An Applique Round Up

So here I am, piling on the applique again. It's because I need applique in my quilts like I need to breathe. It's not that it doesn't ever get tedious {because it does}, it's just that having simple applique in my quilts somehow makes me love and adore them all the more. 

Vintage Red blocks progress

So when it gets to the tedious stage, it's nice to jump right on over to another applique project. Sometimes I panic and think nothing will ever get done--how could it possibly? But I do have my ways. There's the carrot and stick approach--a classic. Then there are the times I tend to work in groups of four {blocks etc.}--no I will not go anywhere, even to bed, until I finish this last block. And I often set goals to complete all the bias vine, or all the flowers etc. Then I don't get to go to sleep for a week. {Just kidding.}

A border for the scrappy Lone Star quilt

I also make sure my applique bag is always packed and ready to go. That's mandatory for us applique-mad people. Sure, it's spilling over into a large basket I have my quilting paraphernalia sitting in there in the corner of my bedroom, but it's ready. Always. 'Cuz I take it in the car with me so that when my husband gets real talkative with whomever he wants to chat with, I have something to do with my hands. Sitting {or standing} idle just about kills me. Especially at Home Depot. Oh my goodness. Stay out of that store unless you're buying for yourself! And so usually I'd rather sit in the car and bond with my stitching.

Lil' Red Riding Hood still stalled, but ready to go...

And yes, sometimes I drag my applique bag out when we have company visiting in our home. There is something very relaxing about stitching away on something pretty while chatting about life. Such a comfy feeling. Too, there are people that you really don't want to be staring into their eyes for hours on end. Much nicer to be able to look away and thread your needle etc. Then it's not rude or viewed as obfuscation. Why do people think we're lying when we don't look directly into their eyes every single minute? Maybe we just tire of trying not to stare at the rebellious hairs in their eyebrows?

Summers End baskets getting prepped and ready to go

Occasionally an applique idea just appears practically out of nowhere. I have fabric stacked up and sitting on my counter for weeks and them pow! I'm right in the middle of cutting out and then sewing the base blocks for my new project. How I got from A to B is often a mystery.

Trying to remember how to miter the corners of
A Folksy Flower foundation

But more often, there is something I've been wrestling with for months. Agonizing over. Fabric stacked up looking yummy together, a vague idea trying to come together more clearly in my mind but I'm stuck, stuck, stuck. I've scribbled on graph paper and endlessly tried to fine tune. Sometimes it just comes down to being a chicken heart though. Much as it pains me to admit to anything of that nature to my dedicated readers.

Gotta start somewhere.....

Take this project. I have the books to remind me how to miter the corners. Really. Is that all that's holding me back this time? Not starting something I'm practically dreaming about at night all because I can't reconcile making the foundation of my applique quilt the easy way. Oh I do so  loathe sewing mitered corner. Ughh...  But we all know that sometimes you just gotta suck it up for the greater good. Which is what applique is. The Much. Greater. Good.*wink

A Little Bit of Fun in the Quilting Room

I'm always stalking the clearance bin at the {somewhat} local quilt store for backing fabrics. It's much easier to pay $4-6 a yard for the back of our quilts rather than $9-12, right? So when this pretty floral caught my eye, I went ahead and bought the rest of the bolt {not quite 3 yards}.

Muddy Creek

I'm not at all shy about mixing and matching my backing fabrics so I generally buy whatever odd measurements they have left--I'll figure it out later. Anyway, imagine my surprise when I was combing through my completed quilt top drawers and saw how perfectly this floral went with my Muddy Creek quilt! Bingo! Adding this border not only lightened and brightened the quilt but it also brought it up to approximately 60" x 70", a much better size than it was. Oh I am such a sucker for these sweet floral prints and of course there's still a little chunk left for use as backing...

A little bit of prep work...

I've also made a few tentative plans for going forward with my Scrappy Lone Star quilt. For some reason I have it in my mind that this quilt needs to be a rectangle instead of a square. This could be problematic as the lone star is very much the focal point and quite square-ish. Hmm....

Scrappy Lone Star

What to do, what to do. First off, I added the narrow red border, thicker on the vertical length and next I'm going to add a green/blue border to the top and bottom of the quilt. My basic plan is to wing it! Uh huh. That and add some nifty words and maybe a funky vine too. We'll see. I must be fairly committed as I went to the work on preparing all the bias vine already!

Looking at these two quilts, I am just amazed at how diverse my tastes are these days. Both of these completely melt my heart and yet they are very different. Isn't that a beautiful thing? Quilting opens up the doors to so much opportunity to play and go where our curiosity leads us. What about you. Do you feel that your quilting style is expanding with your experience or is it just changing to something else altogether than where you started? I know there are a few things that I've left behind {style-wise} in my journey, but mostly I feel like I'm carrying the very best parts with me, step by step, quilt by quilt.

My Charming Lone Star

I don't know what got into me the other day, but it must of been the heat. For some reason, I decided it was time to finish putting my lone star together and well, let's just say that I made it happen. Nothing was going to deter me from working on my summer project!

Putting the lone star together

So happy to see that it all laid fairly flat and the points where properly pointy--even in the middle! Wowsers. Did I do that? And then.... I noticed the problem. Do you see? Uh huh. Somewhere in the joining up all of the 9-pc. diamond shapes, I flip flopped the top and bottom sections on the left side. Yep, that would be me, doing what I do best.

I have points!

Oh my. And I thought I was being so very, very careful about taking them off the wall! Honestly, I just laughed and laughed. And not hysterically either. I just thought it was the perfect outcome for the conditions I was working under and it really tickled my funny bone! {Like I said, it must have been the heat, because otherwise I probably would have been having a good long melt down.} Oh wait. Maybe I was past the point of melt down? lol

While I considered the natural order of things, such as taking everything apart with my trusty seam ripper, and/or tearing out all my hair and trashing the entire project {neither of which I had energy left for}, I threw the two background fabrics up on the wall. Hmm.. If you know me, you'd understand that I'm an avid fan of good floral fabrics. The other fabric was on hand only because I thought there wasn't enough of the floral fabric and then, well, I cut my diamonds out smaller than I intended and blah, blah, blah.... I'll just say it flat out--it's been one of those quilts. {Please refer to 'Freddy & Gwen Collaborate Again' for pattern inspiration, not the problematic fallout I'm experiencing.}

Auditioning a couple backgrounds

Anyway, long story short. I left the potential backgrounds up on the wall, we got the a/c fixed with regular/normal temperatures slowly commencing inside the house and I decided to sleep on it. Surprisingly, in the morning I still felt {sheepishly}, ridiculously charmed by my big 'oops'. It makes absolutely no sense, but it just feels right for me, for the chaos of our life right at the moment.

Sewing the star into the background

So... I cut out my pieces for the background in the floral and here we be. If you have the book, you'll see that I left off the narrow strip of contrasting fabric at the outside edges of the star. I love how this star sort of disappears into the background without it, but not completely into it if you know what I mean.

Playing with some ideas...

And yes, I am charmed by the results. Delighted! The center circles are being auditioned for now. They seem to add bring more focus to the orangey/yellow at the tips of the stars and slightly mute the effect of the {discordant} arrangement of the bright red diamonds. For the record, the center of the star does not NEED to be covered up! I just think I want to. So I probably will--it's my quilt after all. And thanks to LeeAnn at nifty quilts for giving me the inspirational kick start to get going with this oh, so intriguing project that it's turning out to be! Good blogging friends are simply invaluable.*wink

p.s. A Bethlehem Star quilt is quite possibly a hundred years off if the results of this quilt are anything to go by.....

My Practice Lone Star

Well, it's not out of my scrap bins, but it looks pretty scrappy to me! I've been staring at this pile of fabric for pretty much forever. Pattern ideas have come and gone and I always flinch and then start another project altogether. It's just a little bit too bright and playful for me to feel totally comfortable diving in!

Just playing....

But you know what they say about stepping out of your comfort zone! So I took it a step further and cut pieces for a smallish lone star quilt. My goal {someday very, very far into the future} is to make a Bethlehem Star quilt and wowsers, can I definitely see that there are miles to go before I launch into one of those!

My final setting

I started out mixing all the colors up into a very scrappy looking star. Yuck. Ick. I couldn't handle it, scrappy control freak that I am. Who knew? So I rearranged them with the yellow in the centers, then red and finally with the lighter blue/greens dead center, taking out the very darkest ones. The red didn't even last long enough for all the pieces to get back on the design wall--too overpowering. And I know, I know, the yellow center is very striking! I totally get that. But it doesn't suit me. And it seemed like there was a bit too much tension in the prints for me to be comfortable sticking with that arrangement. I am who I am....

It's not working!!

My very first efforts at sewing the diamonds together were absolutely NOT encouraging. I obviously have a lot to learn here! With a little determination I eventually got the points to match up reasonably close, at least to the point where I'm not going to be humiliated and shunned. I'm planning on taking this project pretty slow. Maybe sew one larger diamond together at a single setting. You know, if that setting doesn't take all day.....

Getting the points to match up

It's a start. And it's interesting. And still not my favorite colors to work with! I love the fabrics individually and buy this sort of thing when it's on the FQ sale table. But then never know what to do with it 'cuz my mind doesn't seem to work 'modern'. Oh well. My daughters are in LOVE with it and it could turn into a cute baby quilt too. Linking up with Scraptastic Tuesday!