it has a touch of that clashy blue in it as well, along with spaces of white that kind of allow the quilt to ease into the border without overpowering it.*sigh

My son agreed to hold the quilt up 'inside' the house,
only agreed to an outdoor picture for next July. hehe

I knew when I impulsively bought that fabric over a year ago that it was going to be an amazing piece and wowsers, was I glad to see it again in the stash. Some fabrics are just meant to be and I'm a huge, {unapologetic} fan of sweet, distinctive looking floral fabrics finding a good place in a quilt. So go ahead and sneer when they end up, oh-so-traditionally on the borders of my quilts!

Interesting how the colorways always have connections!

I once read an article about how boring, predictable and well, plebeian, having birds and flowers represented in a quilt was. Oh. And years ago? There was also a commentor on a popular modern quilt blog who totally disdained the work of needleturn applique as being sloppy and childish looking. The funny thing was, lots of people jumped on the bandwagon right along with her. But that's fine because it had a good outcome for me at least. These kinds of 'group-think' attitudes helped me to more wholeheartedly embrace the look that I simply love from the bottom of my naive little, country-girl heart. Don't tell me what to do! lol  But the thing is, I will never willingly make a lifeless looking quilt just for the sake of perfection, or a trendy look, fabric use, or popular opinion. That's so not me, nor should it be you. Make what YOU love and let the naysayers go elsewhere or eventually, you'll probably quit making altogether. It's not worth the angst!

p.s. The floral fabric was fussy cut in 7" widths in order to incorporate the best use of large bunches of color. Also, included in the pinwheel blocks is a couple re-cycled men's shirts. Pinwheel blocks were cut and sewn according to Sujata Shah's 'Cultural Fusion' pinwheel formula, then altered to gain the big 'wheel' look that I wanted.

The Latest AHIQ Stuff Going On Around Here

Just a quick round-up of the latest AHIQ work being done around here. No improv. piecing at the moment as I am mired in hand work. And no, I'm not the least bit upset about it! Chunky Crossroads below is moving on, gaining a border. All the prep work is sooooo tedious, but it is what it is and applique work cannot seem to exist without some effort.

Chunky Crossroads

That interesting border motif was inspired by a 'Mad About Folk Art' book {by Gerry Kimmel}. I found this oldish book in a collectible-type store bargain bin early in the year. Hello! Come to mama! My mind is busily considering whether or not the open leaves need a little addition of color--perhaps a round little flower bud instead of the single fabric print suggested in the book.

Improv. Wheels below is what is left of my improv. pinwheels, straight out of the Sujata Shah book that I can't seem to put down. After all the centers are sewn down, then we will start getting serious about a layout. I'm really hoping to keep the slight vintage feel to the blocks so probably won't get too crazy with the setting.

Improv. Wheels

The Tumbler Big Basket 'centerpiece' is all set, ready to go forward as well. I lumped it in with the other AHIQ projects because of the tumbler block experiment. Such an improv. attitude to take a full sheet of 'piecing' and cut it up! With the basket stitched down now, it just barely needed that little bit of 'framework-type' border to make me happy--set the stage for the rest of the quilt. And yes, it has a lot of open space around that big 'ol basket. Something I can work with later if turns out to be too white and bright!

Big Tumbler Basket

All these smaller baskets will be sewn onto the big basket {top and right sides only}, and are now totally completed. Would you look at that? A couple of them even get an extra pop of applique in the guise of a cheerful little flower. I know. Just can't seem to stop myself....

Little Baskets

Then I'm thinking maybe a long flowy vine thing down the left and bottom of that big basket. Hopefully with some roses and rosebuds too? I keep drawing lots of berries in my vague 'what-if'' drawings, then remember that no, this particular vine seems to need more of a flower shape. Do you ever do that?

The little block below is what I'm testing out for the bottom right corner of the quilt. Sort of a 'title or introduction' block for the quilt. I do love words on a quilt. So yeah, if the vine side of the quilt ends up being slightly wider than the little baskets, the entire quilt will present slightly asymmetrical. If all works out as currently envisioned of course!

Gather Ye Rosebuds block ready to applique

And the Improv. Woven Basket has been left on the wall. Still pondering border ideas so as to make that quilt larger without losing any of the current charm. It's something I worry about because little quilts are not nearly as 'usable' around here. I find myself constantly trying to push all these quilt projects into something more efficient for the long term, because in my world, quilts need to be well appreciated to make this all worthwhile!

So..., lots of applique work in the queue before moving on with any of these projects, but it's usually very intriguing to push through the steps. Right? Gotta love this wonderful process in quilt building: What's next? What works? What color? What shapes does it really need? My mind as always, is constantly working in the background, making those wonderful connections that can {hopefully} lead to a better, more individual, quilt.