Introducing You to 'Ode to Joy', the Finished Quilt

 Ode To Joy is a true blue finish! The fourth finish of the year. I thoroughly enjoyed having this one in the hoop and I'm super happy about the finish. Just loving the unique look to this quilt!

Ode To Joy is finished!!

This quilt was started very impulsively one day when I wanted to make another big basket quilt. The applique flower motif was inspired from the darker blue fabric used right about the word 'joy'. Probably should have made the leaves in green, but I was wanting the result to be a nod to the Scandinavian vibe.

My first attempt at putting pears on a quilt

The pears were added in an effort to achieve a folk art look and the hearts just hopped on for the ride. I was busy hand quilting this one day when my mother-in-law was visiting and finally she asked what was on my quilt, was that pears? So I held the quilt up so she could see. She bluntly stated that she liked the pears, but not the heart things. Okay. Well. 

Loving these heart things so much.....

Guess you can understand why I rarely show her my quilts or even talk about them with her! lol  I'm still second guessing all the reasons why I didn't make sure the pink fabrics at the right side of the centerpiece weren't more blendy. The top lighter pink fabric works okay, but the one underneath is a bit too salmon-y for the bubblegum pink it's laying next to. I remember liking the tension and clashing of it all, but does it really work? hmmmm....

Good to see the texture across the quilt

I was surprised at how intriguing it was to see the outside gray border take on texture with the addition of hand quilting. Making a mental note here that I adore seeing the different gray prints and values come together to make the outside border surround. So much more interesting than a single fabric border!

A very snuggable quilt

The backing fabric worked perfectly for this quilt. It's an old fabric, probably about 20 years old. I bought it for a red and white quilt top that I made back in the day. Never could bring myself to hand quilt it, finally took it to a friend for long arming treatment. After she held on to it for two years but never did the stitching, I brought it back home and basically threw up my hands in despair. Ughh. I didn't even like the quilt anymore! So I gave it away to some church friends in Oregon to use as the base for the their annual raffle quilt. Very selfishly though, I kept the backing fabric 'cuz I love pin striped fabrics! Love, love, love seeing it used for this fun quilt. Much better use.

And it's a wrap!

I finally got the 'Old Fashioned' quilt top sewn together. You can see my original inspiration here. It doesn't look like much now, but some day when I hand quilt it? It's gonna look amazing. 

Got the top done

It'll probably make me break out in hives to hand quilt it though, because it's gonna be soooo boring! I can't help but be quietly pleased though at seeing these oldy moldy yellow and cream fabrics come together looking so well. It's so very easy to overlook fabrics that aren't as striking and eye-catching as others, but there is still plenty of value and opportunity in these understated fabrics!

Looking very sweet

I am trying to squeeze in time to work on some baby quilts too, even though I have more quilt ideas than I can shake a stick at. It's looking like I'll need to come up with at least three baby quilts, maybe four before the year is over. The first one is a baby girl quilt using the cut-out pear shapes from behind 'Ode to Joy'. It's on the floor here, being auditioned for block extender strips. 

Does this work? 

Really pushing the boundaries of the pink/red mix, but having a lot of fun with it regardless. There's a good mix of the prints, new fabrics, old fabrics, JoAnn Fabric 'meh' fabrics and even a true vintage fabric picked up at a quilt show vender years and years ago. I'm thinking this will be for my daughters baby but we'll see. Might end up with something I like better! 

Then I nixed the baby boy quilt idea that looked passable and decided to venture out with a improv. monkey wrench block instead. It was all so impulsive and compelling, I just reveled in the experience! And of course there was at least three interruptions to the flow of work that day. Right? Always seems to happen when the creativity seems to be at the highest ebb. Now I need to decide if I should make more of these, or just wrap it up with log cabin type surrounds of fabric till it's big enough. Part of me wants to go the log cabin route and see if I can sneak some applique in somewhere. 

A good start

Here's a picture of my husband and me in the last hour or so before we're finished cleaning up the campground on Memorial Day weekend. Yes, it was a great weekend once we actually arrived and got settled in. Finally starting to get a little more help from some of the younger families which is a tremendous boon. Can't even describe the relief we're feeling to see others step up and start doing more. We've been in a transition period for several years where families had moved away or aged out, and the few families doing the most work have been at or around our age. Starting to feel like maybe it's time to let the tradition go, but no.... looks like others are recognizing the need pull their own weight too.

Almost ready to head back home

It definitely helped that this was a slightly smaller crowd at 167 people, not including the kids under 5 years old. Undoubtedly a result of the economy, but it made for a little more relaxing and chill weekend than it could have been. And all the kids were great. No pockets of teenagers we had to keep an extra close eye on for potential troublemaking. You just never know! So yeah, we were glad to go, glad to enjoy the weekend and thrilled at making it back to Pizza Hut for our annual celebratory 'we made it' lunch on the way home. ha ha  Then loads and loads of laundry to wash. Still working on that as we always loan out sleeping bags, fuzzy blankets and towels to visiting teenagers. 

My daughter and I made a quick weekend jaunt to Eugene, Oregon too, for my niece and nephews graduation. Just got back on Sunday night! It's shaping up to be the busiest year ever with two of our niece and nephews getting married and now a cousin too.*sigh  Won't even get to take my quilts to {or even attend} the first regional quilt show after three years without! So sad. Is this a post Covid rebalancing of all things normal? Don't be surprised if my blogging gets more and more erratic throughout the summer. Will try to post whatever I'm doing quilty-wise, but it might be weeks apart. And I'm definitely not checking in on everyone else's blogs very often. So sorry. Just don't have time for everything these days. Crossing my fingers I'll be able to get back into being a better blogger by this coming fall.....

A Wardrobe Meltdown

Going off topic here, beware! Every year during this changing of the season, I go through my closet and dump the summer clothes {into a tote} to make room for the fall and winter stuff. Ahh... my favorite time of year 'cuz I get to dress in layers again. Except life as a middle aged woman makes everything different. Nothing fits or hangs like it used to and I just hate it.

About a third to a half of this never, ever gets worn....

Clothing creeps up over my jellyrolls and scrunches under my arms. The three layers that I gleefully wore for so many years make me feel constricted and so very hot. I don't like my bosoms being on display {all the cute stuff seems to be very low cut these days} and I'm short so I walk a thin line with the tunic styles too. Agghhh!! It almost makes me want to burn everything in my closet. Almost.

Too many jean skirts....

Instead I did some deep thinking. And then, well yeah! there was some shopping required. Not having a lot of money to work with, I started out with a novel approach and went to the Goodwills. It's a mad scramble to find the good brands, but if you're tenacious they are definitely available. It's no wonder woman get traumatized by shopping these days though. In skirts I can wear anything from a 10 to a size 16. If it's a med, large, or x-large I just have to hold it up and guess. And it's really quite exhausting because I'm usually a bit too optimistic and can't even squeeze the thing up past my hips. Which used to make me want to cry. But now I just toss the thing in the corner and sneer at the people who create this sort of chaos in the first place. There's really no choice but to endure, 'cuz I haven't been able to find a dress I like in over ten years. {And I'm obviously not losing weight anytime soon....}

The sizes are just too depressing....

Let's not even talk about the secondhand prices these days. In one store they were over-inflated to the point when they asked me to add a dollar onto my receipt at the time of purchase, I almost snapped their head off 'Don't you think I'm donating enough?'. Like I could seriously find one sale 'red' tag item for half off there. Thankfully I had better luck at the second Goodwill because I really needed my money to stretch for a very long way.

And on with my day it went, always trying to think about things that were NEEDED. Things that would make my closet a happier place. That minimal thing is starting to sound pretty fascinating to me, but I'm not quite ready to purge down to a basic 15 to 30 items. Baby steps people....

Another oatmeal colored sweater to hang in my closet...

Eventually the second hand stores had delivered up their finest goods and so I made my way to the mall. A light bulb went off in my head when I splurged at Marshalls and bought the oatmeal colored sweater than practically made my head spin. I do love the neutrals. See, the fact is, I'm not precisely bored with my wardrobe. I just can't get all the pieces to fit together so that I feel truly comfortable. Out of all the t-shirts pictured below, I probably only wear about 5 on a day by day rotation. Because they are too short or too tight. They scrunch across my chest or dip too low in the front. The cami's don't get worn nearly as often as they used to because I just can't handle that many layers anymore and a lacy cami with a sweater usually feels too dressy for everyday or sometimes, even for a casual Sunday. How sad is that? My closet is a disaster!

Too many uncomfortable t-shirts

So then I was off on a hunt for the perfect underlayer sort of t-shirt. It had to be thin, slightly silky and plenty roomy under my arms without drowning me or pulling across my chest in that weird little dip t-shirts like to do. It needed to be nice enough to wear with sweaters but not so snazzy as to look weird under my button-downs I live in during the week. I finally hit pay dirt at Maurices of all places.

Blue, black and actually a lovely sort of lt. lavender for the new....

You might think I'm a boring sort of person in the way that I dress, but I just don't like to stand out in a crowd. When people approach me and compliment me on my outfit, it makes me happy, but mostly it makes me feel awkward. So I'm working on that and made a very conscious effort to buy a couple things with some nice details or pattern. It helped that the beige, vintage looking tank was on on a tag sale for $2! Oh yeah, much easier to be brave when the price is right. And I do wear brighter colors in the summer. Not sure why that is, but facts are facts.

A couple nicer pieces...

All in all, it was a good day except for the fact that I left the house at 9 am and didn't return until 8:30 pm. I have a good start on figuring out where to go with my wardrobe issues and what to do. It's hard to rethink the wardrobe when really, I'd love to dress like I was 30 and still wore a size 4! Honestly, the first step is getting out a black bag and dumping the nonsense pieces, the things I don't or won't ever wear. So very glad I didn't have to shop for bras, new jeans or shoes too! I've got that mostly figured out and the money {and time} just wasn't there for that anyway.

So how about you? How's your wardrobe feeling these days? hehe I'll get back to quilting soon, promise. There's a Quilt Festival still to check out and a Improv. linky part I was hoping to join up with....

*My new closet has been 'in the works' for two years now. Still no discernible progress there as my husband finds our current closet quite adequate!