Maybe The Solution Will Come To Me If I Take a Nap

I've been working on the border for the A-Tisket-A-Tasket quilt. Lots of hst's which are not difficult, just annoying.

Trimming the hst's

Before sewing them into rows and getting locked into something I don't want, I went ahead and auditioned some ideas for the next border after.

Auditioning some possibilities

Definitely loving the red and blue hst's, but the rest is slow going. I had this idea to use up a lot of that really light yellow oddball fabric. Maybe in random 9-patches etc., but noooo it's not working. So I switched to applique ideas which, funnily enough is not working either.

Nothing looks right

Will have to leave it be for a bit and come back later. In the mean time, I finished up all the hand work on the Orphan Annie tulip blocks. All 20 of them! They are looking very yummy I think. Those olive green colors used on the leaves are just enough different to make me smile.

Hoping these look good together in a quilt!

I finally remembered to check back with the inspiration pics for the Country Stars quilt. It's a blend of two patterns from my inspiration folders. Both published in the early 2000's?

Original inspiration

It was all started as a quilt for someone and so I used colors and a style that I thought they might particularly like. The hand work is 'next on the list' so here we go. Definitely wanting to move on to more intriguing projects!

Should have left it alone....

When I started stitching down the leaves everything in me just rebelled. Ughh! I just hate doing sharp curves and there would be so many? So without really thinking it through, I cut four of the leaves down to a more simplstic shape.

All the weird shaped leaves

Yeah, it was probably a bad, bad idea. I've only stitched down four leaves on the right side, 1 large one, 2 small ones and 1 large simple shaped one and it's looking pretty iffy already. My regret meter is pinging off the charts.

Might have to get the seam ripper out

I threw some berry shapes on the quilt top {oversized on purpose} and am not sure if it all looks better or just more train wreck. Why do I ever think it's a good idea to make things that I'm not feeling the love for? Somewhere the seam ripper is calling my name, all the while laughing its head off....

Loving these colors together

I've been hand quilting on the AHIQ Hourglass quilt lately which has made me think about all those languishing hourglass units. Hhmmmm....  I made that first batch the wrong size so had to start over. Yeah. It was a very fun and relaxing couple of hours pulling fabric to put with them. Not sure what's gonna happen there, but I could tell my heart was all in.

Preventative maintenance

One of the results of digging through all those marinating fabric stacks in the past couple weeks--totes and buckets of fabric soaking. There's a gorgeous green fabric that had just a little bit taken out of it, looked so bright and bold. Uh huh. It's been releasing dye for almost three days now. No worries. I only used it in my Coronacrazy quilt.*sigh 

Organizing, Cleaning Up and the Uncertain Side Effects

So, yesterday.  Hmm... Well it all started with my latest copy of 'Quilters Newsletter'.  No room in the basket for yet another magazine and believe me I tried.  Valiantly.  Already the magazines were squeezed in so tight that the last seven I crammed in there were sticking out at least four inches over the top. Okay, enough is enough.  I can't be having magazines littering up my very limited quilt room space.

Tearing out interesting quilt magazine pages...

This resulted in a very impulsive and rather frenzied effort to sort out all the magazine pages that I might possibly be interested in looking at in the future; ie, ripping and tearing them out of the magazines themselves so I can put them into plastic sleeves and binders. I set up this system years ago and it works very well. I just hate the doing because I DON'T HAVE TIME FOR THIS!

Throwing out what I'm pretty sure I will never miss.

The first time I started tearing pages out of quilt magazines, I didn't know what I was doing or what I wanted to keep and so I kept too much.  Now I know that it's okay to throw away big chunks of a quilt magazine.  Not every pattern is a masterpiece and the styles definitely come and go.  (Unlike the core of my interest which remains fairly steadfast and reliable.)

My handy dandy inspiration system.

I've been wondering of late if Pinterest would completely replace the need for having inspiration binders. Could quilting magazines eventually become obsolete with all our new technology? I know that I don't rush to read them nearly as quickly as I once did.

A separate book for the template sheets.

For now I'm going to assume that they still have a place in my quilting process (and in my quilting room, limited though the space may be).  There are still times that I pull out several binders and sit on the floor flipping through page after page wondering which particular quilt will generate an idea or two.

Trying to stay somewhat organized....

I put pattern directions directly behind the picture if they are available, but mostly my system is about pictures.  Any spark of interest in a quilt whether it be color, block, layout, border, fabric choices etc. is deemed worthy to keep. Who really knows what they'll be sewing in years to come?  Could you believe I've been saving pictures of Pickle Dish quilts for well over 15 years? lol

Impulsive scrap bin cutting.

Unsurprisingly, looking at hundreds of pictures of quilts made me want to CREATE and MAKE.  I was positively itching to start sewing, but when I pulled out a couple of my current quilt projects all I could think of was 'blah, blah, blah'.  It didn't help that the scrap bin over in the corner was taunting me with it's unruly mess, especially after getting things cleaned up elsewhere in the quilt room.*sigh It's seems to be a never ending cycle doesn't it?

I just can't seem to resist making baskets...

So yeah.  You guessed it.  I started another project.  With a quick glance through 'Collaborative Quilting' by Freddy Moran and Gwen Marston, I found myself searching for template plastic, cutting a freehand wedge and then whacking away at some scrap fabric.  Certainly wouldn't want to ruin any brand new fabric with all my restless enthusiasm, now would I.....