January Applique Prep

Lots of applique projects in the works around here. Oh we are sooo surprised! I've spent quite a bit of time here lately trying to get some of the prep work done. Always a good plan to have the hand work ready for the quieter times.

More words and tulips on quilts!

Above are the outer borders for Peace Always. Not really what I had in mind when starting the project, but I'm sure this will work fine. It's another one of those bright quilts that I'm just not always sure how to react to. Each of the three flower borders actually has three yellow tulips on it, the middle tulip being a smidge smaller. I will probably have to audition it one more time before doing any stitching because something is still nagging at me. 

I often work upstairs in the evening and the lighting is terrible in the area where I have access to the floor. Plus, the carpet is an ugly blue-gray. It sometimes becomes necessary to do one last audition downstairs on a different surface {and during daylight hours}, before I'm satisfied everything looks the way it should. 

Below is the Joy Basket quilt. Just need the letters stitched down. They've been waiting for quite awhile now! One good thing about this quilt taking it's sweet time is now I'm much more fixed on what kind of surround needs to be next. Have been dithering back and forth between piecing or applique or both and eventually I've managed to settle on some sort of improv. piecing. Yay! Love making it up as I go along.

Three letters won't take long to stitch

Another project in the works is the Folksy Tree and Baskets quilt. This is where I left it last August. Sometime between then and December, I added the primitive looking pink tree. I based it off of a tree in our backyard that has been cut down, but the stump continues to send out new scrawny branches every year until it blocks my kitchen window. Been looking forward to the fun part, but hadn't been able to find enough time with the design floor. 

Had to change out the green leaves

This past week I finally found time all kinds of time and thankfully it went fairly well. Thought I had it all the way I wanted {picture above} and then hit a major road block. I played late, late into the evening and ultimately decided it was the olive colored leaves that were not quite right. Ughh! Really didn't know what to do because the blue leaves by themselves just came off as boring. Played and rearranged with several different greens for the leaves, and then actually went to my old fashioned color wheel for help. Uh huh. Totally feeling desperate! 

Anyway, that's when I decided that a very dark emerald green could be an interesting option. I searched and luckily, found a fabric that, kid you not, has been in my stash for at least 25 years! Wowsers! So thrilling to finally find a use for it! Anyway, by using that specific fabric, I was able to salvage the olive green/blue print fabric at least. Very quickly after, the quilt decisively let me know that it had the right vibe and please, oh please, just leave me alone!

The final applique selection and placement
for Folksy Tree & Baskets quilt

Also went ahead and prepped several of these 'dove' blocks. Going to put them with this largish sun applique if I ever get it finished up. You would not believe the number of bird motifs that I have drawn trying to find the perfect one. Love the antique quilts for inspiration, but some of those birds just look like flying dinosaurs! So I've been pushing this to the back of the list. Always interesting when my motivation gets balky and stubborn. Maybe now that I have the birds figured out, I'll finally be ready to do the stitching on the sun?

Bird blocks for Doves in Flight quilt

Also went ahead and jumped into the border prep for Old Fashioned Wildflowers. I thought to do piecing in the border, but then kept thinking about a sort of scalloped look instead. Drew up this simple swag type border {with separate pieces} and thought, Yes! This is exactly what I want! 

Will probably add in the small terracotta colored circles where the scallops join up. Am absolutely delighted with finding a use for the dark, drab olive green background fabrics! They have been in the stash totes for years and years, never finding a good home no matter how hard I have tried. And believe me, I. HAVE. TRIED. 

Whatever possessed me to buy so many fatquarters of these drab greens? But this will be a very sweet use for some of them {Still have more to use up!}. There's just something so very pleasing about these greens and blues together. Sort of feel like I've inadvertently stumbled onto something very precious for this quilt....

Border prep for Old Fashioned Wildflowers

My husband finally got the quilt hanger up in the quilt room. My daughter bought an oversized one for my birthday last fall, knowing that I wanted to hang larger quilts in the guest bedroom. I keep thinking we need to repaint this very pink and orange sherbet room {thanks to my oldest daughter}, but who has time to paint? 

This is one of three quilts I hope to hang here, rotating them out throughout the year. It's also the room set up for me to do my yoga, so I'm looking forward to enjoying these quilts from day to day. Who knows, I might make a quilt especially for the wall of this bedroom some day! In the meantime, it will be much easier to say no to giving these particular quilts away. I have very persuasive children.*wink

Quilt decor

And here's Ellie with her brand new 'big girl' quilt from grandma! She was super happy with it and wanted to carry it herself even though it's pretty big for such a little gal. Love that the grandkids enjoy getting quilts from me. Takes me back to good times when my siblings and I were fighting over my grandmas quilts whenever we went to visit! 

Brand new quilt for the granddaughter!

So yeah. Lots of work to do with all of that applique in the lineup. I'm wanting to finish at least one more of the quilt tops, maybe two before starting in on the next Bramble Blooms quilt. 'Cuz of course it will have applique too! Three of these projects will be complete quilt tops when the applique gets done so that's exciting too. Excellent motivation to get stitching, right? 

October Quilting Efforts

 Another finish to show off! Gold Crossroads ended up being even sweeter than I expected. The original inspiration was from an old quilt I stumbled across in a second hand quilting book years ago. Still love it!

Gold Crossroads

I find it super interesting that I was hand quilting this particular quilt when the DS Wagon Wheel SAL started. How crazy is that? My quilt was made out of cut-out circles and also, it is appliqued to the background rather than machine sewn like the Denise Schmidt pattern. Super classic look though and it seems to look amazing in many, many color palettes.

Another 2024 finish!

Some day maybe I'll make a brighter version like hers, but for now, I'm just crushing on the texture the hand quilting brings! Quilting in a simple grid isn't something that I do very often for whatever reason. Laziness? Or more because I really, really hate marking my quilts. Such a chore. Ughh! Every now and then a quilt just calls out for the look though and wowsers, this was the right move for sure.

Sweet, simple color palette

This quilt is the first one in my 'Circle Games' series where I'm starting each quilt with cut-out circles from behind other quilts. Lovely to have it come to a true-blue finish and see that I'm not just wasting my time.

Sometimes it pays to mark the quilt....

Flower Power is coming along with the hand quilting too. It was the 'next up' in the hoop. It's pretty hard to see what I've been doing as the quilt is so dark. Trying to do very simple quilting with perle cotton as always. Nothing fancy here either. Strings are great fun to quilt organic straight lines through. Always makes me wish for more of them!

In the hoop

Old Fashioned Wildflowers is all ready for an outside border now. I went ahead and powered through the applique. Sometimes its easier to not think about the time involved and just takes big bites out of it till it's all done. Will probably put off figuring out the border till some other stuff gets wrapped up. There's a couple ideas percolating in the back of my brain so I'm feeling pretty good about it coming together properly. Will just keep the fabrics together with the quilt top until I'm ready to attack the next phase of the quilt. Sometimes that urge comes from out of the blue, you just never know.

All the hand work is done!

Not a great picture below, but I wanted to show the prep work for Bramble Blooms II-A. I'm already putting in the hand stitching. After finishing Old Fashioned I really wanted to dive right into something easier and the skinny borders feel so much better on my hands already.

Ready to pin

All the details and prep work are done for Bramble Blooms II-B too. I used the same flowers and just made them a bit smaller than those on the original quilt. Seems to suit these quilts better. I ended up incorporating the same leaf shapes from the first Bramble Blooms quilt too {very important to me for this project!}. I'm really liking how interesting these leaves look instead of my normal simple leaf look. It's also something that I feel will help keep this series of quilts more connected, having a continuity in the applique motifs. It's the simple things!

Getting it ready for hand stitching...

It always takes a chunk of time to get all the leaves and flowers cut out out and the vine pinned down into place. Much more time than I ever expect! Once the stitching starts though, it's free sailing for those of us who enjoy applique. I'm definitely eager to see if these two quilts look as good in person as I'm hoping for. Using older, less exciting fabrics usually means quite the slow build up and then lots of second guessing. Are these fabrics actually going to look good in these special little flower shapes? Yes, no, maybe so? I wanted to get these two quilts in particular moving along and then I want to start a couple new projects with fall colored palettes. I am positively antsy at the thought that fall might be over before I get a chance to start something new. I mean, there's only so many open-ended projects my brain can handle at a time!

Meanwhile, we've been having a little bit of company the past week or two and that of course means less time for quilting. Then today I spent most of an hour on the phone with Verizon whose customer service is frankly, quite pathetic. Isn't customer service just so terrible compared to how it was 30-40 years ago? Why in the world would I want to try and communicate with a machine?

Coronacrazy Made it to the Totally Finished Up Stage!

Finally got the Coronacrazy quilt completely finished up! It's one that I started just after the lockdowns happened in 2020. Basically just went out on a limb with the rows of arcs or 'hills'. Really no clue what was going to happen from there!

Another 2024 finish!

Lots and lots of applique in the quilt. It was so very time consuming. But what else did I have to do at that time? ha!

The outside flowers are my fave

Later on, after adding on the leaves in the outside border, I discovered that one of the fabrics used was a bleeder. That didn't make me very happy. After struggling with all the ways it could be addressed, I just went ahead and took those 5-6 leaves off and soaked them until the dye was done bleeding out. Very annoying to have to 'redo' any work at all, but much better than ruining my quilt over something so simple.

Will probably have to keep this one for myself...

Although I generally wash my quilts directly after finishing up the binding, this time I've decided to wait till later. Just want to enjoy it for awhile and not have to worry about something else giving me problems. Like maybe one of those orphaned flowers stitching into the center of the quilt? Ughh.  Don't want to take the chance right now! 

So awesome to see all the orphans being used up!

It's such a sweet quilt. Hard to believe it was started during a time when my mind was practically exploding with worries and stress!

Never know where I'll end up these days...

Love seeing the texture from the hand quilting take shape and give it all a little bit more depth. It's definitely a quilt that needed the little bit extra time and effort.

Still love the quilt colors too

I've also got my Gold Crossroads quilt ready for the last bit of binding stitching. I ended up doing a crosshatch pattern throughout all of the quilt except for the circles. Love the simplicity and old timey charm it brings to the quilt! And the colors of this quilt just kill me. Love how soft, sweet and cozy it feels to me. This is a quilt that I just sighed into every time I was adding quilting stitches. Very relaxing to work on!

A cozy look to this one

I've also been working a little bit almost every day on the Old Fashioned Wildflowers quilt. Have all of the vine work stitched down and am working on the flowers and leaves now. I thought {so optimistically} it would only take a week to do all of the hand stitching, but it's going to be tough to even finish it in two weeks and three is more like it. Really wanted to plow through this before getting to the hand work on my Bramble Blooms quilts.

Still enjoying the background blocks for the base

Which have actually seen a bit of work too. There is now an extra 2 1/2" on each of the outside border rows of the BBII-A quilt. It's a very subtle cream and lt. tan, every other square addition but I think it works well for basically expanding the area for the vine detail. 

An easy way to make it larger and not detract

It's one of those things that I didn't want to do, but now I'm thinking it adds something special to the quilt. Will definitely lift the overall look of the quilt. Bonus!

Now for the applique!!

Lots of quilting stuff on the list and mustn't forget, a quilt project for my SIL too, which has a Christmas deadline. Why oh why do I do these things to myself? 

All the Applique, All the Time

 There's a lot of applique stuff going on around here. Are you surprised?  First off, I went off on a little detour with the pear cut-outs. Was digging through the applique parts and pieces totes and somehow these just sort of jumped on the wall. All from left behind bits and pieces, including the background rectangles!

An impulsive start

Another project that just all-of-a-sudden starting coming together is this 'Wildflowers' quilt. The background was finished up sometime in 2023 and I really thought it was done. Yep. Until my mom gave me a piece of fabric with these gorgeous flowers on it. Just had to do something with them, so why not fussy cut them and find a background? Should have known I'd find an excuse to put some applique on this yellow quilt top. Never quite satisfied with the simplicity of piecing am I? 

At first I thought all the flowers needed to be cut very close to the shape/color of the printed flower, but after a bit of play, I decided, no. Will just sew the rough shape onto the quilt and let the colors and impact of the flowers tell their story. Don't think a bit of black behind the flowers is going to harm anything. The leaves were interesting to cut out, mostly it was just freehand work. I wanted something a bit larger and flowy looking, but it's always a delicate balance between looking a little contrived and like it was meant to be! It's going to be a bear to work all the hand stitching over the top, but I'm not sure what else I'm supposed to do. Will never be happy with the quilt now unless the flowers are added.

Starting to look more put together

Also decided to make a couple basket blocks. Will be using more parts and pieces from the leftover applique totes. They are a little brash looking for now, but hopefully will calm down with the right background....

Lets see if these go anywhere

Started cutting out more flowers for the Bramble Blooms II-A quilt. Decided that since I was already playing in the applique parts and pieces totes, I'd take advantage of the short, skinny little pieces of green vine available. If the color works, why not? They'll make perfect little stems for this quilt and then I won't have to make even more bias vine. Love having the orphan totes so much!

Very simple floral border work

I went ahead and laid out the borders to Bramble Blooms II-B quilt again, this time focusing on the colors of the green vine. I think the darker green fabric vines look better on the B quilt and the more medium greens look better on the A quilt. 

Mostly at this point I'm finding myself a bit annoyed that the border on the A quilt isn't wider. Proportion-wise it looks fine. Fitting the vine and flowers on the way I desperately thinks looks better is a whole 'nother story.*sigh  I'm half tempted to figure out a way to bump the size of the border up about two inches wider. Hmm... do I have enough fabric left to make that feasible? Will have to check it out before I get any of the applique sewn into place. Sometimes taking the extra steps makes everything look soooo much nicer. Just not sure I want to make the effort with these oldy moldy fabrics though. Please tell me it's not at all worthwhile...

Wrap around vine a little more complicated

For this BBII-B quilt, will have to come back and lay out the vine properly on another day. Right now, I'm suffering from a severe lack of sewing pins. I seem to have used most of them up getting other applique securely in place. Obviously need to get things sewn down and free up some of those pins! For now I wanted to show {for those of you who were curious} how to affix the vines in order to sew the applique on one border at a time. Sorry, not the best picture, but hopefully you'll get the general idea. 

Always good to have extra length

Yes, my vines are lying on the quilt rather sloppily. You'll definitely want to lay the vines out exactly as you wish to sew them. Pin them into place. Best to start the end of  the vine overlapping on a corner, leaving plenty of extra vine. On the other corners, pull extra vine, just kind of bunching it up on top of the quilt, so that you have enough to cut later. I like to have enough extra to leave an inch or two hanging out over the edge of the border. When you pin the vine into place, remember that you will not be sewing the last inch or two of the vine onto the border fabric until after the entire quilt is sewn together. Yes you will have to nudge the unsewn vines completely out of the way at that point and pin them so that they don't end up creeping up into your new sewing machine seam allowance.

After the all the borders are sewn onto your medallion quilt, you will free your dangling vine ends, carefully overlapping each pair. Trim each of the vine ends to land where it's most discreet and fold down the raw edge at the end of the top vine. {You don't have to fold down the edge of the bottom vine, just maybe scrunch it a tiny bit more narrow.} Then, make your last hand stitches. Just a few minutes of stitching with the entire bulk of the quilt laying in your lap. Totally worth the effort, prepping the corner vines in this way!

Easy enough to cut the vine and have extra
at each end

The last applique project prepped and ready, is one that has been patiently waiting in the stacks for at least two years. I never got anything going because I was quite sure the 'sun' needed to be yellow. As you know, I often pull the marinating fabric stacks out throughout the year and contemplate various design ideas. Always waiting on the right inspiration before diving in! In this case, it was a matter of pondering why exactly my brain was resisting having a yellow sun. Oh who cares what color it is, just get this party started! And so it goes... This one will eventually have some bird blocks thrown in if all goes well. Probably not doves, though the antique 'doves in flight' quilts have absolutely been a huge inspiration for the overall feel of this quilt. We'll see. Sometimes the quilt changes its mind and all the ideas go out the window anyway.

The yellow is much prettier than the picture shows...

Will need to get the motif more centered onto the background and see if it still lays flat. These circle things don't always play nice! And that's exactly why I intend to square things up later. After all the stitching has taken place for the centerpiece. So that's that. Lotta applique stuff prepped and even more needing more details here and there. Should really try and find a project or two that doesn't require hand work. Sometimes I just want to sit down and sew at the sewing machine....