Clearing the Old Adhoc. Improv. Projects Out of the Way

*Don't forget! There's still time to enter the Strip Quilt Secrets giveaway over at my last post!*  I really don't mind having a whole list of open-ended projects to work on. It keeps things interesting as I can feel free to work on whatever phase of a project that currently interests me, be it hand work, chain piecing, layout dilemmas, or perhaps the addition of a new border. It honestly works quite a bit better for my quilting mojo when I'm not dedicated to working on a single project until its finish.

Playing With Scale #2 a finished quilt top!

That being said, I often end up working on several different quilt 'series', throughout the length of a year or two. It's not like it's usually even on purpose, but after finishing up one quilt {or perhaps the new idea hits smack in the middle}, I'm eager to see how a certain element will look if I tweak it just a little or try a slightly different spin on things. This particular quilt came along as a companion idea to our Adhoc. Improv. playing with scale challenge. I ended up with a quilt top that was quite satisfying in terms of completing the challenge, but I just had this niggling feeling that the results had room for growth.

Improv. is something that I definitely feel more comfortable working though after this past several years of dipping my toes in the water, then trying to float, later on starting to learn how to tread water. But... {you knew there was going to be a 'but'}, I still have a long ways to go before it feels like second nature. It still stresses me just a little, and so I often drag my heels and easily allow myself to procrastinate on the follow through. And I wonder, so much of the improv. work I see online and from viewing major quilt show pictures feels a little bit cold. Maybe even a teensy bit harsh at times.

It took a couple hours worth of tinkering before
 the layout finally started coming together...

Please tell me I'm not wasting my time pursuing something that will only result in making my quilts look more 'modern or contemporary'! Don't misunderstand, some of that work is very compelling and I admire all the creativity involved in the making. A lot of it is just not my thing.  It doesn't resonate on a deep level. There's something about say, the QuiltCon style of quilts that feel especially chilly and there's sort of a implacability about them. I can't even explain. To put it bluntly, I usually like the QuiltCon rejections much better than the QuiltCon winners! Hmmm... That's an interesting thought. Oh well. I would sincerely love to go to a show someday and see if my reaction would be different in person, because it's obvious that a ton of people get very excited about these quilts! Maybe you have to be there to feel it. It's so painful that the Australian and French {Quiltmania} style of quilting are so underrepresented at shows here in the states. I have a feeling those sorts of quilts would be tremendously inspirational to someone like me!

My best inspiration overall, is in the vintage and antique style of quilts, preferably the softer, less perfect looking utility style of quilts. Those are the ones that invariably make emotion well up inside me and cause me to dream about making my own versions of what I've seen. If there are only five antique quilts mixed into the annual, regional quilt show, you better believe I've circled around to see them at least three or more times before I leave! If I see them in a book or a magazine or even online, I'm almost drooling over them. That's my lodestone if you will, and why I ever, ever even attempted to dive into the scary world of 'improv.'  Something had to give, 'cuz making straight-up traditional style quilts wasn't getting me where I ultimately needed and/or wanted to go.

The upper applique block is approximate 2" larger than
 the smaller one in the lower left corner of the quilt.

This particular quilt feels like a HUGE step in the right direction of somehow getting my quilting voice to speak louder than the fact that it's actually made in the improv. style. Yeah, yeah, I've heard you. I get it. Most of my quilting efforts do fall underneath the umbrella of  'improv.' {working in an unscripted manner and working successfully to resolve any/all issues that come up, etc. etc.}. I think you all know what I'm getting at though. If you type the words 'improv. quilts' into a search engine, there's a certain distinguishable style that immediately pops up. 

As you can see, this quilt is made up of many of the very same underlying elements today's improv. quilters rely on. Yet somehow, I ended up with a look/style that does actually resonate on a personal level! And so now I'm pondering. Is it the fabric print that makes the difference for me here? The color palette? Adding in a little bit of applique? A bit of vintage and up-cycled shirting fabric? All of these things, without a doubt, help make the quilt more appealing to me. Having those elements, alongside the improv. piecing, somehow makes it more snuggle-up lovable. I guess it's sort of a package deal in my world.

It's the best part of the quilt, those two applique additions...

So it's been a journey. If my quilts don't end up feeling cozy, whimsical, sweet, comforting, joyful, or perhaps even a little bit primitive and naive, then I feel bit lost and maybe even a lot disconnected. Feeling like I completed wasted my time and energies. Sometimes I win and yes, sometimes I lose, but I'm always, always, trying to move forward. Kaja and Ann have been a huge help with their Adhoc. Improv. linkups/blog and real efforts to support and nurture individual creativity and exploration of personal style. It's been great fun to ride along with them and see what new challenge they present next!

Although the rest of the quilt has its charms as well...

So Yay! for a complete win in the 'me quilt' category! Yay! for wrapping up another individual challenge! All that striving, practicing and sweating out the decision making part is finally starting to come together. Don't mind me. Mentally, I'm doing a little fist pump here. It's wonderful to have evidence that all the hard work in the trenches is starting to pay off.

Ultimately, every element seemed necessary to the
success of this particular quilt. Even the vintage
and shirting fabrics play an important part!

On a different note, I decided to throw in a couple more pictures of the Maps Challenge quilt. The color in the pictures from the other day were absolutely terrible. Ughh! I was in a hurry to get the post up, but later on, realized that all my blog records would forever be warped by those lousy pictures.

Adhoc. Improv. Maps Challenge quilt

Who was it that initially raised the bar for having Pinterest worthy quilt pictures anyway? Well, these are much better than before, but they would never qualify for 'Pinterest worthy' that's for sure! This quilt top had already been stuffed in a clear zip-bag and shoved into the quilt tops drawers. Did I iron it upon taking it out of the bag? Um..., no?

Still in love with the brown/white gingham fabric...

Really? The sun was shining and I had about 15 minutes before people were charging through the living room and making demands on my time. Would you have been ironing? Don't answer that.

It's simple, but it works for me

I picked off a lot of stray threads. Surely that counts for something. And you have to admit, now that you're seeing this quilt top in better lighting, it's starting to look a lot more attractive, in spite of its rumpled appearance.  I'm telling you, it looked amazing draped over my sons bed! Couldn't take a picture of that though as there were piles of clothes on the floor. Whatever. It feels good to be starting with a clean slate for the 2019 Adhoc. Improv. challenges and inadvertent detours!  Linking to Wendy's Peacock Party!

Two More Quilt Tops To Finish Out the Year!

As the year was coming to an end, I found myself very determined to squeeze in enough time to finish at least two more quilt tops.  These were projects that I really, really didn't want hanging over my head all throughout the next year!

Sweet Hospitality

The first one I tackled was the pineapple quilt. These blocks were started sometime in 2017. Can't find the exact month, but the plan was to mix them with stringy improv. basket blocks. Yeah. That was a big fat NO. Eventually I got the basket blocks together into a nice looking quilt top. I still rather like it, but the problem is, it wasn't the quilt top I wanted.*waaaah

Bad lighting inside the house, but it's a true-blue quilt top finish!

Then the pineapple blocks proved difficult and strangely unwilling to work with me. Like at all! Later in the year I finally refused to take no for an answer and wrangled them into some semblance of order. It didn't seem like enough though. Rifling through the abandoned fabrics, I decided to throw together a very basic, scrappy, two-toned, sawtooth border. {It sounds more challenging than it really was.} And I  kinda like the old fashioned vibe with the final layout scheme. It seems to work together pretty well.

Love adding in a scrappy border...

Then it started demanding a border. Let me tell you, I was not in the mood. A hundred ideas later {most of them involving applique} and I rebelled and made the decision to go super simple. Yep. It's one of those typical one-fabric borders with a tiny bit of applique embellishment on the corners. It's probably gonna be one of those quilts that look amazing with the quilting texture, but until then, I'm sort of giving it the side-eye.  Be gone with you quilt!!

A little bit of applique

Okay, then I immediately dove into the Maps Challenge from AHIQ. This project pretty much stalled out before I ever even started it. Then I accidentally stumbled into an idea for how to move forward with the challenge and well...., got to the point where I thought it needed words added. Yep, stalled out once again. While I do love adding words onto a quilt here and there, sewing them together is not my favorite thing in the world to do.

Adding words onto a quilt

The thing is, this quilt just seemed determined to have its way! Somehow during actual making, the maps thing had gotten all twisted around and the quilt was beginning to be about something else entirely. I'm not sure I can even properly explain it, but the name of the quilt is now 'Directions From a Local'. Does that help?

Starting to see the quilt take shape!

One of the quirky things that I happen to love is when local people give directions that only make sense if you've lived in the area like, forever. And if you haven't, then you tend to go around in circles trying to find what they were actually talking about. Seriously, sometimes it might not even exist anymore! When my husbands cousins moved into our area several years ago, they were told that the best deli/fountain drinks in town were at 'Bob's Texaco'. They said that they drove around town for almost half an hour looking for Bobs' 'Texaco'. Unfortunately for them, Bob's Texaco hadn't been a 'Texaco' for over ten years and in fact was now an Exxon station. And not knowing 'Bob', they had no idea which gas station to even start looking at. Small town or not, sometimes you're totally lost before you even start looking!

Directions From a Local is a completed quilt top now!

We have all sorts of {only-making-sense-if-you're-a-local} directions around here, but I figured one such directive was enough for this quilt. These letters took a couple days and more time than I wanted to spend, but really make me smile when I look at the quilt now. It's always worthwhile to try and make the quilt we are envisioning in our head!

For sewing the words, this is the one I always turn to for machine pieced style of lettering. I love that we can make the letters any size we choose and just as funky as our imaginations will let us.

Maybe I'll take a better picture later...

I do so wish that I could have finished up earlier today when the winter lighting was absolutely beautiful, but that's the breaks. I assure you that this quilt is not nearly as dull looking as the previous pictures make it out to be! I tried to change up the values in the quilt, use plaids and other old fashioned looking fabrics {and one cotton/poly gingham fabric that was probably a mistake!} and otherwise keep things simple. Any busy looking fabric I tried to use just looked ridiculous anyway.

It was great fun using the quilt below as inspiration. Mostly I consider it a great success! First, that I actually managed to finish with the AHIQ Maps Challenge! Woohoo! And 2nd, that I kept to the look and feel of my inspiration quilt without copying it exactly. Love that! Always so much to think about when using any of these sorts of quilts as a jumping off point! It looks so plain and yet somehow it's very engaging regardless.

The original inspiration

Something interesting for 2019. There is supposed to be a QAL for making quilts inspired by this particular book 'Unconventional and Unexpected' by Roderick Kiracofe. You can check it out over at The Root Connection if you are at all interested. I am definitely willing to try this again if it's something I can do from this blog.

Okay, that's that. All the quilt tops that I can finish up for the year! I really don't know how many I added to the queue, but what thrills my list-making soul is this: At the start of 2016 I had somehow accumulated 28 completed, but not yet quilted quilt tops. Yikes! At the start of 2017 that number was reduced to 25, For the start of 2018--there was 22,  and now for the start of 2019 it's down to 20!! Even after adding in these last two makes.*sigh  I'm trying so very hard. You have no idea! Sitting on my hands and just staring at the fabrics stacks sometimes....  hehe  Next up will probably be the 2018 finishes post. I'm thinking it had to be a pretty good year to get down to only 20 quilt tops. Happy, Happy New Year to all!

Trying to Keep up with the Improv.

I'm trying to cut myself a little slack at the end of November here. It feels like nothing is getting done, but I know that's not true. Plus, it's been busy with the holiday and family time. Now that it's Adhoc Improv. time again, I wanted to see where I was with all the open ended improv. projects.

strips for Playing with Scale #2

All the half square triangle strips are sewn together and trimmed for Playing with Scale #2. I even found time the other evening to free cut all the strips needed to start making the improv. blocks. This is one of those quilts where a large design wall would be amazing, but alas, it's not to be. I'll just keep using my imagination along with the trusty 'design floor'.*wink

I've been so tentative about moving ahead with this particular quilt. Not sure what it is that's holding me back because every time I start working with the fabrics, I fall in love all over again. I did take the time last week to make sure there was enough fabrics in all the important colors that I wanted represented throughout the whole of the quilt. Went digging through the stash totes and added about five other fabrics in deeper and/or bright fabrics that will work well for the larger triangles I plan on adding in later. One thing at a time though! Can't really start working on those until I see what size will be needed for 'proper proportion'.

Maps quilt auditioning

Just before Thanksgiving, I made time to cut and sew the 'road' border for the Maps prompt. It was a bit challenging, but overall I think it went together fairly well. Wasn't sure what to do with those corners, but when I laid it all out on the floor, it suddenly hit me. The upper picture just has a cut rectangle on those corners, nothing sewn down, but it brought it all together for me. So, so, easy, peasy, just a little applique work and the corners were sewn down to make the road look like it was turning the corner.  If they're a little chunkier looking than the rest of the white line pieces, most people will never notice!

Applique addition on the corners....

Next up, something I'm really dreading for some dumb reason, will be a long strip with words on it. I thought to do words on all four sides of the quilt, but now am rethinking that. One strip on the bottom just under the road border and all the rest will be a few random strips of different fabrics. Mostly, I just want to start sewing the strips on for a longer, more vertical looking quilt and get away from the perfectly squared off look. I love how it's so similar to the original quilt inspiration, but also starting to go its own way.  

A pretty stack of quilts

I've also gathered together five more quilts to give away before the end of the year. My family was having a bit of a meltdown over it {thinking I was intending to give away ALL of my quilts}, but settled down when I told them who/what/where they were going. It's sweet that they think all my quilts are too special to give away, but I've told them and told them, they might just be a little bit biased. How they could possibly think I was giving them all away when I still have at least 25 stacked up in my bedroom alone is laughable, but hey, they do seem to get attached! 

All of these quilts are older quilts {except for one which is a more recent finish} and that seems to make it easier for me to say goodbye. My husband however, adamantly called 'off limits' to at least three quilts he randomly uses from a stack in the living room. Then the girls chimed in and that's when negotiations started. So that's that for the giving this year, except for the doll quilt that I'm still planning on making for our granddaughter. Better get cracking on that one. Christmas is right around the corner!

My Answer to the AHIQ Maps Challenge

What I love most about starting something on a whim, is that it often stimulates the brain in unexpected ways. I have been so stumped about what to do with the AHIQ Maps Challenge. For goodness sakes, the challenge was thrown out to us in July? To me, quilting 'maps' felt kind of complex and 'arty'. Not really my thing on the best of days. Summer complaint fatigue didn't help any either. My brain like mush most of the time.

Basic log cabin

The crisp, fall weather has definitely helped to wake me up a bit. With this project, here I am, basically going in circles with the uncomplicated sewing I started earlier this month {enjoying how open ended and pressure free it is}, and it hits me from out of the blue. This log cabin sewing reminds me of how I constantly have to turn around and go back when I'm driving in a new-to-me area! Okay, why not? And so without a lot of extra thought for the end result, I decided to applique a turn right arrow onto the center of my quilt. You see how it works around here? Apparently I have to start some challenges quite by accident!

Turning into my answer to the Maps Challenge!

After that, I just kept on cutting and sewing the 2 1/2" strips, {all without measuring the proper lengths}, until I found myself with a real mess on my hands. Well, you knew it had to happen eventually. I can almost see some of you nodding your head. Uh huh.  Free sewing just doesn't make for straight, square quilts, ever, ever, ever. Sometimes I think my purpose here in the quilt blogging world is to make all the rest of you quilters feel pretty awesome about your own stitching efforts. lol

Too much crazy, even for me....

And of course, by now, I'd also decided that eventually there needed to be a 'road' unit added in as a single round in the quilt. All that accrued wonkiness was definitely becoming a bit deflating in terms of making it larger. Not that I was truly upset you understand. Mostly I just found myself curious as to the resulting dilemma: how very much the fabrics had started misbehaving, at which point it manifested itself and, how very, very quickly it multiplied past a certain point in the sewing.

Not a lot of options so I'll try this....

But hey, it really, really needed to be addressed before moving on. I get that. And so I thought about it for several days until finally, today, I girded myself to do the insane. 'Cuz I was NOT unpicking. Nope. Out came the rotary cutter and I very calmly cut across the length of my quilt, right at the pre-determined area.*gulp! Then I layered the two edges, smoothed from the center of the quilt out, and then very carefully cut once again. Fingers crossed it would take care of all that slack and bias stretch!

What do you know, it might just work out!

The first cut and sew looked promising and so I did the same to the other side. Then, realizing it was gonna have to happen on the other two sides as well, turned the quilt and cut one side at a time into the top and bottom of the quilt too.*whew! Pin, pin, pin and then sew and iron. Would you look at that quilt below! It's much, much flatter and neater than it was before. And I'm not the least bit unhappy with the new look as per those affected strips being slightly curved and much more narrow. Oh, that was a sticking point for sure. Where oh where to make the least offensive cuts? But it works. Thankfully it was a good day in the quilting {and/or living} room today!

I'm absolutely sure this has made quite a few of you cringe and want to look away, but I am having a enormous amount of fun here. Really. A bit of anxiety about the unknown has never killed a single one of us! The next row is going to be where I attempt to make that 'road' unit, but after getting this piece squared up {not pictured here in this post}, I ran out of creative ambition for the day and basically called it quits.

Obviously my version of this maps challenge is going to be very interpretive {improv. anyone?}, but it should satisfy my desire to not intentionally duck a hard challenge. Frustration with dreaming up a workable idea is one thing, but avoidance just gets me to the point of being very annoyed. Kaja and Ann are our wonderfully creative motivators over at AHIQ and are very tough quilters to keep up with on occasion. They like to keep us on our toes!

And here it is, almost totally flat!

Earlier in the week I also dove back into Playing With Scale #2 after leaving it sitting idle for almost three months. Something about the quilt was bugging me and I felt that it needed a chance to gel a bit more. I don't know if it was the quilt colors or the way the strip units were behaving, but I just had a feeling that to continue on at that particular point would end in regret. This time I'm starting from the hst angle on purpose. Maybe I'll backtrack to the strip units as I want to slip these hst strips inside some of them anyway!

Playing with scale #2

Once again, I didn't get nearly as far as I'd like, but what I'm seeing on the wall is making me very happy. All the hsts are cut very freehand and once sewn into units, then I'm just lining them up into a long row, joining like sizes one square to the next. At the point of having a long strip of hsts, I'm using a ruler and trimming off the excess at the edges, taking care not to straighten them to the point of rigid formality. Before trimming, they are very rough and scary looking but afterwards, have a great organic feel to them.

It feels good to be working this type of improv. again and mixing it up with all the other quilting that I love to do. It's when I get boxed into rigidly pre-determined ideas and patterns that I start feeling the most twitchy, bored or otherwise start to lose creative mojo. Balance, people. It's always about the proper balance....