Time to See All Those 2018 Finishes Together in One Post

Some years there are more finishes than others. The last two years have been especially good ones for bumping the oldest quilts off the list . It's often difficult to want to work on the oldy moldy quilt projects, but they never get any easier to work on by just ignoring them!

2018 Finishes

It's always great fun to slip a baby quilt or two into the mix and have a fast finish. And this year I even made an oversize doll quilt {hmm... is that actually a baby quilt too?}

2018 Finishes

As usual, I kept my hand quilting hoop busy all throughout the year {both of them, if you want to know the truth of it!}. It's become an oh-so-important part of my quilting journey and I can't even imagine life without that little bit of stitching time late in the evenings. Those peaceful, meditative hand quilting minutes have become something I unabashedly crave at times. It positively grounds me in the best way possible and dare I say, nourishes me as well.

2018 Finishes

The program used to group my picture collages didn't have a good 4-picture setting, so I put my Quilty 365 in two different groupings. It's been on our bed for quite awhile now. I adore waking up to it and then later in the day, snuggling back into bed with it once again. Move over husband dear, I got a good quilt now. lol  Sometimes I think that all my quilting years have led up to this one quilt, in terms of making a quilt that resonates on almost every single level.

2018 Finishes

Overall, I'm not sure how much these quilts represent 'me' as a whole--the way I've mixed up the old quilting projects with the new. It's something that I always find very interesting though, these end of the year quilt reviews. You pop over to someones page and in one click, get to see an entire lineup of the years finishes! What fascinates me the most, is the quilting voice that is always so immediately apparent! There's rarely any doubt whose quilt page you're viewing and that's the very best thing about this time of year. I bet most of us could look at any of these picture groupings and immediately tell what quilter made each of those quilts. Love that!

So now with the details: 2018 found me ending the year with 19 finishes again! That kind of suprised me as it didn't feel like so many. Yep, I was on a finishing mission once again. Trying to get some of those very old, not-as-interesting quilt tops out of my hair.*whew! It was very, extremely, tedious at times, I kid you not. Crossing my fingers things won't get quite that bogged down ever again! Want some year end statistics? I do like to keep track just for curiosities sake.

• 1 Doll quilt
• 2 Baby quilts
• 1 Comfort quilt
• 7 Lap quilts
• 8 Bed-sized quilts
• 6 quilts were completely hand quilted
• 9 quilts were a mix of machine and hand quilting
• 4 quilts were completely machine quilted

By the end of the year I had also given away 17 quilts, a mixture of new and old quilts. That was a little nerve-wracking at times. My family lives in dread that they'll wake up one morning and all our quilts will have been given away! hehe  One was given for a church raffle, for helping to make money to buy their building. Still waiting to see who winds up with that one as I do like to keep track of where my quilts end up!

Lots of ideas for the next year. Stacks of fabric that have been simmering on the counters for months and months and need a little bit of attention. Mostly I just intend to quilt the things that I find interesting without getting too far into the weeds with those pesky squirrels! There are 5 or 6 open-ended quilt projects that will hopefully get wrapped up and around and around we go. I loved diving into the orphan blocks totes and intend to try that some more of that. Adhoc. Improv. is definitely still a happening thing and umm..., there is a scrap bin monster that just has to be addressed soon. No ifs ands or buts about it! Taking up way too much room over there in the corner of my quilt room.*sigh Oh, and don't forget about those oh-so-tempting QAL's popping up all over blogland. Probably gonna join in on with the Unconventional & Unexpected one and also, Lori's String Quiltalong. Sounds like a good start to me!

Off On a Tangent

It's done. My honest-to-goodness squirrel quilt has the binding on and it's ready to head down the road to its new home! It was started on a whim one day when the leftover triangles seemed more interesting than the finding-a-solution session would ever be.

Off on a Tangent

It quickly morphed into a quilt with a destination. There's this friend of mine who has had some scary health problems earlier this year and of course, I'm always thinking 'surely, a quilt will make everything better!'

A happy quilt...

I loved adding that oldish red/yellow/purple plaid. It's one that I bought years ago in the feel sorry for me clearance bin. You know how it works, gotta buy a whole yard before you actually get the 'deal'. Uh huh. I'm a sucker for them too.

Hand quilting along the triangles....

The lettering added onto the quilt was a bit of a disappointment. Not very visually striking at all. But I took some of your advice and just let it be. I could've done some really interesting things to darken the edges of the letters and all kinds of super creative things.... that would have taken a lot of time.... things that would have totally annoyed me.... And well, it's just not that important to me with this particular quilt.

And hand quilting in the border....

It's a feel good quilt. A fast and easy 'squirrel' quilt that took me totally off on an unplanned detour. Which is why it's called 'Off on a Tangent'. Fun to be distracted once in awhile, but seriously, I have quilts that I'm much more invested in. If that makes any sense?

Good way to take care of those leftover bits!

Did you catch the big 'oops? I know some of you like to shake your finger at me when I point out the errors, but this one is classic. Totally worth pointing out! It wasn't until the quilt was almost totally quilted that it finally even caught my attention. Which is good, right? With these sorts of '9-patch' borders, I always do a rough drawing, count out the either-or squares of color and do the placement just so. Ideally, we want the border pattern to flow properly around the quilt. Well, somewhere in the sewing phase, I flipped the left side border upside down. 

Yep, look closely my friends, the 9-patch flow is definitely interrupted at the corners, top and bottom. How did that happen when I planned so carefully?!!  Waaaay too late for a fix and probably not even that important in the scheme of things. Did I drag my hands up to my hair and sort of push into my head with my fingers and pull at my hair for a few seconds? Uh huh. And laughed. Kind of crazy-quilt lady style if you want to know the truth of it. Gotta love the human touch! Never have to do it on purpose around here, that's for sure!

Never Enough Time

How about a good long catch up post? First off, the HST Medallion quilt has been front and center for well over a week. I made the determination that nothing was going to get between this project and the sewing machine until all the small hst rows were sewn on. Two hundred breaks later for hand work or changing out the laundry or whatever else I could invent and....

More progress on HST Medallion!

Here we are, finally, at hst row #10. Woohoo! That's three more row sets added onto this quilt since the last time I posted any progress! I was pretty sure if I didn't do all three of them, one right after the other, this quilt would just die a slow death. It took days longer than I expected. It's all just so very tedious. Made me want to pull my hair out sometimes. Scream. Run away. What is it about excessive repetition?

10 rows finished

I mean, look at how innocuous these hst's are. So simple and unassuming. Ugghh... Who's idea was this anyway? The last round brought the total count up to just over 1300 hsts. Which is a lot. But honestly, it feels like about 5000! All that's left now are the last two rounds {if I follow thru}, which are larger. That should help, larger is good.

The last light pink border was a calculated risk. I totally know you've been eyeballing that one and wondering....  Audrey? Hmm.. What?  I'm still using fabric from the stash and thought maybe a 'disappearing' border would be interesting in the big picture of things. Taking a look at what fabric was left helped to make the final decision. If the quilt would have stopped off at that round, then yeah, it would have been a huge mistake. So far I'm perfectly okay with the look. It's not like I do polished looking quilts. Gotta have some quirks!

So...  accuracy? I'm within an inch or less of where its supposed to be, no matter if I measure directly through the center or along any particular side. That's pretty impressive {for me} considering how many, many, many seams there are. Sometimes I pay more attention to accuracy than others, but seriously, who has the time? Mostly I fudge if its close and the black single fabric sashing rows tidy things up before the next round. The saving grace has been that my cutting efforts have been more precise and careful. Daylight hours only!

Doesn't look like much

Lots of hand work to choose from when I'm fleeing the quilt room. I've really been enjoying do some hand stitching on my Dried Flowers {squirrel} project. The colors are particularly soothing right now--spot on for early fall.  At this point I'm stalled on what kind of leaves to add on though. Maybe I'll just have to do some of both!

Auditioning leaf shapes...

The project below is one that was started from leftover quarter circle pieces cut out from the back of a long ago quilt. It's been keeping me company as well. Instead of some complicated piecing thing that would be driving me bonkers, I decided to do an applique version of a simple New York Beauty block. After all the chunky spikes are sewn down, then I will probably stitch on an arc of gold fabric, over the bottom part of the spikes and covering the edges of the curve. These colors still make me very happy, which I find interesting as I've been playing with this particular color palette off and on for years now.

Getting started on a pile of 64 blocks total

And then there is the Off On a Tangent quilt. All the hand work is finished up and yep!, I made a mistake that always makes me feel a little twitchy. All the letters are in green fabrics that blend well with the quilt, but do not show up very emphatically when all is said and done.

Got the hand stitching done

Much too late to take them off now and start over and I don't want to anyway. They look just fine up close so that is that. Don't know why I keep making this same mistake after all this time. If you're gonna go to the trouble of adding words, for goodness sakes, do them in a color that has some impact!

It's not the best color, but it'll probably do

I guess I was thinking of serenity and peaceful feeling vibes? This quilt has already jumped to the head of the line for sandwiching and quilting. Very fast turn around for me, but this quilt is determined to go live with someone else.

Ughh... Sandwiching and pinning

In fact, I already machine quilted {stitched in the ditch} thru the inside of the quilt. Now that Basket Love, shown below, is out of the hoop, I can do some quick, big stitch quilting around the borders and move it on down the line. Oh how I wish that every quilt was as easy and rewarding to stitch as the quilt below. I adore hand quilting on string quilts! I'm sure it would get boring though if that's all that ever passed thru the hoop.

Ready for binding work!

Because the HST Medallion quilt took so long to work through sewing on the rows, I totally blinked on getting to the AHIQ work this month. That kind of annoys me 'cuz I love the improv. stuff, but there will be time for that later. Right now, things are happening that are a bit beyond my control. My sewing machine is scheduled to go in for a maintenance {in order to keep up with the warranty}, and that totally rearranged my priorities as well. The only machine quilting I do these days is on that particular machine 'cuz it has a bigger harp! Quick, what needs done before I have to do without! The quilt store where I drop the sewing machine off is three hours away so that means I'll be using a back-up machine for quite awhile, maybe even a month.*sigh  Not going to tackle big quilt work on the smaller machine.

I managed to arrange the initial drop off with the same timing as taking my kids to the airport and also an Apple store appointment. My phone desperately needs a new battery and apparently we can't do that without their help. If Bloglovin' gets any slower, the phone will be in total meltdown. Or maybe I will? Anyway, when you live out in the boondocks, these sorts of trips take some strategic planning. There is usually shopping involved. Things like that.

**Per the question asked after my last post, referring to the days when I said I would never, ever hand quilt? Well, that was 20-25 years ago, when I first started quilting. A lot has changed since then, including the fact that I don't have littles hanging on to my ankles and demanding every second of my attention. Also, I don't like doing machine quilting. Really, really don't care for it at all and in fact, when I attempt anything close to free-motion, it feels like the top of my head is going to come off. I push myself learn a lot of techniques and things that feel important to further expand my ability to make unique and personal looking quilts. Someday that may come to lessons in free motion quilting, but for now, hand quilting is as essential to me as air, both in the doing and the seeing. Quite simply, it's now part of my quilting voice, regardless of the time it may take... What elements of this craft are important to you and your quilting?

Organizing the Hand Work Bag

I know it's usually Adhoc. Improv. time of the month, but life has been hectic with a capitol H. We watched our granddaughter for a couple days, there's been family come into town to swoon over the new niece, we have a couple older uncles who are in failing health, a visiting sibling has been needing some hand holding, someone skipped out on their church cleaning duties, and all the other bits and bobs that make life such a fascinating experience to deal with as well.

Off On a Tangent prep

Improv. has been shuttled to the back burner for now. It's just that simple. Tho I did take it out and give the current progress a quick perusal and a promise of more love in the future. It seems that for the time being, I've been grabbing hand work or settling in for some hand quilting 'therapy' time. I've been craving that quiet time. Wrapping it around me and taking deep breaths. And you know what? Slowing down with something, anything! almost always makes for a few peaceful and serene moments, even in the midst of a 'storm'.

Patchwork Triangles border prep

Now my husband tells me that we need to take a quick jaunt down to Oregon to visit some other family member who time seems to be running out. Ahh... the joys of being part of a large family--on both of our parts! So many highs and lows. Instead of the grab and go method I've been making do with in regards to the hand work, I decided today to put off the packing/getting ready to go and better organize my hand work bag. Not sure how many days we'll be gone so we are literally talking about sanity here...

Melon Patch spears getting absolutely nothing done to them...

Right? Okay, don't answer that! For the most part it was just a matter of making sure ALL the parts and pieces were safely tucked into ziploc bags, organized per project and arranged nicely inside the traveling bag. Did I pack the appropriate color of thread? Check! Extra needles? Check! Snips & scissors? Check! Small ziploc for throw-away end pieces of thread? Check! Pin cushion with little applique pins? Check!

Dried Flowers moving right along....

One of my latest 'squirrel's found its way into the bag as well. Such a surprise. I've been calling this one 'Dried Flowers' just because it has such a dull but sweet, washed out sort of look. The circles are all pieces that have been cut out from behind other applique through the years and now I just stacked them up together. Very little trimming as I love the rustic look. My thinking is they will make very nice looking flowers if I can figure out how to add on another something that will have a pieced and/or perhaps even appliqued stem and leaf section. Decisions, decisions....

Dried Flowers fabric stacks and possible additions to quilt

Maybe I'll add the leftover basket blocks too? Whatever. The layout is still a ways off!  It's been a deliciously 'quiet' project to stitch on and one I have been soaking up! Something has been niggling in the back of my brain though when I have been working on these blocks. Maybe it's too quiet? Perhaps it might prefer a little spark of color? And so today I caved {just like I did when I bought those berry strudels yesterday} and dug around for some salmon/orange colored fabrics to add one more smaller circle on top. Hhmmm... We might be on to something here!

A little progress with the spiky blocks...

I also finished cutting out the spikes for these primitive looking New York Beauty blocks--all going to be sewn on with applique stitching. When I get the 'spikes' sewn on, then I will free cut some gold arcs to cover up the stitching at the edge of the quarter circle. These cream pieces are all cut-offs from an old project that I just couldn't bear to throw away and I've been making up this current block as I go along. Love the colors but am a little antsy about how they will look when they're done. Might need to trim the spikes to different widths to incorporate a little more imperfection.

Fabric Swatches 'cuz we always need more fabric...

And because I was definitely lollygagging and putting off that getting-ready-to-leave-town business, I went ahead and looked through all my current stacks of fabric resting on the counters or hiding away and marinating in little totes. Ouch! There are 12 stacks of fabric in total!! Wowsers, that's a lot for me. Some have been simmering for almost two years and so really, they need to have decisions made, be moving forward, or be dumped back into the stash totes pronto. No time for that today, but I did get little swatches of need-to-match {or blend} fabric ready for the chance/opportunity of wandering into an out of town quilt store. Wouldn't that be fun? Love, love doing that and my husband is a sweetheart to stop if we ever have a spare moment.

Now I'd better go finish up the laundry and check on the ripe peaches that need to be cut up and frozen before leaving town. I'm pretty sure nobody else will take care of them while we're gone! Thankfully there's not a lot of them as someone {not naming any names}, has been making peach smoothies lately.... Oh my, was I looking forward to a quiet weekend! Oh well. I'm sure we'll get one soon enough whether we plan it or not...

Using Up the Leftovers Any Way I Can!

Tried all day to get a post in and it was just too busy around here. My daughter tells me that it's pointless to blog on Wednesday or Friday, that nobody will read the posts! Oh well. Just keeping up with the flow of creativity around here.

Auditioning the borders....

First of all, I wasn't satisfied with a simple red border for the abandoned 'Patchwork Triangles' quilt after all. Oh no, Must do something more complicated. I figured out all the measurements and then drew out a basic sawtooth border attachment.

Cutting the sawtooth borders before applique

Not really all that simple and basic when you consider that it probably took me almost two hours start to finish just getting ready for stitching. But still. I love the process. That's what makes the time fly by. And I've done these sorts of borders so often now, the most time consuming part of the process is the measuring, measuring, measuring. And then drawing and/or adjusting all the lines before it's time to iron the freezer paper onto the border length. It doesn't feel hard anymore though, and that makes all the difference in the world.

Looking at these circles for possible applique....

And then once I laid out the borders next to the quilt, I didn't like them. Uggh.. I just sighed in exasperation and stared. How does this happen? It took a little creative thinking, but finally it occurred to me to flip the borders upside down. Oh yeah. Much better with the red on the outside of the quilt! Why didn't I 'see' that initially, before I went to all the time and trouble?

Moving the yellow to the inside changed things. For one thing, it helped keep the vertical look going instead of boxing it in. Yep, good thing. But now I saw an area that was crying out for applique. Because of course that's the way my brain thinks. A sawtooth border without added circles or flowers or something is very rare around here. It's insane how my mind goes straight there and will not be budged until convinced it might be detrimental to the quilt!

So to the parts and pieces applique tote I went, looking for something left behind by another project. Luckily I found these fussy cut circles in the perfect colors. So much better than what I had imagined in my head! Loving how this seems to soften the almost busy, 'circus' feel to this quilt and downgrades that boldness to a much more vintage looking vibe. And I never even thought for one moment about fussy cut circles before coming upon these! Yay for the parts and pieces totes!

Off On a Tangent

This 'Off On a Tangent' quilt top had been shaping up rather quickly too. If you remember, the triangles were leftover from the HaHa quilt and seemed too good to toss aside forever. For right now the borders on the top and bottom of the quilt are not sewn on. It's hard to tell from these pictures, but all the cream fabrics are text prints too. It was something that really made me smile when I was contemplating how to put together this particular border.

Should look better with some more color added on!

And I love how it looks close up. The problem is, any real distance and the text prints read 'gray' and tend to dull the quilt down to a rather disappointing degree. Meh!  Every single time I think something is going to be whipped up super fast, my quilts talk back and tell me, 'Nope, not today!' Okay. Fine then. After a couple days contemplating possible easy fixes {without scrapping the border altogether}, I've decided to add words to the top and bottom. There have been a couple options running through my head including song lyrics or maybe even a humorous phrase. {My fave is 'Good quilts don't have to match the couch!', but Ultimately I settled on the phrase 'It is well with my soul', which I'm planning to cut out in various green fabrics. The letters have already been freehand drawn {my go-to method} in an appropriate size, cut out, and ready to trace onto those fabrics.

It's funny how we can be playing with a project and then from out of the blue, it seems like the quilt has suddenly become someone else's quilt. What? When? But that's exactly what has happened here, thus the more thoughtful wording. It just needs to be. There is this friend whom I've contemplated gifting a quilt to for quite awhile {for various and assorted reasons} and it just seems to be the right time. How ironic and actually kinda wonderful, that this random, just-wanna-play-type-of-quilt, has quietly morphed into something that now, speaks to me of her! So yeah, it totally makes sense to just go with that and not fight against. Make it even more her if that's even possible!

On a different note, this week makes for 8 years of quilty blogging! Wowsers!  I've almost given up on this blog several times throughout the years, but there's just something about journaling the quilting experience that helps to connect all the dots. I honestly feel that it's made for better quilts along the way. And it doesn't take long reading through my posts, to understand that I am a process quilter through and through. In some ways {much as I hate to admit it}, that part is as much or more fun than the finished product! Too, blogging is a great way to share my story with like-minded people and maybe encourage others along the way? This was the very first line, of my very first post, on Quilty Folk:  'It's boring to talk quilts with the uninterested, tacky to talk to yourself, and I'm too old for an imaginary friend.' Hhmmm... I'm thinking that all still holds true today..... 

Always Time For Play

I've been having a hard time keeping up with blogging. Must be that time of year! We finally got our heat and air system fixed so now it's easier to hand quilt in the evenings again. Oooh, it was really warm here in the house for a couple weeks!

Vintage Red getting some hand quilting done!

The Solids Challenge project got a little bit of attention this past week. Just enough to convince me that I don't have a clue about math. Somehow my triangles for the border work were cut out without any thought for the fact that they are much longer on the diagonal than the original square dimension.*meh  I'm blaming the heat. That said, now I need to figure out a extra border for in between the bulk of the quilt and the nifty triangle border I have already sewn together. Or I could take it all apart and start fresh. Nahhh... That sounds like an invitation to chuck the entire project into the darkest corner of the quilt room and give up for a few more years!

The outside border work for Solids Challenge quilt

So of course I went right to work..... on the leftover triangles. You know how it is, just throw them up on the wall for a few minutes.

Just playing....

 That somehow turned into a couple hours....

Maybe some sashing?

 And then, ahem! Maybe one or two evenings?

Too late to rip it out, there's too much time invested!

I do so love playing with colors and the original composition, tho perfectly lovely, felt boring and possibly a bit flat.

'Off On a Tangent' starting to turn into a quilt top!

This actually looks better on the wall than what I've captured here with my camera. I'm already dreaming up some interesting border ideas with, yeah, you guessed it, applique. Whew. Good thing I didn't have a whole list of quilt projects begging for some forward progress! Might have to feel guilty for getting completely sidetracked and disappearing down a rabbit hole. The gal at a local quilt store was telling me just the other day that she has finished up every single one of her UFO's! Wowsers, I can't even imagine that ever happening around here. I think there's a self sabotage button that activates any time I even start thinking about making a serious dent in my UFO's.

Oh, and the new Blogger scenario where the comments don't connect with our email? That is sooo.... frustrating. I've tried the workaround to comment on my own post etc. and that doesn't seem to work. Hopefully they will be fixing this soon, but in the meantime, please have patience with me responding! It all just takes a bit more time and that is in very short supply around here this month. I'm headed to Oregon for my niece and nephews graduation so replies will probably be even later than normal. Yep, I'm a slacker when it comes to computer time. If it comes down to a choice between quilting and cruising the internet, the fabric obsession usually wins....  Linking to Pomegranate and Chintz for the 6in6in2018. Just squeaked in on the final day of linkup!