Very Belated Look at Finished Quilts From 2022

It's way late to do a end of the year wrap up post so if this isn't your thing, please feel free to move along. It's mostly for my own records anyway, since quilts tend to get lost in the shuffle if I don't keep track. Last year ended with a respectable 15 quilts totally finished up. Not my best number, but definitely nothing to sneeze at. If I wouldn't have gotten so sick, there would possibly have been another to add to the list. Apparently it wasn't meant to be!

2022 Finishes (1)

As per usual, I find myself reaching for a mix of applique quilts to put in the hoop and then, maybe a totally machine pieced quilt just to change things up. As the years go by, there seems to be less and less quilts without some form of applique involved in the making. Hmm... I wonder what that says about me?

2022 Finishes (2)

I always keep a master list of completed quilt tops which is supposed to have the projects listed in order of completion. This helps ensure that I don't end up neglecting a quilt top well beyond the point of being impossible to drum up interest in quilting on it. This list is, of course, cheerfully ignored at whim. Mostly tops are pulled out of the drawers depending on whatever color and mood {or vibe} that I'm currently searching for. Or if a quilt is destined to be gifted. Sometimes that moves a quilt top up to the top of the list in a hurry!

2022 Finishes (3)

Quite to my surprise, the quilt top list shrunk last year--down to 20 unfinished quilt tops! And two of those tops were given to me by my sister a couple years ago, so really. They don't even hardly count.

So..., the 2022 Finished Quilt details:

• 7 Lap Quilts
• 7 Bed Quilts
• 1 Comfort Quilt
• 9 Quilts completely hand quilted
• 5 Quilts mixed hand quilting and machine quilting
• 1 Quilt completely machine quilted
• 8 Quilts gifted, gently used or newly finished

Towards the end of the year I had quite a few ideas and goals for the winter quilting efforts and going into this year. All of that has been turned upside down and now I really don't know if I'm coming or going. I had to cancel the winter quilting meetings at our church after losing the entire month of January. Thankfully, everyone seemed very understanding. Am finally starting to feel somewhat normal again, but am still not at 100%. Have only left the house five times in fact since this all started, but I'm getting there! Which, frankly, is a huge relief. I'm asking everyone to please give comment amnesty for past posts. Have so appreciated the kind comments, but did not have the energy most days to try and 'catch up'. 

Cheddar fabric

I also wanted to give a shout-out to Lizzy at Gone to the Beach blog. She has a very charming blog that I have followed for years and years. At some point this winter, she had offered to send me some pieces of cheddar colored fabric to help out with a specific project where the stash totes were seemingly lacking. By the time we had made proper connection, I tried to tell her that I was actually currently too sick to be working on any quilt project. She insisted, I couldn't resist and these fabrics have been such a joy to me just to look at, even if only wistfully in passing. Really, really sweet of her to share fabric so generously! 

Still haven't done anything meaningful with that project yet, but you know me. It's only a matter of proper time and focus. If I have any big plans for 2023, it's to take time, try and be mindful and not be in a big rush to check things off a list. Thanks to all who keep checking in with the blog. I'm not ditching it, I promise! {Though the posting might be slow for a bit.} I am reading and trying to catch up on quilting blogs now and finding myself missing some older blogs that have totally drifted away. There are a lot of things still needing my attention before I can dive into quilting at full throttle and well, guilt free? At least I am slowly starting to get in a bit of hand work most evenings. Have missed it so very much.... 

A Whole Lotta Yellow

 It's been a struggle to make time for this post. The days have finally started getting cooler around here and it feels like I've just sorta collapsed into an end-of-summer fugue state. Don't wanna do much of anything!

Looking very cozy

We had dinner with some friends the other night and during conversation, I complimented Jessica on her beautiful, intensely detailed tapestry type print she had hanging on the wall. She is a wonderful, successful artist with many followers on social media. Super talented! Anyway, long story short, she said that the tapestry was one of her favorites, but she hadn't sold very many. Most people seemed to prefer another version in the series. Then the conversation riffed from there into how true it is that so many of the things that we personally make and LOVE end up not being someone else's favorites. How ironic in fact, that a lot of times the vast majority seem to prefer something we're not even feeling oodles of love for! I mean, we don't hate it. It's just not in our 'top 10' so to speak.

Love Apples is a true-blue completion!

We ended that conversation agreeing that it's a very good thing to mostly make for ourselves. That way we can continually shore up that feeling of satisfaction and personal validation at the close of a project. Be inspired enough to keep on making the good things that resonate with our inner spirit. Don't you just love conversations like that with people who get you? Who speak much the same language even though our formats might be different?

The Love Apple Blocks

And that's how I realized another thing besides summer fatigue was holding me back from writing this post. This latest quilt really isn't destined to be a favorite with very many people. It's sort of an odd color palette and the structure/layout is a little too formal for the quirky blocks. Maybe. I rather enjoy the sense of not knowing for sure! 

This one started on a whim, me hoping to use up some peachy pink border discards and wanting to dive into a long-marinating stack of fabric. It's also got a whole lotta yellow in it. Which might just turn certain people off. Technically, probably not more than the amount of pink or gray used in the quilt? It's just that yellow has a way of shining very bright and bold in whatever spot it's used in.

Loving this texture

Oh well! You know me. I've been bird dogging the color yellow ever since I ran out of interest in pursuing the oldie moldy greens {and after that, the color orange which somehow didn't inspire much of anything}. It's a surprisingly hard color to play with. So bright and sunny, you'd think it would be easy breezy, but it can quickly look fake or hard in quilts. I don't usually love combining it with black or gray. Hmmm... Still pondering. This is probably my best effort yet, though I do intend to keep working with the color from many as many different angles as I can imagine. 

In an interesting twist, the free-style Baptist fan stitching looks especially great here. Don't you agree that the yellow and white checks here just soak up the comfy vibe from the repeat stitched arcs?  Will have to remember this for future quilting endeavors. Don't bother getting too fussy with the stitching when it comes to yellow...

The free-hand Baptist fan look

So...., you're probably not surprised to hear that this stash tote has been extremely full for a long time now. I buy the fabric {or have it donated to me} and then only tend to use little bits and pieces. It's a wonderful, warm and cheery spark in quilts, but alas, a little bit usually goes a very long ways. 

The problem is, there's a lot and I'm tired of the lid not wanting to close properly. I've been seriously trying to work toward winnowing down the sheer amount without throwing anything away. Again and again, I make a quilt and then toss a thick stack of yellow fabric right back into the totes.*sigh  I've been putting it on the backs of quilts and that helps a bit. Truly. Must do something about this fabric that is starting to get so stale-dated that it's starting to get on my nerves!

The first go-round, before borders

I don't know if you can tell from the pictures, but the shades in this quilt top are more along the lines of 'cheddar'. Deeper, richer, orangish shades of yellow. Which I love! Might be my most favorite version of yellow, this cheddar thing. At this point {with the layout in above picture}, I could have probably said 'Ta-da! It's a finish' and gladly moved on. This quilt though.... it just kept nagging at me for a border. For more attention. Something simple, right? You're not really just gonna slap some blocks together and waltz away?

It's too big for a proper picture!

Right....  See how well I'll sleep after that happens! As most of you know, I have a penchant for half square triangles, especially in quilts. Or borders in quilts. Thinking along the lines of KISS, I cut up pretty much all that was left of the blue fabrics from the original stack, added a cut-up plaid shirt and rummaged around for complimentary yellows and just pretty much went with the flow. Some of these were cheddar shades and others, more of a yellow gold or gold brown. Whatever it takes as long as it blended well.

Had to change out the cornerstones in the center

Then, after I had the border idea starting to take shape, I remembered to double check my measurements. Yeah. About that. That's when I had to make a judgment call on whether or not to severely chop into the last hst unit on each vertical border? Or perhaps add another small strip of 'coping' border before sewing on the hst border.

Lillabelle is a completed quilt top!

I fell down on the side of adding a coping border, choosing a very late 90's strippy floral print. Easy enough to fussy cut it to meet the correct measurements and hopefully see it 'disappear' into the overall scheme of things. I should mention here that it was 'close' to correct measurements. Since I wasn't intending to trim down all those hst's, ha! I knew there could be a certain amount of 'fudging' that probably needed to happen anyway. Just didn't want to lose three-fourths of a  5 1/2" hst on this particular quilt! And don't ask me why it's okay on some quilts and not others 'cuz I really don't know....

With the coping borders added to top and bottom of the quilt, I went ahead and sewed on the hst borders to the vertical sides of the quilt too. Measurements for the top and bottom hst repeats looked good, so no additional coping borders needed. Woohoo! Moving on!

While I was auditioning the hst borders for the top and bottom {something I often do for the sake of good color transition from light blue hsts to darker hsts etc.}, I reluctantly decided that the cream cornerstone squares in the very center of the quilt needed to go. I'm not sure if it made a huge difference to the look of the quilt, but having those blue squares inserted instead of the cream just makes me much, much happier. It's the little things. Hey! It only took an hour or so to seamrip out and change over. 'Cuz of course I ended up sewing part of the quilt right into the new seams.*groan.... 

A small, almost hidden coping strip

Hst borders successfully figured out, I was left with one last question. Was it done now? Well no, the quilt wanted more yellow. Can you believe that? Personally, I thought we were parked a little too close to the corner of 'overdone' and 'tacky' and you know how that goes. Nobody will ever want the quilt except for grandma with the bad eyesight. 

That stash tote though!! Might as well take advantage of this opportunity. And so it happened. A scrappy pieced 3 1/2" addition of more yellow to the outside border of the quilt, making it 85 1/2" x 97 1/2". I do think that it served to emphasize the old fashioned vibe of the entire quilt somehow. Could it have actually toned things down? I know, I know. That doesn't even make sense. How could adding MORE of the overblown, in-your-face yellow simultaneously give off a softer, more delicate energy? Go figure. There are some things that I will never understand and that's perfectly okay. I'm still learning and that's the most fun of all!

Enjoying this look!

More questions for the quilt history:

6. When do you normally quilt? Time of day, year?

Such an interesting question. I am not a morning person on any day of the year, so the quilting process that takes place in the quilt room is more likely to be late afternoons {depending on my schedule}. Or, if that doesn't work out, my best, most efficient quilting time is immediately after dinner. Hand quilting takes place at about 9:00 - 11:30 pm while I'm curled up in the corner of the couch, winding down from the day. Perhaps, if I'm lucky, for several hours in late afternoon and evenings on most Sundays. I obviously quilt all year long, but like most quilters, more intensely during the fall and winter months. 

7. Do you belong to a quilters' guild or club? If so, for how long? What groups?

Nope, never belonged to a quilters' guild, for many, varied reasons. Either I was comfortable with the quilting group I had, or I intimidated by the {thought of a} guild, or it met during a bad time for our schedule, or they didn't have a style that I enjoyed, or whatever. I'm not actively opposed to the idea. The groups that I belonged to were always groups from our church--just us gals getting together with a shared interest during some of the winter months. I'm a bit of an introvert in my own way and this was probably more of a comfort thing than anything else.

Currently {and since prior to 2017}, I am part of an online group I love called AHIQ:Adhoc Improvisational Utility Quilting. It involves loosely structured, group challenge projects headed by Ann from Texas and California and Kaja from the United Kingdom. We've slowed down a lot since inception, but I still find it immensely valuable to my creativity as a whole.

8. Do you know others who quilt in your community or parish?

Years ago I would chat with a lady quilter or two in our community. Usually when we bumped into each other at a quilt show or at the fair. Most of the ones that I knew were about 20+ years older than me with a very different style. 

There has been several quilter friends in our church throughout the years, but the numbers have thinned considerably in the last decade or so. I have found myself seriously dialing down my outwardly expressed enthusiasm for the craft in an effort to not come off as strangely obsessed and/or fixated. Uggh. So exhausting talking about quilting with people who don't care the slightest about the creative journey of it all! {Which makes me sound very snotty.} I have had a  tiny bit of interest in doing the quilt meetings again this winter so that might happen again. Am trying to wrap my brain around a way to make it interesting for all involved, including me, as it does take quite a lot of my time!

Flower Power is a Completed Quilt Top!

One of the things that I was determined to accomplish in the past week, was to get to completed quilt top stage with 'Flower Power'. There was an idea or two from the initial scribblings, but in the end, as usual, the quilt made all the decisions.

Improv. strip sets

First up, there needed to be some space between at least some of the applique blocks. It was easy to decide on some easy, breezy improv. strip rows. As you can see, I made short little stacks of sewn together, free cut strips. Not too off kilter, but just enough to give a bit of character.

The reason you cut strips longer than needed

The wonkiness can usually be increased or decreased depending on how the strip set is lined up for cutting. For these rows, I decided to let it be a subtle thing. In determining the colors for those rows, I have to say, it was mostly about percentages. Less than 10% of the darker blue and darker pink/reds and lots and lots of the very light pinks and blue/white shirting stripe. I wanted a very light, airy feel to that part of the quilt in order to help make the moody blues look richer, and hopefully, *fingers crossed!, make the tulips pop even more. Mission accomplished!

Not quite done it says.....

The entire color palette was based off of the floral fabric pictured below. Here I was auditioning the fabrics for a possible outer border. Such a bad idea. Uggh! The quilt practically screamed in agony. It was so sad. I seriously longed for a scrappy sawtooth border before adding the floral 'cuz it just seemed meant to be, but yeah. Sometimes you just have to move on.

This is not a good look

There was not going to be any floral anywhere and the sawtooth border idea flamed out quickly too. Name a single color that might possibly work well in the pieced border position without seriously challenging the tulips preeminence? Uh huh. I couldn't do it either.

Keeping the borders intersting

So there you have it. Super simple border addition or nothing at all. You know me, the gotta-love-a-good-border-gal. I had to do something! In the final ruminations, I impulsively started cutting up all the leftover blue fabric pieces. Anything that was 4 1/2" wide or better was cut and eventually joined into long pieces for the outer border. 

Feels good to use up the scraps

I like the subtle detail in piecing of the blue solids verses the one dark striped shirting. Just makes it a little bit more interesting than if it was cut and sewn on out of a single yardage. And I basically used up all of the leftover shirting too! Score!

Love the look of the improv. strips

In fact, there was a total of three upcycled shirting fabrics used in this quilt, which felt kind of awesome. The darkest stripe had to be soaked for close to three days prior to cutting anything out as it bled and bled and bled. Gotta watch out for that with the darker hues!

Looking cozy

In the end, this quilt ended up looking similar, but different, to the original inspiration. My border {almost not a border} makes the tulips float a little. It gives them space to breathe and feel comfy. I love how Flower Power definitely also looks like a sibling to LeAnn's lovely quilt. So sweet! We each took elements of the original to make up our own version, while striving to keep a lot of the first quilts joy and charm intact. Obviously, the strings in my quilt are in the sashing rows rather than the tulips, but the scrappy vibe still remains true. And no, we didn't come up with this idea together. We just both happen to have a great love for antique/vintage quilts and often use these as a jump start for our own projects.

Flower Power quilt top is finished!
53 1/2" x 68 1/2"

Another item checked off the list is the Lillabelle applique blocks. Only nine blocks total, so it didn't really take an enormous amount of time. Very happy to have them moved on to the next phase though, 'cuz I really am soaking up the yummy color palette on this one!

All ready for the next step!

Next up for a quilt top finish is the Roman Stripe quilt after the spontaneous applique renovations. I have been feeling so very blah about this top. No ambition whatsoever to get it in the hoop and bring it to a true blue finish. Now that this applique has jumped on, all of a sudden I'm thinking it might could be next in line?

Looking so much happier!

What? The applique is over the top, silly and really kind of awkwardly primitive looking. Still, it fills my heart with gladness and makes me smile just looking at it. Will others feel the same? Who knows. The important thing is, I feel lots better about getting it to a finish someday and potentially gifting it. Yay! 'Chrysalis' is starting to come into it's own!

Chrysalis applique detail

The current quilt in the hoop is actually Love Apples. I know. It's only been in the drawers for a year or so! I just wanted needed something virtually decision-free in regards to the hand quilting. This definitely does the trick. Free-style Baptist fans are such a good over-all texture to any quilt that won't necessarily soak up detailed, fussy looking quilting stitches. 

Latest quilt in the hoop

This is one of those quilts started in an attempt to use up something abandoned by another quilt. In this case, it was the peachy pink scrappy rows that didn't have a home any longer. Many of you would have probably dumped them entirely, but I just didn't feel right about that. Too many good fabrics involved! Before the hoop, the overall effect is a fairly gawky looking quilt, but wow! Look at how quickly things change with the Baptist Fans emerging. Now, all of a sudden, it's looking like it could be one of your best friends snuggled up for a good coze!

Love Apples getting sandwiched and pinned

Okay, on to those Individual Quilting History questions I'm trying to answer with every post this summer.

2. At what age did you begin to learn to sew? Do you remember at what age you began to piece? When did you learn to quilt? How old were you when you made your first quilt? Why did you learn at this particular time? Were there any special difficulties?

I learned to sew from my mother somewhere around the age of 10, perhaps younger. For sure, I learned to sew on buttons etc. before she ever introduced me to the sewing machine work. By the time I was a teenager, I could competently sew my own dresses etc. It was mostly due to her endless patience in answering my questions and always encouraging me to try every more complicated patterns! As explained in the previous question, I first started quilting when I was in my early 20's. The absolute first quilt was a baby coverlet and the very first, full sized real quilt, a rail fence style quilt. Then I promptly returned to making very simple baby coverlets.

I didn't truly learn to 'piece' until later on. In the late 90's, when I was 28 years old, a few ladies that I spent time with asked for pieced blocks for a wedding quilt. That effort mostly baffled and frustrated me, as I was still using scissors to cut things out. It did lead to making a couple small children sized quilts, mostly with big squares of denim, corduroy and/or flannel!  Then, when I was 29, there was a group of ladies in our church who started gathering to swap quilt blocks and/or make 'challenge' blocks in the winter months. 

Home Sweet Home

My mother promptly bought me a rotary cutter and rotary mat for Christmas. Woohoo!! Quilt piecing horizons were flung wide open! Except that I was a fraidy cat and kept all piecing efforts very basic for the longest time. So dumb. Squares and rectangles for me, thank you very much! 

The quilt in the picture above, was probably the fourth full sized quilt I had ever finished. This was 2001 when I was 31 years old. It was the first time for making the effort to piece blocks to join in with any swap or challenge blocks that I had won. And.... this was my first real attempt at making blocks that included triangle shapes. Well, I had to use a triangle shape to make my Home Sweet Home challenge block didn't I? And then, notice the house blocks in the borders? Yep! I was inspired to add little town houses and cottages along the edges of the quilt. Uh huh. The border stuff happened early on too. 

This is also when I started seriously dabbling in my love for applique. Playing with different techniques. Along with the little stars and heart block, every single house 'challenge' block has a little applique addition {or two} done by yours truly. Some people had already added a bit of applique, but I didn't let that stop me from adding more where I thought needed! I had to do it on the down-low too, 'cuz some of those gals would have been offended. My thinking was, 'The blocks are mine now. I can do with them what I want!'

I'm super glad that this quilt is still hanging around as it ended up being a showcase for everything that was being learned up to this point. Making and swapping blocks with others definitely pushed me to learn good coping strategies in regards to ending up with equal sized blocks. Also, it quickly pushed me into learning how to make individual block colors play nice with all the other tricky colors in a group setting. Getting those blocks wrangled into an interesting looking quilt pushed and shoved me to get the whole finished-quilt thing properly figured out.*whew!  No more sewing three sides of a quilt and turning it inside out and putting ties in to hold things down! How to make things lay flat and square. What batting to use. How to make and sew on binding! Things like that. Good times!

It's That Time of Year! Quilty Folk Applique Template Giveaway!

I cannot believe we are this close to Christmas again! Where did the year go? Fed-Ex finally delivered our tree today, so maybe we can get into the proper holiday spirits after the tree lights start twinkling. Last year I gifted an applique template during this time of year and it seemed to be well received. Well over a hundred 'Yes, please! I want that!' comments plus emails, which really, is the best sort of compliment. Cozy quilts seem to be the thing we most want to work on during the holidays.

The older {Happy Flowers} Love Apple blocks

So this year, much in the same vein, I am doing another Very Merry Christmas giveaway to all my loyal readers! *This offer is good through December 25th!* Most everyone who responded the other day wanted the older Happy Flowers template, but I just couldn't resist offering the newer, funkier looking flower too. They are just so sweet! Everyone should have at at least one Love Apple quilt hanging around, right?

The newer 2021 Love Apple Blocks

If you are interested in obtaining the gift of these simple, folksy applique templates, all you have to do is leave a request in the comments or drop me an email. It's that easy! Both templates will be included in the PDF that will be attached in the return email. Depending on how many requests that I receive, it may take me until January 1st to get completely caught up. Please be patient! If you haven't received anything by that date, it will be because I can't find your return email. Then you can get grumpy {hopefully reach out again}, we can talk more, and then, probably, the PDF will finally be zinging your way.

A few things to consider:

• Please leave your email address in the comment or you might very well get lost in the Blogger quagmire of privacy issues. Can leave it in this form: 'audkateaster at gmail dot com'  if you are nervous about throwing it out into the universe {use your email address not mine of course} . Or you can just email me directly if that works better. 
• If you don't request the template, I won't be sending it to you. I'll just assume you stopped by to say 'Hi'!
• This is a limited time offer, good only through Christmas Day, 2021. Last year I randomly got requests throughout the entire year! Which occasionally kind of drives me nuts, just saying. After December 25th, 2021 you will only get this giveaway PDF if you physically mail me a fat quarter or two through the postal service: Audrey Easter, PO Box 2251, Pateros, WA 98846. That tells me you're seriously in the mood to make this and not just trying to scoop up a freebie. It doesn't even have to be brand new fabric, just make sure it's suitable for quilting! And I'm dead serious about this unless maybe you live overseas and the shipping would be astronomical. Then we'll talk. Call me a meanie, but a giveaway needs to have an end date! Be sure your email is included with the fabric so I can get the PDF sent to the right person. 
• Just to be clear, this giveaway is for applique templates ONLY, not quilt patterns. You'll probably want to trace the designs onto template plastic or freezer paper before you get started. 
• When cutting the background fabric, 9" x 9" squares of fabric work fine for both motifs, even though one is on point and the other straight up and down. Feel free to make your background whatever size looks best to you though!
• Both templates include a skinny rectangle shape that can be traced and used for the flower stem. I prefer to make long {bias or not} vines and cut into proper lengths. In the case of the Happy Flower block, you'll want to start with 2" strips and sew the really scant seam and then iron the seam to the back. For the newer Love Apple block, start with 1 1/2" strips and proceed like the previous block. So much easier hand stitching straight edges when all the raw edge is clear out of the way!
• For all you stressy peoples out there, I need to tell you that it's highly unlikely these motifs will line up exactly even steven. Ha! Remember that the preferred look around here at Quilty Folk is cozy and hand touched, not precise and rigidly straight!
• Please do not copy, redistribute or try to sell these templates. It might make me shut down my blog and go cry in a corner.

Okay, that's it. Any questions? Shoot me an email! Happy Holidays to all!

Moving Love Apples To the Finished Quilt Top Drawers

So Love Apples is a finished quilt top now! It was a bit difficult to photograph because the peachy pinks keep reflecting back a dingy vibe that isn't nearly as apparent in person. Overall, I'm quite relieved and happy to see this one come about as well as it did. This is a block that I always thought should have another go-round after I finished with my first effort back in 2015. Just took awhile to get back to the idea!

Love Apples is a finished quilt top!

This time around I made the love apples a little fatter with squat little stems. Such a fun, antique-look block to stitch on, you really should try your own variation some day! If you plan of doing any hand quilting at the end of the project, I recommend cutting out the excess fabric on the back of each layer. Will makes stitching much, much easier later on.

It wasn't very fun pinning and sewing all the long rows together, but it definitely wasn't hard to do. I love that this quilt was started from the remnants of a previous border attempt. One that failed spectacularly, but also one that tugged on my heartstrings and begged for yet another chance.

A little bit retro looking perhaps?

The fabrics all came together from a marinating stack that somehow had just never clicked into place. Keeping to the original challenge of using up the improv. peachy pink strips proved to be a struggle at times. Often, I pondered simply kicking those pieces out and doing something completely different, but why? They were the point of the entire exercise! 

Happy vibes...

There are several stacks of fabric sitting about in my quilt room with various amounts of old yellow fabrics included. I have lots and lots of yellow and it's not something that I tend to use oodles of, though apparently I tend to buy and/or acquire? So... this was also a great project to see some of them find a good home. I like that.

Always fun to work with a new
color palette!

My energy has felt very low ebb in the last couple weeks so it's been easy to wander in and out of the quilt room and ignore all the lists. I pick up a project here, set one down and just generally gain very little ground on anything. So imagine my surprise when I found myself starting a brand new project?

Starting a brand new project!

Yah. Not sure how that happens, but I'm not gonna hide it away like a guilty secret. Around Christmas one of my daughters approached me about making a quilt with one of her old Summer dresses. It's a lovely, lovely floral fabric that really could/should shine in a quilt, but honestly, I'm feeling a bit inadequate for the task these days.

The first thing I did was gather a group of fabrics together and then I just sort of eyeballed them once in awhile when I passed through the quilt room. Hmm... Eventually I did a quick pass through Pinterest and subconsciously gathered ideas for quilts with large pieces of intact fabric. Oh, did I mention that we'd like to keep the floral pieces as large and uncut as possible? A couple rough sketches and finally one day I found myself trying to get started on the centerpiece. I ended up hand stitching the blue striped fabric over the top of the other fabrics, just so the floral didn't get cut into any more than necessary. There's still one more large piece of that floral left and several smaller strips. We'll see where the quilt goes from here, but I'm leaning hard towards a border of improv. strippy coins. Can't hardly go wrong with that, right? Thankfully I have 100% design control other than the 'keep the florals large please!'

Checking A Couple Things Off the List

The first thing that I wanted to check off the list of in-the-progress projects this year was the Christmas Bearpaw. I had cut it out in December of 2019 but didn't actually sew on it until December 2020.

Christmas Bearpaw quilt top

It was a project where using up more of the tired old green fabrics was priority. Also, I had decided it was past time to focus on gathering more Christmas-look quilts together. Why not have a whole stack to enjoy?

Completed quilt top

The quilt blocks went together very well. Tedious work, but not especially difficult or time consuming. Just worked on them here and there whenever the mood struck during the season. Finally it was time to sew the blocks together into rows. Initially the plan was to place all the blocks side by side sans sashing.

Auditioning the applique in the center

But that didn't work out so well because my seams were not totally precise and accurate.*meh  Oh well! It was no problem to dig around and find a fabric to use for sashing and thus create a little bit of breathing room to help disguise the humble stitching. Totally made my day when that sashing fabric ended up being cut-offs from previous quilt backings! Then of course I decided the quilt needed just a teeny tiny bit of applique.

My favorite block on the right bottom corner

As you can see in a prior picture, I auditioned it first and then pondered what the overall effect would be. Was it necessary? No. Did I like it? Mostly. Some would say the applique busied it up too much. How did I intend to use the quilt? Draped over a couch or directly in my lap during the holidays. Decision? Do it!

After the applique is stitched down

And that was that. Now I have another holiday quilt to hand quilt next year during the holidays if/when I get in the proper mood.

Yep! I'm keeping it like this!

I've also finally finished stitching all the applique parts and pieces down to the centerpiece of 'Coronacrazy'. Love, love, love the look now that all the seams are tucked under and everything is presenting in the proportion that it will remain.

Coronacrazy

This quilt is such an odd-ball creation, it still makes my head spin. Lots of ideas for moving forward but you have to know, there's probably going to have to be more applique included, probably on an outside border. I want to tell the quilt that there's plenty of applique already, but it's just not listening to me. Will be letting it simmer for awhile longer now while I contemplate and consider....

Loving all the details

Love Apples is the other project that has received some love here at the first of the year. It's just something that has been on the verge of coming together and suddenly I'm terribly impatient to put it into the finished quilt top drawers.

Nice to see progress on this one...

All the rows have been sewn together and work is being done here and there to move it along. 

These blocks should totally make the quilt!

There's always something in the air during the January month that motivates me to check things off the list and then.... start new. Of course. And why wouldn't we?

Gonna Bore You With Too Many Pictures of a Baby Quilt

Time just keeps slipping away! It took me forever to get down to business with the baby quilt. Mostly because I just couldn't decide on a design/pattern/idea. Baby quilts can occasionally be so easy to throw together, we often wonder why we don't make more? Other times, it's like pulling teeth to simply bring anything into proper focus just to get started!

The baby Bear Paw quilt

I finally settled on a very easy-peasy block called the 'Bear Paw'. Sewn up in 6" blocks, it allows for a nice little chunk of fabric to shine through all the busyness of mixed fabric prints! So many times, {more and more as the years roll on}, I'm clear over in left field trying to use up the oldie moldy fabrics and I don't even think about what the new mama might like!

With this quilt, I was hoping to convey little boy vibes and also, a slightly urban, modern touch. If there would have been any large print text fabric, you can bet that I would have found a way to work that into the quilt too! But no, it wasn't to be. The great thing about this quilt was that I actually found a way to challenge myself with using up some older, slightly off-color blues, while somehow still avoiding the 'tired fabrics' demeanor that some quilts seem take on so easily! Yay! Definitely something to smile about!

Trimming

Life seems especially stressful lately, and as you all know, I've almost always got something that is worrying the corners of my mind. Chain piecing the little hsts for a low-pressure baby quilt was strangely soothing, though as usual, they didn't quite turn out exactly square! Oh well. This method is fast and easy, but it's never been super good to me as far as precision goes. After each block was sewn I kind of, sort of squared the completed blocks to an even size and called it good. 

Looking at it on the wall after lots of 
auditioning efforts!

Most of the time I don't end up making extra blocks on purpose, but this time I ended up cutting out several more of the lightest blue blocks and also, on impulse, cutting out two extra blocks with the red for background instead of having all the red in the 'paw' position {as per my initial quilt guidelines!}. That's because there was only a very little bit of that particular red available to use and it seemed so perfect for this quilt. Why leave it out? Plus... the brightest blue batik used in that same block was the very last of a small chunk of fabric from, ahem! twenty years ago! Crazy, huh? At first I thought it much too bright for the quilt, but in retrospect, can't imagine the quilt without it.

Inspiration for the baby quilt

Once again, this is a quilt inspired from, {but not exactly sewn up according to}, a quilt pattern saved in one of my Inspiration Binders. This pattern is from the October 2001 American Patchwork and Quilting magazine. Some patterns are just classics, aren't they? After whiffle waffling about and not coming up with anything better, I just decided to quit fighting and see what could happen, trying to make bear paws in these particular colors. There are just some things that my mind refuses to 'see' and no matter how I tried, could not imagine the outcome of these fabrics and colors in any design rendition whatsoever. Besides, what was there to lose?

The full quilt

Though I didn't originally intend to put the outside border on the quilt, one of my daughters basically told me that it did, in fact need one. After finding the dark blue solid fabric and seeing how it emphasized the bright, sparky bear paws, I had to concede. The quilt was probably too small at 36" x 42" before the border addition anyway!

A fun looking binding

One of the best things about making a baby quilt is the ability to repeat the same fabric used in different color ways and not even cringe. Normally, I'd never, ever in a million years, use the red with blue polka dots and the blue with red polka dots in the very same quilt! And then, look! I even used one of those fabrics again for the binding! In most of my quilting efforts, I'd think that was much too cheesy and lame looking and go earnestly hunting for something similar but very, very different! This time I sort of rolled my eyes and thought it mostly sweet...

Loving the red background in the block

Overall, it's just a simple little baby quilt. I know that! But the reality is, that I'm really, tremendously happy with it. It works. Even the scrounged-from-the-stash, 'birds at the coast' backing fabric doesn't make me lose a beat. I started with a small stack of fabric that intrigued me and then did my best to make them look interesting all together. Not a single fabric was bought brand new and in fact, I used up a couple very old {to me} fabrics and even part of an older, upcycled mens shirt {the yellow/black check}. That feels very good. Even the batting was pieced from off-cuts of other larger quilts!

All the Love Apple blocks done

I quilted between the blocks with my go-to, stitch-in-the-ditch thing and then moved on to, very reluctantly! to a bit of hand quilting. I had hoped to have it sandwiched and pinned, plus quilted all in the same day, but no... My conscious {and the very persnickety quilt} just would NOT let me be. Apparently, I must get out the perle cotton and make a stab at giving it a bit more character. Of course, it looks so much better now with the little bit of texture, but really? Will baby even care? lol

And yes, it's slow going, but I'm also making a little tiny bit of headway on some of my endless applique projects here of late. As of earlier in the week, all the Love Apple blocks are now completed and ready for input into a larger quilt plan. Love them so much! Crossing my fingers that I can do justice to them. 

Currently in the hand work bag, is the much neglected impulse project that was started back in August of this year. After that, it will probably be the Melon Patch blocks which have been languishing since about March? They are starting to get quite angry at me so best to think about giving them some attention!