Showing posts with label Large Basket Quilt. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Large Basket Quilt. Show all posts

Wednesday, August 5, 2020

A Little Bit At A Time

Life has been very disjointed and moody lately. We have deadlines and 'have-to's' out the kazoo. Things happening that seem quite heavy. Or at least it seems that way. It could be that our get-up-and-go is feeling recalcitrant, and everything seems to take an extra dose of effort just to get done. Our kids and grandkids came to visit last weekend, so that was a wonderful window of good times. Nothing like the honest joy of little children to make everything seem just a little bit brighter for a moment or two!
Coronacrazy progress
Governor proclamations and mandates have been getting especially wearisome of late. It feels like we're at permanent pause regardless of any available, pertinent data. I have family grappling with the public school question and I'm very relieved not to have to be dealing with that dilemma myself! Feel so sorry for the kids who will have to wear masks all day and not get to have any positive social time with their friends. Definitely time to seriously consider home school options, but if too many do that here in our valley, the result will probably be that our community permanently loses the school itself.

Good time to pull out the Coronacrazy quilt out and make a stab at moving things forward--put my crazy towards something beneficial. Just too many things completely out of our control! This picture above represents three hours of auditioning the layered flower bits and then taking off the pieces not needing to be tucked 'under' the hills. I'm not very much in the mood to do this particular applique at present, but it is all prepped and ready for when the time arrives. Which it always does.
Binding for Sweet Tarts
Lovely to have had the binding all ready for Sweet Tarts! It's well on its way to a post of its own here on the blog, and I must say, it will be very bittersweet to be finished up with this particularly sunny project. It's been a great mood elevator during these past weeks of having it in my lap.
Applique border on Seedpods
The Seedpod quilt has the applique addition all cut out, very carefully fussy cut from the remnants of a single fat quarter. Stumbled upon this fabric when combing through the stash totes and it seemed so obvious that it was the perfect choice to help make this centerpiece shine! Amazing what a little fussy cutting can do! Crossing my fingers all the colors work as well as expected....
Time for a basket!
This has been in the works for a couple weeks. One day I was perusing the multiple stacks of fabric marinating throughout the quilt room. This stack of older blues and pinks didn't seem very inspiring, but mixed with a few reds and greens, just had this little glimmer of possibility. 
A make-do background
On that particular day, I must have been feeling fairly invincible, as it was not the least bit scary to just start cutting and throwing things at the wall. In no time at all, there was a substantial basket looking back at me. Easy as pie to add more width to the chosen background fabric and then, next thing I knew, the preparation for applique was well on its way too. Love when a project barrels along, gaining momentum with every single decision made!
Figuring out the applique
I'm enjoying the faintly Scandinavian look/color palette to the applique, but you probably need to know that all the cues for this flower arrangement were taken directly from the darkest blue fabric in the basket. Still not 100% sure about the white stem and leaves, but am willing to try it out and see. The basket handle still needs some fine tuning, but otherwise, all is ready for hand stitching there too.
Next up in the hoop!
Though we did have a lot of distractions over the weekend, there is generally always a brief window for hand quilting around here too. Thankfully Peachy Cameo was already sandwiched and pinned, ready to be popped into the hoop at a moments notice! I've been dreading working on this quilt for some ridiculous reason, but finally the time had come. No more excuses or procrastination allowed!
Closer look at Peachy Cameo
Now that I've stitched a hoop or two, it seems like a rather silly 'dread' and I'm left wondering why? It was probably the open areas in the applique border that seemed rather intimidating. Sometimes it takes getting a quilt into the hoop before those decisions can ever be satisfactorily addressed in our minds. Gotta go through instead of trying to weasel our way around a problem.
Full view
Up till today, I've not had a boat load of problems with the New Blogger. Little bit of a learning curve, but not too overwhelming. Today was a doozy and I eventually just had to delete an entire post and just start over. Why? Something to do with {accidentally} engaging the link button and then trying to type out the entire post while in that particular mode. Definitely. Do. Not. Recommend. I've been working on getting a post out today for more hours than I want to admit to. You'd think I would have quickly figured it out, but no.... I'm not techy smart and it took me forever to understand why all my defaults had suddenly went pyscho. {Head banging stuff.} Blogger, you picked a fine time to change things up and I sincerely hate you. The end.

So the paperwork has been piling up around here and I've been ignoring it best that I can. {For a long, long time actually!} Thinking... Hmm.. Surely I can put it off till a less stressful time? Yeah. Not happening any time soon. I finally bit the bullet and started getting things organized for a big push in the home office. Will still try to blog here and there, but cannot guarantee any regularity. Or perhaps I will post pictures and leave off the wordy ramblings? Whatever. Will figure it all out in due time. Thankfully I have lots and lots of hand work prepped and ready to go for when I need the down time. 

Am currently trying to get my hand work bag sorted out with applique projects organized in order of priority. lol  Order of importance? Or order of interest? You tell me which ones more important...


Tuesday, May 3, 2016

Not Much To Look At, But It Is Progress

This seems to be my bit of sewing these days. A little progress but not so pretty around the edges. Just barely hanging on to my quilting mojo while other obligations pile up around me. If I'm not careful I can do the whole 'woe is me' thing and get pretty despondent all because poor 'ol me doesn't have quite enough quilting time to suit.
The tumbler basket centerpiece
Like that would be the entire reason I exist. Huh. But okay, facts being facts, I barely had time to take this picture and I've also been trying to do a quicky visit with all the ones who linked up to May Quilty 365. You know, without every single comment being a carbon copy. It's a challenge because I'm speed reading the posts and mostly just taking in the pictures in one big gulp. Love seeing the progress for each unique variation though and I think every one of us deserves a big rah, rah!

I also saw a fun new QAL floating around quilty blogland and want to be digging through my fabric now, dumping out my applique parts and pieces totes and joining right in. Like this minute. Starting a new project is always the very best way to get over the I-don't-have-enough-time-to-quilt blues. Right? I knew my readers would totally understand how that particular phenomena works.
Some applique basket blocks to add to the tumbler basket centerpiece....
But believe it or not, in the last couple days I am now completely blocked out of my quilting room. My husband moved several totes of his stuff into the opening {ie: doorway} and I am unable to access my sewing machine or alas, even enter the room. It's supposedly a very temporary thing and I am too busy to forcibly remove them at the moment. Thankfully I have a couple applique and hand quilting projects available to me in the corner of my bedroom where I stash them for those quiet evening moments. 

Aha. Yes. Those quiet evening moments which are so very few and far between right now seeing as how my son is still in possession of the hideabed and usually wants to go to bed at the hideous hour of ten pm. I am fast approaching a mutiny. Or a riot. Possibly a breakdown. There are nights where I just yawn and go right to bed without a single protest. And others where I just stare in disbelief at how little stitching I have accomplished for the entire day. This is not me. I have obviously been taken over by aliens.*wink