Still Quilting

 Yes, I have been almost completely out of the loop. Life has been full of unexpected happenings, many appointments, a funeral for a family friend, taxes being finalized, Google Chrome crashing on me, and on and on until I wanted to scream. Just let me quilt, please.....??

Sweet Hospitality ready for the last phase of binding!

But then I catch myself and think, honestly, I wouldn't have it any other way. Life with family is the good life! If it's messy and busy, so be it. All the busyness does a number on my creativity though, and then it's good to have those fallback projects that are either hand work based or more formulaic in nature. And I mean that in terms of the end 'goal'. 

The Centerpiece of the quilt

Like this string tulip AHIQ prompt. There was a certain expectation of what this quilt might include, whether I chose to follow all the perimeters or not. It didn't take quite as many twists and turns as Kaja's marvelous version, but since my brain has felt sort of wooly lately, it wasn't quite as straightforward as it could have been! In fact, for a bit, I worried that 'my voice' had almost got lost in the shuffle. 

AHIQ String Tulips quilt top is completed!

So many times, the only thing that matters around here is what the fabric, centerpiece, or perhaps vibe of the quilt wants to convey. I'm on a journey to do what the quilt seems to want and need! This time, I kept being pulled back into the spirit of the challenge and what that might possibly mean. How that was important. What things could be done to complete the challenge without making something that was just a hurry-up-and-get-this-done sort of effort.

Everything placed via the 'eyeball' method....

Could I/Should I sew together a string challenge without any strings included whatsoever? Hmm.. While I loved the idea of using the bolder fabrics for the main part of the tulips, it didn't quite right to say that the main theme of the prompt was completely unnecessary. How lame would that be? So I took a bunch of the leftover bits and at least made the centers of the tulips out of strings. Ahh.. that feels much better.

Moody colors

Frankly, the secondary challenge--the one where I determined to play with a slightly uncomfortable mixture of colors?--was where all the difficulties stemmed from. If I would have just went to the scrap bin originally and started out from that specific place, then the design decisions probably wouldn't have been such a headache. As it was, I was a little too boxed in. Surprise, surprise, the color palette started falling apart almost immediately!

The very first thing I did was throw out all of the funky greens that looked so good in the marinating stack. {I know, you probably never even saw them.} Yuck. They were positively hideous in the improv. units! Then I arranged and rearranged, over and over, the outside units until they stopped making my eyes cross. Well, I'm not sure they ever did. There was just something about the color blend that didn't sit right with me until I finally got the centerpiece sorted out. So basically I ended up working backwards. And that's the real story of why those tulips ended up being less string pieced and more of a one-piece fabric look.

Not quite what I was expecting

Notice how I finally settled on two rows all around with primarily blue backgrounds and then one more surround with the converse?  It's a subtle medallion look, which of course I love, but more importantly, it somehow suckers you into staring at the centerpiece again. Over the course of my very distracted, much-too-interrupted ponderings, I eventually realized where the drama had be. Uh huh, those tulips, where I could have so easily taken the cheater, cheater, pumpkin eater route. They aren't my most amazing tulips ever, but somehow the combination of busy, bold fabric prints, the look at me flowy lines, a little bit of mellow, utility looking string centers, and then.... the bullseye center at the midpoint of the orange {so weird, I know!} stems? Yep! It all works to say something good. So yeah, overall, I'm fairly satisfied with the results from this prompt. I didn't go so very far off script that it feels ridiculous. Bonus! I got to use up quite a few oddball fabrics that have been languishing forever in the bottoms of the totes. AND.... I didn't let this color palette completely throw me. Truly, it almost did.  

Playing with a woodworkers compass

In other quilty news, I have been experimenting with a large woodworking compass. It's a cheaply made ball bearing one that allows me to attach a fabric marking pen. It's supposed to stretch out to something like 48" or so, but I quickly found out that the farther you spread the compass arms, the harder it is to get good consistent lines.

Burned through 2+ quilt markers

My husband tried to give me some very good tips, but alas, I was not in the mood to listen. Just wanted to do my thing and who cares if the lines aren't precisely spaced around the initial circle? He finally went to bed early out of sheer frustration and I might have felt a little sorry for him.

Loving the results...

The fact is, I'm pretty happy getting a lovely radiating effect {lines approximately 2" apart}, and didn't want to spend any excess time getting everything absolutely perfect. In fact, perfection would have quite possibly ruined the look for me. Am I just being contrary? It feel like part of what I've focused in on for the past 10 years or so is the ability to convey a special look that most definitely features 'the human touch'. Not sloppiness or ignorance as to method, but one that feels more organic and genuine than absolute mastery of technique . I'm sure there are better compasses available, but wowsers, I'm having fun watching these flawed quilting lines transform the quilt! 

Vintage Reproduction is in the Home Stretch Now!

I can't believe how fast the hand quilting has went on the last border of the Vintage Reproduction quilt! Yesterday I finished up and wallah! There I was ironing off the quilt marking. I had to be careful because I used a blue wash-out marking pen on the corner bird blocks and those particular markings cannot handle excess heat.

Ironing marks off the last border of Vintage Reproduction.

I ended up using 'Miracle Marker' on the last border because I needed a light colored quilting line and I thought it would be quicker than trying to use one of my white pencils.  The marking lines are a little rougher than a pencil, but that sort of thing doesn't bother me much.  Nothing about my quilts are ever going to be perfect! In fact, *groan, I ended up noticing two spots (see where I put the safety pins?) that needed a quick fix.  I was doing so much of the hand quilting in the evening with less than wonderful lighting, working with black thread on a dark purple border and the rest of the story pretty much writes itself. Yep, it was impossible to leave 'as is' and hope nobody would ever notice....

Uh oh, problems with the quilting...

This quilt needs to be done by Friday, July 19th in order to be entered into our local quilt show and I'm feeling good about making that deadline now. I checked out several different colors for possible binding use.  This is a tough one.  I kind of like the cheddar yellow, but then it almost seems to dull the quilt down in an odd sort of way? Pink is definitely out--too much of that in the quilt.  Blue is bland, green is pathetic, and black disappears. Agghhh!!  I finally decided to try lavender.

Found a binding that might work for the
Vintage Reproduction.

I didn't have any really amazing lavender fabrics, but then I remembered a box of abandoned binding my mom gave to me years and years ago.  It was all wadded up in a ball, strings everywhere from where she tears the fabric, but yes! There was one long piece (over 300 inches) of a lavender binding! I had to spend quite a bit of time cutting threads, smoothing it out, ironing it and then cutting it down to the size of binding I prefer (2 5/8"). All I need now is about 43" more inches of something that will blend in and I'm set! Love these frugal finds! lol

Getting the next quilt in the hoop!

I've already put the next quilt in the hoop. You know me. Always have to have something ready to work on when I'm in the mood! This is the #2 in the 9-patch series that I did the machine quilting on the other day. There are just 12 sampler blocks that I left un-quilted with the idea of coming back and hand quilting them on a later date. Which is now of course, because the hoop is empty and would probably feel lonely and useless without a quilt in it.*wink

Making My Own Quilting Template

I finally got the entire center of my Monkey Wrench quilted.  Then.., no compass, no motivation and a queasy feeling about drawing my own cable pattern pretty much stalled me out for longer than I'd care to admit to.  After nagging my husband about finding his compass, begging my kids to borrow one from school (yeah right, mom) and then combing Walmart and coming up zero, I almost gave up entirely on quilting a cable pattern for the borders of this quilt.

The left border is completely quilted.

Hey, I'm a just quitter at heart.*wink  Anyway, something I said one night apparently challenged my husband to look through Walmart for a compass on the way home from work.  He was gloating when he walked through the door with two of them.  I hate gloaters.  And why do men always think that if we need something, two will be better? (Ahem, it's always okay to buy two if it's chocolate or Pepsi.  Just saying.)

So, because I was really, REALLY busy, I put it off for another day and a half before I grudgingly pulled out my Gwen Marston & Joe Cunningham book. This is so not my forte.*whine....  I carefully followed directions and came up with one or two really small football cable things.  Great.  But how to make them big enough for the border?  And that's where I simply couldn't do the follow through.  Math was a grind for me at school.  A's and B's 'cuz I did all my homework, but no real spark of genius or intelligent life here.

The incredible homemade quilting aids.

I was so NOT asking the husband for help at this point. lol  I started folding paper and cutting out freestyle footballs (using up way too much freezer paper) until I had something that looked about right.  With a few little tweaks and measurement checks, I was able to finally come up with a tolerable template.  I used a file folder for the cardboard and my exacto knife to cut the slits.  (Nobody needs to know that the first two slits were terribly difficult because I was using my exacto knife upside down against the blade. hehe)

I decided to make myself a detailed visual aid so that when I was stitching I could have a clear reference point in the event I became confused.  Who, me?  This also seemed like the perfect time to try out my new 'Miracle Marker' my mother bought for me last year.  This quilt is fairly dark and so I need a light colored marker.  Yes--I did test it out previous to marking the entire border and it irons out in literally seconds! Thank goodness for that as I had already marked into my third cable before I realized that the footballs were not supposed to be joined at the ends, but linked together....  Duh!  Very prescient of me to make that visual aid, don't you think?:)

Trying out 'Miracle Marker'.

So, now I have one entire border stitched and I've started on a second one.  Things are moving along very well and I haven't had to remove very many stitches so far.  Apparently the template is a success!  Would I recommend this method to other quilters?  hahahahahahaha  Not if you're anything like me.  On the flip side though, I feel very accomplished and smart now.*wink

(I think) It's a completed quilt top!

On a different note, I added one more border to this particular quilt and now it's being crossed off of the list. I'm totally ready to call it a completed quilt top and stick it away in the drawer.  For now.  I may decide to add another border one day in the future.  Or not.