All the 2021 Finish-It-Up Details and Looking Ahead At What's Next

It was a strange, bewildering year. A lot of us yo-yoed between depression and keeping our head down, just trying to get through. Why even bother with anger when the energy could be much better spent stitching our way to some sort of tranquility? Once again, I have been ever so grateful for this colorful, fascinating, soul-soothing hobby of mine. Though I often felt like the days were aimlessly drifting by, the 2021 finished quilts tell the real story. These hands of mine were busy, busy, busy....

I've been feeling a wee bit guilty about one particular quilt that never made it out of the quilting queue, but hey! What about that HST Medallion quilt? Huh? It finished at 102" square and the whole thing is hand quilted. Woohoo! And then I made up for all that effort by continually choosing out quilt tops that seemed easy as pie to hand stitch. Hmm... 

The baby quilts kinda took precedence this year as one of my nieces, my sister-in-law and also our daughter-in-law all had new additions to their families. The other baby quilt finished this year was the boy quilt. Of course, everyone decided to have girls this one teensy moment when I was actually on the ball and thinking ahead.

Another quilt that somehow insinuated itself into the line-up was Rhi's quilt. It was the lap quilt my oldest daughter asked me to make, starting from a cut up sundress she wore in her middle school years. It's one of the few quilts I've made with a large-ish amount of green included. One that actually turned out to be relatively successful. Yay me! Given another half dozen or so of 'green quilt attempts' and the dial might eventually be turned up to 'amazing looking'. lol  Working with green can be hard!

Okay, Details please!:

If you're wondering, the past year saw me bring a grand total of 16 quilts, plus a slew of doll quilts to fruition. Slightly less than in years past, but not too shabby considering that our family hosted a wedding and also had a new grandchild! I hoped to bring down the number of quilt tops languishing in the quilting queue, but alas, that number stayed fairly stable at 23. Apparently I reliably alternate the act of finishing up, with all kinds of excuses to start anew. See my worried face? Yeah. Neither do I.

Here's the 'finished' quilt statistics that I'm always looking for at this time of year:

• 11 Doll quilts 
• 4 Baby quilts
• 5 Lap-sized quilts
• 7 Bed-sized quilts
• 13 of the quilts were hand quilted
• 2 of the quilts were mixed hand and machine quilted
• Only 1 quilt was totally machine quilted {plus all the doll quilts}

Another number I generally keep track of is how many quilts are given away. This year saw me gifting 12 quilts, either gently used or new. As usual, there were/are mixed emotions in giving away so many of the quilts that I've poured myself into, and no doubt, spent countless hours working on. Some people are easier to gift quilts to than others and I'd never suggest it's a mandatory thing. I'll just link to an article written in 2013 by Mary Fons where she makes the point that 'Quilts are love, manifested.' When we find the perfect person {or reason} for one of our quilts, it's truly a beautiful thing.

As for what's on board for the new year? 

• More from-the-stash quilting for sure. I'm sincerely hooked--line and sinker. It's beginning to get more and more challenging as certain colors and tones are starting to be depleted. Still, I rather enjoy the adventure of make-do-till-you-can-make-it-work. 
• Absolutely more focus on specific colors where the stash tote lids don't close as well as they should. Gonna have to bite the bullet and attack browns and tans at the minimum. {Whether I want to or not.} Grr.. How oh how to make that seem fun?
• There is still an ever-growing list of applique projects that I'm yearning to dive into. Most are very simplistic with lots of repeats. Yawn.... I don't know why this is so appealing to me, but who cares? If it drives me forward, then I say it's probably worth the effort and needs to happen.
• I don't think there was a single project started from the scrap bin last year. That needs to change. Scrap bin quilts are just too interesting to write off completely. The main thing holding me back is the sheer amount of work involved in the doing.
• The Adhoc. Improv. Quilting party is still ongoing, and in fact, there is a brand new challenge issued for the new year. Definitely one that I intend to dive into, especially as this one pertains to playing with color. Should probably {deliberately} choose a color palette that includes brown...
• As usual around here, squirrel projects tend to beget other squirrels. 2021 will undoubtedly see me continuing on in some form of series work, whether it be playing with the cut-outs from behind my circle quilts or adding appliqued tulips in a slightly different style and shape than used before. Probably gonna see another basket quilt or two, and maybe even another log cabin quilt. The world can always use yet another log cabin quilt, right?
• More hand quilting with perle cotton thread is a given, at least until the outside world settles down into something more 'normal' and truck-loads less stressful. Oh, who's kidding who? I'm gonna hand quilt until my hands give out or I get too old too see. The thing is, I'm not going to worry about trying to push myself into more and more finishes with that faster method of machine quilting. Especially during this particular season of my life. The only time I don't crave snacky things is when my hands are busy with a quilt in the hoop. Can you imagine how large a person I'd be but for this craft? Uh huh. Bet you thought we all got the extra padding from the extra quilting time....

On a different note, after deliberately shedding a few minor responsibilities this past year, I have now allowed myself to be talked into doing a short series of quilt meetings with our church group. We will be making a simple, scrappy, improv. sort of baby {or sm. lap sized} quilt from start to finish, with yours truly as the teacher. Ahhhh... What a muddle that will be. Part of me doesn't want to do this at all. Period. End of story. But the other part of me thinks that it's important for women to have connections. Interactions. Community. Doing that while creating can be enormously nourishing to the body and soul, which obviously, might be a boon after the past two years?

I thought we'd have three or four women at most who were interested, but as of yesterday, we're up to ten.*sigh  All ages and states in life and involving all levels of quilting and/or sewing experience. The only stipulation I made is that everyone need know how to competently sew a straight stitch and be able take care of their own sewing machine issues. Yikes! So far out of my comfort zone with this. Though I'm not 100 percent an introvert, I'm way more of an introvert than an extrovert which makes this feel a little painful. And I personally hate to be told what to do in quilting. How can I 'teach' a method without doing that? So many questions. Am currently trying to walk through the entire quilt project and make notes; emphasis on the basics and trying to leave room for flexibility wherever possible. Wish me luck!

A Little Bit of Applique and A Brand New Completion!

First things first, right? This past week has been for working on the Crazy Daisy blocks. Finally got the petals totally sewn down.*Whew! Thought that might never happen! Then it was time to cut out the flower centers. The bright citrussy greens just hit all the right notes so here they are, sewn onto the flowers by machine. No reason not to sew them raw edge style as the darker brown arches will be hand sewn down directly over the tops.

Crazy Daisy Blocks almost finished up!

Those arches are already cut out and ready to go. Gotta get the prep work done and out of the way to ever make further progress! This was one of those easy peasy phases that got taken care of while I was waiting in the car for my husband one day. We have to drive either 45 minutes or an hour and 15 minutes for most of our business concerns. Easiest to tag along with him occasionally and combine our shopping needs. Honestly, I think he makes me wait on him a whole lot more than vice versa, but as long as I have the applique bag along, it's hard to complain.

Getting the pears ready to stitch to the background...

Just as soon as the petals were finished up on the Crazy Daisy blocks, I jumped right into the pear blocks. I'm not sure where this 'half pear with applique' look came from, but if you get onto Pinterest, there are many examples. This one is probably my fave though it was too much trouble for this particular quilt. This fabric felt very retro and kinda sweet. Probably helped clarify the look that I wanted. Do you follow Campbell Soup Diary Blog?  She just posted about a shiny new pear project on her Instagram. Simply gorgeous! Mine are a bit more pedestrian but probably suits this project better, plus I already had mine prepped and waiting for the needle work. The background fabrics are currently cut out and when the larger pears are finished, I'll be ready to start hand stitching into place. Will need to get the stems and leaves cut out soon too I suppose!

A little bit of hand quilting soothes the soul

Always a bit of hand quilting going on around here most evenings. This quilt seems to be quietly absorbing the #8 and #12 Perle Cotton that I love to use. I've absolutely fell into a comfortable rhythm minus the occasional marking that has to happen. 

As most of you know, this quilt is NOT my original made-up-out-of-my-head pattern. It's called 'Patchwork Garden' by Jan Patek, an older, stand alone pattern that I've had for eons. A quick search on the Internet showed that it's still available here and there for about $12. As usual, I had to change up a few things to make it feel more me and of course, interpret the whole in an interesting color palette. My days of doing the duller primitive vibe are falling further and further behind. Very sweet quilt to spend time with though if you love baskets and flowers. Which I do. So glad the motivation happened in regards to this pattern, it's a winner!

Patina is a true blue finish!

Ah yes. The completed quilt. I am not churning out the finishes quite like normal {this is is only #9 for the year}. In my defense, it's been a busy, distracting year. I finally snuck in the time to finish up the hand work on the binding for 'Patina', its been ready for awhile now. Binding is not at all difficult to do by hand, I just never want to stop once it gets started! This is the second in an intended series of Quarter Log Cabin quilts. Somehow I've never made it past this second effort, but there are plans in the works! Ideas. Dreams. Intended interpretations. There will be more Log Cabin quilts in my future. Just can't resist.

Looking across the quilt

There's something about an improv. style quarter log cabin block that makes quilting seem like the most fun in the whole wide world. From the cutting out and sewing, to the hand quilting, it's such a relaxing way to enjoy our older fabrics. Who cares about the waste? No worries if it doesn't turn out. It's just a free flow of implementation and almost a 'reset' to our creativity. Though the look is a bit utilitarian on its face, it's almost always a cozy quilt look in the end. Love it! In this one, I even managed to include an off-color shirting fabric. Score!

This one looks/feels extra snuggly

I'm ever so glad to see more of these older, tired-green fabric find a lovely home in this quilt. You probably can't even imagine the satisfaction this quilt brings me! Why I even bother is probably a question for many. There was a few years where I was diligently trying to build up the stash. I didn't pay too much attention at first to which colors were bound to end up with a 'stale date'. It didn't even occur to me that it COULD someday be an issue! lol  And apparently there was going to be a lot of green quilts in my future.*sigh  Okay. What's done is done. I'm evidently enjoying the challenge to make something good and sweet with these oldy moldies now. And rest assured, when it's not fun anymore, it will all come crashing to a halt and you won't be bothered by these weird color palettes anymore. ha!

Improv. cut log cabin blocks

Quick follow-up to the stale date fabrics, I'm quite a bit more cautious in my fabric buying these days. Much, much more frugal overall. I buy fabric I LOVE, find useful or am super intrigued by. Most fabric is bought without a single project in mind because I still believe in making projects from the stash. The shopping is spread out waaay farther between than it used to be, and yeah. I spend less and less every year because I can, now that I have a solid base to work with. And... lets not forget that there is an awful lot of stash fabric around here that has been gifted to me through the years. 

The challenge in using it up {or using it at all}, has absolutely changed the way that I approach many ongoing projects. Personally, I think it's a good thing! With the help of Kaja's influence, I'm not even above adding in cut up shirting fabrics. So interesting once you give it a try! Given the opportunity to go back and do it differently, would I? Well of course! Who wouldn't? I'm pretty sure there will always be fabrics that I just wait around too long to use though. That's just the nature of quilting. Too many ideas, not nearly enough time!

Loving this look!

It's a fact that this beautiful 'Patina' quilt would never even have come into being, if not for that annoying, lid-won't-hardly-shut, overflowing green stash tote. Can't/won't regret that for a minute.

Making Time in the Week For the Post is Sometimes the Hardest Part

Well here it is, another go at a baby quilt. After the last disastrous effort, I focused more intensely on gathering a cohesive grouping of fabrics. Something happy and cozy looking and at least a little bit girlish. As the days went by, fabrics were pulled out and other, better fabrics included until the stack had the right vibe.

Blocks for the baby quilt

Since that's where things went wrong last time, I calculated this step to be the most helpful overall. You would think that I {of all people} would never take a good color palette for granted, but hey. We all have our moments! Eventually I reached a spot in my latest hand work frenzy where it became obvious that there needed to be some machine quilting time. For equilibrium. And mixing things up. Okay! Good time to get serious about moving on with the baby quilt! And yeah, it's the strangest thing, but somehow I had lost my confidence with making these quilts for the littles. Everything that I imagined and conjured up just seemed so overblown and complex for the ultimate purpose. 

Starting to consider the fabric in the setting

Finally I managed to get ahold of myself and made the decision to start with a very simple courthouse step {or brick?} block. Just keeping it very basic and see where it leads us. Everything was free cut even though I occasionally used a ruler to avoid the wavy 'hand cut' effect. As you can see I used groups of color for each segment of the blocks, rarely using a repeat. After all the blocks were completed, then I trimmed the width only to the exact same size. 

Making it all work

That gave me a starting place to determine what to do next. As I worked through a period of about three different sessions, I found that it was a simple matter to just 'go with the flow'. First I joined blocks into the longer rows. If I saw that the peachy pink fabrics looked fine in the adjoining areas, then I didn't even bother to try out another option. Decision made, cut the fabric and move along!

Trying to make sure the blocks aren't' an exact
line-up in placement horizontally

As I was working along on this baby quilt, there was also progress being made each evening with the hand quilting on the Patina quilt. The more that I looked at the backing fabric there, the more that I realized some of it needed to go directly into the baby quilt. The green flowers [especially} on the pink print just seemed so perfect for breathing room between the blocks! 

Patina with the binding sewn on by machine,
waiting patiently for the hand stitching time to finish up

Thankfully, I wasn't too far out on the stitching. The push to finish wasn't some herculean task, but just a dedicated effort to make the best use of regular handquilting time. Wallah! It was a finish! And then it was an easy matter to trim all the extras from the backing into long sashing pieces, sewing sections together wherever needed. Yes, some of the trimmings were cut on the horizontal view of the printed fabric and others on the vertical. Does it matter? Altogether, the print worked to pull the blocks into a soft, unified whole. See how it comes off as a great background, helping make those stronger-look blocks 'pop'? Mission accomplished.

Baby quilt top all sewn together, ready for sandwiching 

Even the lighter {fill-in} sections of the lighter peach fabric used at the top and bottom of the quilt were re-used from the backing trim-offs since I often use 2 or 3 fabrics to make up a back. How fun to use up the backing pieces so readily! Really makes my frugal, use-it-up quilter soul want to high five someone.*wink  The only thing that I'm not 100 percent satisfied with, is the very far left sashing strip--its just a little 'off print' and showing lots of solid pink. Overall though, I think this effort can be considered a success. And it restores just a tiny bit of my baby-quilt-making confidence! Will probably try to wait and do the quilting at the same time as the next one in line. It's already late. What difference does another couple weeks make?

Half the Crazy Daisy blocks ready for next phase
of hand stitching

The primary applique project worked on in the last week or so has been Crazy Daisy. It's not a show stopper and in fact, at this stage in the game, it still looks a little sad. I kinda knew that, but it wasn't until a friend stopped by the other day and asked me what I was working on that it really hit home. When I showed her one of the blocks, she had this look. You know the one. It was pretty evident she was trying to figure out how to say something positive and polite, but didn't quite know what to say.... Oh well. You and I both know my quilts are never finished until the binding is put on!

I kept avoiding these blocks until one evening it occurred to me that truly, what I was doing was sabotaging available hand work time. I would take the hand stitching bag into the living room and place it by the couch. Then, you know... I'd have to go check the laundry, pick up in the kitchen, go water the flower pots, etc. etc. until there might be 20-30 minutes left to actually DO something. 

Looking closer at the flower detail and
potential sashing fabric

When that realization finally broke through my consciousness, things got serious. I hate wasting time. My goal was 5 blocks a week and I was waaaay behind. So then I really put my head down until now there are 13 blocks out of 25 ready for the next phase. Whew! So exhausting. But now I can happily do some hand work on the Positive Thinking quilt without any guilt whatsoever. Until next week, which uh... starts tomorrow? Unless I count it as being 3 blocks ahead? Hmmm...

Whatever. There was serious progress made to the point where I could put enough blocks up on the wall to do a quick audition for the side-setting triangle fabric. {The way the flowers are being sewn onto the blcoks pretty much pre-determines the final layout.} Uh huh. This is where it occurred to me that this quilt wasn't going to be happy without sashing. The vague idea I had about just slapping these blocks together and getting a top done lickety-split pretty much crashed and burned. Why do some quilts have to be so demanding? The only fabric/color that made any sense at all is a Tula Pink stripe that was only lacking about 20" from being enough. Of course! You're all going to be shocked, but yes, I ultimately caved and just ordered it online from an Etsy shop. Enough waffling about. When you know, you know.

It turned out that I was also able to get an excellent feel for what needed to happen at the bottom of the flowers too. At least that part was straightforward and almost exactly as imagined! It will most definitely be more of those sharp citrussy greens with a narrow band of the brown/green to help emphasize that it's actually a 'flower'. Super happy about that as I've been wanting to use more of those lately. I'm going to use about 6 of the different greens from the stash, but only that single brown for the narrow arch. That particular print has a lovely, subtle green included which just makes my heart do a little pitter patter of happiness. Love how the quick free-cut arch is so imperfect looking and will probably use it exactly 'as-is' for the final plastic template.

Patchwork Garden ready for the hoop!

Next up for the quilt in the hoop is Patchwork Garden, top all finished up sometime in 2019. All summer long, I was looking forward to getting this one in the hoop and finally, here it is! I totally forgot about taking pictures while it was being sandwiched, so this is 'it', in all its rumpled glory, pinned and ready to go. Things are not always perfectly camera ready around here in case you hadn't already figured that out. I wonder why? 

Alas, the first night of stitching was just wrong. So wrong. I had to pull out all of the stitches and start completely over. The colors, the patterns. Meh! As of last night, I'm finally starting to find the proper groove and rhythm. Always so good to be falling into the sheer enjoyment of being able to sit and happily stitch! 

It's kind of an different color palette for me, not one I've played with much before. Still, I'm having a ball being reintroduced to some favorite fabrics and remembering the many decisions made while putting the top together. I think that's one of the best things about hand quilting, having plenty of time to enjoy the very last moments with a quilt. Unless it's an ugly or unsatisfactory make, then it gets pretty wearisome to have to keep coming back to the hoop!

It's Always a Pleasure to Switch Out the Old Quilt in the Hoop For a New One

This quilt has been in the hoop for longer than any other quilt in years. So very happy to see it finally come to a good finish and give me an excuse to move on to another quilt! It's an AHIQFlowers prompt where I took great liberty in the interpretation of one of those intriguing Unconventional & Unexpected scrap quilts. 

AHIQFlowers quilt finish!

As you can quickly see when looking at the picture of the original quilt, there were no flower shapes involved in the original make. Somehow though, {to me}, the scrappy mess down on the lower right corner of the quilt always vaguely looked like a Lemoyne star. Which, of course, in my quirky brain, is a very short jump to 'flower' shape!

Turned out to be much more interesting than it should have

And so it was. This project looks like a super easy, dump all the fabric out and zip, zip! All sewn up! But no. It actually has to have a bit of balance in all the mumble jumble of scraps.

Loving the soft colors with the gold

I pushed myself quite a lot in order to bring the entire quilt to a successful conclusion. Almost threw up my hands in defeat a time or two, but eventually managed to figure things out one little decision at a time. Improv. is such an exhilarating way to play, but then, also terribly grueling at times. For me, these U&U interpretations provide an excellent framework of where I might want to start. 

And the scrappy, scrappy vibe

Though they never turn out identical, I adore the similar-but-different feeling when it's all said and done. When I can add a whimsical twist that makes it more of a 'me' quilt, then it's all the more satisfying.

This flower still makes me smile!

The colors in the particular quilt were a puzzle. Lots of blues, yellows and pinks in all shades and tones. It almost has a cold feel to the quilt instead of the more usual warm and cozy vibe that I normal shoot for.

Looks like it's ready for snuggling!

I think that's partly why I went ahead and stitched with a heavier hand than I might normally attempt to do. More stitching equals a cozier look if it's not completely overdone. Right?

Just can't resist looking across a well stitched quilt

The backing fabric was a fun pick from the bottom of the languishing stash totes. This old-timey circus print was given to me years and years ago and it was super entertaining to finally find a perfect quilt top to match up with. Every good quilt should make us smile at the end of the day!

All happiness and feelings of victory in conquering the AHIQFlowers quilt aside, I was absolutely thrilled to be moving another quilt into the hoop.*sigh  

Patina getting sandwiched and quilted!

This log cabin quilt is the perfect thing to switch my attention to. No decision making other than which colors the thread needs to be. Get it in the hoop and just start stitching away. I am in LOVE! So very, very peaceful and satisfying to stitch on the improv. log cabin quilts. I really don't know why there isn't a mile high stack of these tops on demand! Something to think about?

Looking so good in the hoop!

On another note, my youngest daughter went and spent the weekend with our granddaughters {and their parents}. She sent me this sweet picture of one of my late quilts hanging out on one of the granddaughters beds! Makes me so happy to see it put to good use!

Loving this quilt on Reagan's bed

And... then there's the clamshell borders that I am finally, finally attempting to figure out how to do. These will be attached to the Positive Thinking quilt. It's another one of those AHIQ challenges that I enjoy playing around with. The center of the quilt has been done since April and I'd pretty much determined that it needed an interesting border.

We'll see if I can do this!

Color us all shocked that it ended up being an 'applique' design! I decided to go with the clamshells because I've loved the look forever and have never managed to work one into a quilt. 'Cuz well... I'm quite terrified of the entire process. Not to mention, simultaneously outraged that there's anything there for me to actually be terrified of. I know, I know. It's all in my mind as I've made lots and lots of swag applique borders. The general idea of the clamshells should not be the least bit intimidating! So... here goes nothing!

p.s. Here's some links to my previous 'Unconventional & Unexpected' by Roderick Kiracofe interpretation quilts if you'd like to take a look.

Comfortably Quirky

Directions From a Local

Lattice Quilt

An Uncertain Crossroads

Ugly Quilt

Quarter Log Cabin Quilts Coming and Going

As usual, I've been hand quilting in the evenings. It's amazing how quickly the meditative stitching always calms me right down. What's that word again? Oh yes, Woosah.....

Quarter Log Cabin #1 in the hoop

Finished up the quilt top for Quarter Log Cabin #2. The current quilt in the hoop was definitely good inspiration and motivation for round two. This was one of those projects where I kept on plugging and powered through until it was all done, very weird for me. The new name is 'Patina'. Not sure why, but that's the word that popped into my head while I was taking pictures.

Quarter Log Cabin #2 {Patina} is a completed quilt top!

Originally, I thought to combine the red with pinks instead of the greens, but it just wasn't working out. There's something about this entire color combination that feels timeless, though I couldn't begin to explain the reasons for that either. My main thought was that I didn't want it to look Christmassy and whatever else it might look, Christmas isn't the first thought that pops in my head while looking. {Mission accomplished.}

Strips were cut improv., free-wheeling style

After making the predetermined amount of blocks {sewn to a min. of 14" and then later another strip added on to ensure a 15" cut}, I suddenly latched onto the idea that the quilt could not be square after all. That left me scrambling to cut more strips in order to make six more log cabin blocks. Does not seem like a lot, but 15"? There's some time involved there, count on it! Making more blocks wasn't a problem though as I loved being able to completely use up some of these fabrics. They are a rather oldy, moldy bunch of fabrics after all, give or take a few prints. Getting them out of the way in such a positive manner is so heart warming. Gives me all the frugal thrills!

Really, really like the pieced side setting triangles...

The off-pink gingham fabric is a cut up button down shirt acquired from a rummage sale years ago. I absolutely adore the homey look it adds to this particular quilt and also, can't help but admire the little bit of 'clash' it adds to the blocks {when you look at the blocks very close-up}. That clash is something that almost always makes me smile as I consider it the secret sauce to a good scrap quilt. Gotta have some squabbling going on for good energy!

So nice to use up some of these older fabrics

As the quilt top neared final quilt top status, I became determined that it needed a floating border of the lighter pinks. Though it's hard to tell, all the very light strips are some very pale shades of pink, there are no whites at all. It seemed like a good idea to extend those tones out into a border and wake them up a bit from where they were so overpowered by other colors. No problem. I'm generally quite willing to spend time on a quilt to makes things better! So I set about cobbling together a pink patchwork set of strips from all the bits and pieces and then....

Glad I didn't sew this border on!

Was completely underwhelmed. What was I thinking? Total waste of time and effort. This quilt does NOT need a border of any kind whatsoever as it dulls it everything down and takes away from the wonderfully graphic look. So now I'm casting about for ideas that would incorporate these currently useless, scrappy strips into another quilt altogether.

The next project? Yes, no, maybe so...

I've scribbled up and/or envisioned several potential designs and even found some fabrics that might play nice. Definitely ready for a change of pace from using the older, tired green prints! If nothing ends up happening here, well, at least I tried. I can just pack the strips away in the orphan block totes and forget about them for now. Wont' be the first time that's ever happened!