Patchwork Doodle Is a Done Deal

Had to keep this one back until it was safely delivered to the birthday girl! My oldest daughter said from the moment she saw this quilt on the wall, 'Mom, this one's mine!' I don't think it even had any leaves on the improv. circles yet, and so honestly, I was a bit dubious.

Got it made just in time!

Not having a clue where the quilt was headed myself, how could she be so certain it was going to turn out to be something special? But she never wavered and in fact, always insisted that the quilt needed words too before it would be properly finished. Being the stubborn sort that I am, those words didn't get added until right at the point when the backing fabric was being figured out.

Patchwork Doodle with the new border work

The quilt just looked sadly out of proportion {not that I would have admitted it at the time of supposed quilt top completion} and seemed to be whining for some extra length. Please, pretty please with sugar on top? Well fine. If I was going to add a border top and bottom of the quilt, it might as well include words too! I considered a lot of different phrases like motivational ones, sweet and sappy, biblical etc. and finally settled on the first words to a Billy Joel song. It's something that I knew she would instantly recognize as it was once her very favorite song. Quilts and smiles always make for a winning combination in my book...

Still crushing on the freestyle circles and applique addition...

I stole some of the backing fabric that I had bought for the quilt and dug up the extra log cabin blocks that never made it into the quilt top. They were a smidge more narrow than the ones along the edges of the quilt, but oh well! Improv. leaves room for variation, right? The dark maroon strip was added for extra emphasis when things started looking a little mushy, the letters were hand drawn and then traced onto the chosen fabric. and all in all, I could just feel the energy in the quilt change for the better. It was a great feeling.

Some quilts are better with a song connection...

Except that I was hiding it from her that it was going to be finished for her birthday--was working in odd little bursts of time. Oh the mistakes I made!*sigh  It never ceases to amaze me that the more I hurry, the more 'oops' that happen. Me and that trusty seam ripper definitely became best friends for awhile. Thankfully this quilt is all about freestyle and improv. and so nothing is perfectly square. A little bit more wonkiness just blends in! Oddly enough, that really did help in just shaking off the irritation of getting the math wrong yet again and moving rapidly back to the point of making good forward progress.

Nothing is square or perfect...

It still feels really incredible to look at this completed quilt. It's so not ME and yet somehow it is. I know that this quilt was started on a whim one day {mostly a bad, don't care sort of mood} and that the color scheme was developed around the vintage yellow/purple/green and orange floral proudly displayed in the center of the quilt. It was a challenge. A big, scary, improv. challenge that felt almost unattainable {and a lot overwhelming}. Yet somehow it all came together anyway. I seriously doubt I would have ever attempted something similar without the perfect storm of events and elements that happened and/or were available for my creative mental purging on that specific day. Basically I had received some of the most shake-up-my-world sort of news that day and needed to get deeply immersed in a quilting project. Pronto.

A different sort of look than the usual!

Gotta love quilting as a therapy tool! It was a rough, very unimpressive start as most of my loyal readers know, but somehow turned out to be one of the most playful quilts I've ever finished. How does that even happen? As you can see, it was quilted very simply and then I added the echo hand quilting around the letters just because I adore the look. A stripped down approach and very little big stitch quilting, a little bit of sweating and a whole lot of wondering if the whole thing was ruined forever. How I dread machine quilting!*ughh  But why bother with a massive hand quilting effort when the fabric and funky patchwork were doing all the heavy lifting?

It's not the The Beatles but I think she loved it anyway....

So now you know what I've been working on for the last couple weeks in and around a bit of hand quilting and other odd bits of sewing you've seen. Just couldn't share it with you in case my daughter decided to check in with my quilting blog as she likes to do every couple months!

 Oh. And that annual church campout thing we do every Memorial Day Weekend for about 20 + years of our life? I loved seeing this quilt below every time I walked inside my camper this past weekend. Made me smile inside. Every. Single. Time. Taking a gorgeous quilt along on a dirty, off-in-the-woods camping trip just feels a bit illogical and well, luxurious! Why not?

Be still my heart....

But it's a lovely, lovely place to camp once we get there and get settled in. Especially when the weather was as good as we had it this year. Not a drop of rain! So many memories being made and now we're making them with the next generation. Loved seeing so many of my nieces and nephews having a blast this weekend doing all the things we did when we were their age.

Nieces and nephews at the high mountain lake

I've said it before and I'll say it again--one of the very best things about our campground is that there is zero cell service. NONE. Bye, bye social media! So what do you think the first thing we do once were back in the land of civilization and have had a proper shower? You're reading it right here in real time..... lol

The Mind Bending Patchwork Doodle

So this is the Improv. project I impulsively dove into back in January. It's score #4 in Sherri Lynn Wood's 'The Improv. Handbook for Modern Quilters', something I am very slowly trying to wade my through, chapter by chapter. Sherri has a lot to say about improv. of course, and one of the things that resonates the most with me is when she says it's important to learn to 'trust our process of self discovery'.

The Patchwork Doodle is a completed quilt top!

The 'Patchwork Doodle' focuses on working with one simple shape at a time and then moving on to another, all without planning beyond the row {or shape} currently being assembled. The idea being that inevitably, we will recognize a theme starting to develop. It's a bit of a mind bender and I confess to having to take lots of breaks with this quilt. This is not a process I feel super comfortable with {understatement of the year!} and yet it's one that I'm sure will help me in my journey to make ever more unique and interesting quilts.

Letting it sit and marinate...

Eventually I got to the point of almost having a firm idea of the end result, but then got hung up on the fact that it was turning out to be square. Not my favorite shape in a quilt and so I experimented with adding more negative space, thinking that would be an easy way to make the quilt longer. I even considered adding in another row of simple shapes. Everything I played with seemed to make the quilt less 'me', more pretentious or forced looking, perhaps even cold looking. Nope! Back to the squared quilt shape and yes, probably a more traditional look. Totally fine by me.

It's a completed quilt top as of late this afternoon and I definitely have some mixed feelings about the final result. On one hand, it feels amazing to reach this point. How did I get here from that odd start on the design wall? I'm guessing the process of 'self discovery'?*wink  Making all those little design decisions along the way really did eventually develop into a theme. Finally! Tough to recognize at first and it felt like I was wandering around in the dark an awful lot. Maybe this will work? Or that? Like I said, lot of breaks and marinating time involved in this project.

Playing with some negative space.

At some point I realized that incorporating applique and even those classic, quarter log cabin blocks into the quilt made all the difference in the world to how the quilt reflects my personality and vision back at me--no matter the new and different colorway used. Letting one design decision inform the next one is not altogether new to me, as most of you know, but this was a slightly different process and one that raised a lot of insecurities. Moving from one simple block to the next one without even the slightest idea of where I was headed, was hard. I had to consciously shut my brain off and just go with the flow of basically whatever popped into my head and whatever fabric felt right in my hand. Trust that no matter the decision made, it wouldn't be a deal breaker. New units could be added to the quilt, cut up and reassembled, or even scrapped, but that decision would not be made until after the sewing was done and even after I had a chance to see how they played with the previous units made.

To be honest, I don't think it would have worked except for the stack of fabric used was something I trusted. Yeah, it was different, but I already had a relationship with it! This may be the main disadvantage to working with prints instead of solids. The fact that you can't just randomly pull some blendy prints in specific color ranges and make something compelling. It takes a interesting stack of fabric to add depth and feeling to a quilt. The adding to or taking out over a period of time {however long that may be} is what creates a mood of sorts. This is the probably the biggest lesson learned since starting to work with improv. If there is a stack of fabric that has a story to tell, then I can more easily trust the design decisions necessary to grow a quilt. This is becoming an increasingly important part of the quilting process to me {no matter the method of implementation}, though maybe not so much to you. We all have our ways!

Draped over the railing

This particular stack included a vintage floral, a recycled mans shirt, various checks and plaids, modern prints, small novelty prints and even some oldish blendy fabrics from years deep in the stash totes. I've been working on expanding my ideas about which prints might play well together, trying to open up to and be braver about partnerships that would have scared me a couple years ago. The colors in this quilt were an odd blend, really a big challenge in lots of ways too, but seemed fascinating and intriguing all the same. Have you noticed that I like challenges? They pulled at me. Made me wonder. Maybe that's why it was easy to push them into an improv. quilt and see what happened.

Being intrigued made it easier to grab fabrics and just start cutting. Oh look! Don't these two fabrics look wonderful together? I took Sherri's advice and used a single cut of fabric for the negative space. Not something you often see in a quilt of mine, but it was necessary for this exercise. It made the quilt more cohesive--put less pressure on the prints to be well behaved!

Loving the bright corners!

Seriously, someday I'm gonna get braver about working with solids, but for now I'm having a ball challenging myself to work with various printed fabrics. Those mixed feelings about my quilt top? How about the way my quilt looks so very different from all the other Patchwork Doodle quilts? They're all wonderful looking with their strong, bold slices of solid fabrics. Why do I always have to march to my own drum? Did I even follow the exercises correctly? Maybe my quilt looks stupid.

One of the Patchwork Doodle quilts in the book.

Oh who cares! Some of the greatest quilts ever made have been completely unique to the world of quilting at the time they were made. The fact that my quilt turned out to be so different looking is actually a good thing. It's personal and unique. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. It means that I'm capable of inserting personal 'style' into a fixed process and not ending up with a carbon copy. It's called creativity. hehe  Believe you me, I'm just beyond relieved that there wasn't a whole pile of fabrics ending up in the garbage.*whew!

A major accomplishment, getting to this stage!

And my daughter has already laid claim to the quilt whenever it gets sandwiched and quilted. Which at this point in time means about two years from now? Hmmm... it seems I've taken another detour from my finish-more-than-I-start goals.....

Finally Some Improv. Progress

It's improv. time of the month again! I have three projects in the works, one of which I showed progress on the other day. It's down to the applique border work for my Improv. Big Basket quilt {made out of strings} and the quilt top probably won't be done till next month. Then I have this wonderful Patchwork Doodle I started back in January {pictured below}.

Starting Patchwork Doodle

It's Sherri Lynn Wood's Score #4 in the Improv. Handbook. A total departure for me color-wise and a complete mind puzzle as well. Sherri recommends improv. piecing various 'rows' of similar blocks and then starting a conversation from there. From everything I've found online {and in the book}, most people start breaking the quilt down from the row layout almost immediately. Other than sewing my two skinny purple and light green rectangle rows together {hiding in the middle behind the funky circle blocks} and then chopping them into bits, I'm still sticking with that initial row presentation thus far.

Starting to find a connection

After I sewed those new bits into longer, narrow columns, then I sandwiched them right between the circle blocks. It's a little more contemporary of a look than I am usually drawn too, but I like how they suddenly give those really skinny dark red strips at the top and bottom of the quilt something to resonate with. Thinking the quilt needed more orange, I found a leftover long strip of orange/white check fabric and then after putting it on the wall, thought, hmm... maybe if I sew some half square triangle blocks? And yep, that was the thing that finally got me feeling a personal connection to the quilt. Me and checks. Checks and me. It's just meant to be! Before that I was not feeling much love, honestly...

But then I had to play with whether or not the hst's needed to be at the top and bottom of the circles and/or if they looked better with a break between? Things like that. And also, it was after the hst's made an appearance that I could have {possibly} been found digging through my applique parts and pieces tote for bits of applique to test out. Something that just sort of happens by spontaneous combustion occasionally around here....

Decisions, decisions.....

Loving the quarter log cabin blocks lurking about the edge of the quilt {probably more than any other element in the entire quilt}, I decided to cut a million strips and make many, many more log cabin blocks. Definitely enough to surround the whole quilt. The rich, saturated look of those blocks seem very needful at this point in the quilts progression. That super, light green background fabric really plays havoc with whole tone of the quilt, plus I'm just not accustomed to working with these particular shades of yellow!

Loving these strips!

Ahh.. comfort zone, where art thou? And of course, I completely went beyond my design wall and had to start pinning finished blocks straight to the hard-as-a-rock sheetrock. Which by the way, is not as easy as it looks. The paint must be made of ceramic or something. I have got to do something about that wall before I lose my mind.

And now I can see the quilt potential more fully...

Anyway, with some strategic cutting and sewing yesterday, I was able to get the middle portion of the quilt ready for applique work. Next up will just be a matter of sewing the rows together and making it all fit together properly. Always fun stuff working with the larger units, but I have a floor and a kitchen table. lol

Ready for applique...

So then, onto the other AHIQ project: the coins. This is something I had drawn up months ago, but could never quite nail down the details of how to get started. When Ann presented the first coin challenge, I thought 'of course!'. In this particular project, I wanted something a little different for my 6"x8" sashing strips--more than just the traditional one-fabric thing. I dithered around for awhile over whether or not it fit in with a true 'coin' idea, but then became convinced that it was okay.

I have several older quilts made out of these same black/brown/gold/red tones, something I used to buy a lot of. It's really been a puzzler to me how to use some of these older fabrics up now that my tastes have changed so very much. Using them as the base of a quilt {here in these fun coin sections} seemed like the perfect solution. After that was finished, it took me almost no time at all to applique the largest piece of my proposed secondary blocks. And that's where I could finally get things up on the wall for a proper look-see.

First Coins audition

Is that secondary block thing timely or what? hehe  But of course, no matter how much I thought this idea would look wonderful in my own imagination, the reality is oft times different. Queue the disappointment. The blue plumes idea is just a bit too fussy. In the pic below, I took off the extra three circles from under the applique piece and stuck one little circle over the top of several others {will not be able to have plumes on the topmost applique blocks so am looking for a solution there as well}.

Playing with some details

It's all just a bit too blah. So disappointing as I was envisioning something serene with an element of cozy, not straight up boring.*sigh  A bit of contrast color might be needed? This madder red print has an energy in the print without being too shockingly different and it definitely pops. I kinda like that.

Trying to find a spark

 And I like this bit of red/cream plaid added as well. It has a folky charm that is always appealing to me. But believe it or not, I never, ever intended for these shapes to present as 'hearts'.  It's almost too much!

Veering off in a different direction

Those heart shapes were supposed to be part of a much larger picture! I decided to take the additional applique thing onto the blue heart blocks one step further, by adding a green leaf. So primitive and country, which I do like, but well, I finally found my limit. Absolutely a NO. Just too cutesy for words. And so now I find myself questioning every bit of it. Time to strip everything down and start over from scratch. Maybe even let things simmer out of sight for a few days.

And finally deciding enough is enough. Time to start over!

The thing is, I have to make a decision about the applique before I actually sew rows together. Any overlap applique sewing becomes very complicated the larger the sewing surface. If the quilt top can be sewn into say, three sections, then it will be much easier to manhandle while I'm doing the applique work! Yep. It's a real conundrum at this point. So glad I sewed the coin sets together though as that's the part I still find very interesting. There is a deep fondness within for make-do piecing that I'm actively trying to find ways to incorporate into new quilting projects. It's a challenge. We'll see what another month of play can produce!

Linking up with:

• Kaja and Ann for AHIQ #20
• and also Linda for Snip, Stitch, Snap and Share because the timing is just too perfect!

A Quilt Top Finish and the Current Improv. Play on the Wall

It's AHIQ time again and I've been stitching and stitching, trying to get Chunky Crossroads to a quilt top finish. I sewed as much of the applique as possible before attaching the borders to to the main part of the quilt. So much easier to deal with these smaller widths of fabric, rather than have huge wadded up balls of quilt top to deal with.

Just a little more work to do...

Hard on the hands holding that much fabric in place and out of the way. Plus it's a risky thing when it comes to keeping track of all those pins {or the needle?} if you're constantly mauling the bulk of the quilt for any length of time! {Still not using glue....} My kids already make a habit of checking the couch cushions before sitting down, but I don't want them to completely avoid the living room. Those late evening visits are just way too interesting to miss out on!

It was a simple matter to come back and applique those smaller sections onto each corner after sewing the lengths of the borders into place by machine. And yes, I measured and cut the borders to proper length before adding the applique, only adding approx. 1/2 " extra length for applique shrinkage. So glad I went ahead and added the fat flower buds too! They add a much needed bit of spark to the green and help cut the effect of the sharp green on that primitive vine.

And we have a completed quilt top!!

I wondered for awhile if the vine was overkill on this particular quilt, but once again, the power of simple applique prevailed. I'm a huge fan, as you no doubt have noticed by now? lol

Looking at Chunky Crossroads before I fold it up to put in the drawers!

It's hard to get a proper representation of this quilt as the light wants to scatter across it, light up the greens until they're almost florescent and bleach the lighter looking fabrics until there's no real print to see. In shadowy light, the quilt gets a moody sort of attitude and starts looking kind of sulky. {In a good way because it's not a pushy teenager.} I love it to pieces.  All during the many, many, many hours of applique stitching {would it never end?}, I didn't once tire of the colors and/or fabrics in the chunky crossroads blocks.

Loving this border

That feels like success! The block 'formula' is from Sujata Shah's 'wonderful Cultural Fusion' book and the border design is adapted from one I found in an oldish book called  'Mad About Folk Art' by Gerry Kimmel.

On another note, I've barely touched my Patchwork Doodle quilt. Added a few half log cabin blocks and played with some improv. circles. The funny thing is, my oldest daughter has already claimed this quilt as her own. Hello? It's not even finished! I literally have no idea where it's going, what it will look like or shhh... have any confidence in the general outcome.... {Wouldn't want to discourage the quilt from blossoming.}

Patchwork Doodle

No matter. This is the one she thinks is really cool and since I'm mom, she's quite positive it will have a happy finish-up sort of ending.*sigh  No pressure! Ahhh... My brain is so fatigued these days from attacking the end of the year bookwork. All I want to do after dinner is curl up on the couch with some mindless hand stitching or hand quilting--soothe away those tension headaches. Maybe by next month's AHIQ I'll be able to see it more clearly and know how to go forward. No harm letting it hang out on the design wall for now!

A New Day, A New Score

Got the initial top put together for the Improv. Pinwheels, which, incidentally, seemed to have turned into wheels. Now it's getting an opportunity to simmer while I decide what the border will look like. Not quite ready to stop with this one as it doesn't feel finished yet.

Improv. Pinwheels

Also, yesterday saw me diving into another Improv. project. And right after I was so determined to get three other on-going projects up to a quilt top stage first!*sigh  It was one of those days. Put a kaleidoscope to your eyes, turn just a tiny bit and wallah, your whole viewpoint is changed. Yesterday was one of those humdinger of a days where 'what I thought' wasn't quite my reality any longer. Oh the joys of belonging to a large, fairly close-knit family. Things happen because well, there's a bunch of us.

Score #4--Patchwork Doodle

Which doesn't mean we have any control over any of it, except perhaps for our reaction. So to settle my jittery, out-of-sync self, I impulsively decided to turn to improv. work. After first buying Sherri Lynn Wood's 'The Improv. Handbook', the intent was to slowly work myself through all of her scores, one by one. Thus far I have only attempted two of Score #1 'floating squares' and numerous tries with Score #2 'strings'. The strings of course have been my favorite and where I have gladly stalled out for several months. A place I'm sure to return to because of how immensely satisfying they are to work with.

Anyhoo! About yesterday. Opening the book, I flipped past Score #3 'round robin' {don't have quilting partners to work thru that at the moment} and ventured straight into Score #4 'patchwork doodle', a score I've had serious doubts about the validity of. What's the point of playing with lots of different units in the same quilt. Chaos? The title to that particular chapter is 'Letting Go of Expectation' which yeah, completely appealed to my current frame of mind.

The strangely intriguing vintage fabric....

I took a second to think and then grabbed a stack of odd fabrics sitting on the back of the counter.  A smallish chunk of vintage, picnic style fabric {bought at a quilt show a couple years ago} had been luring random bits and pieces over there for months now. Strange color combination to be sure, but I've been kinda intrigued with the novelty of it. Why not play instead of carefully plan out? See where it might lead?

The neutral fabric being used here is a really light green fabric that doesn't want to photograph very well, but I think it will do the job as negative space. As uninspired as the initial results were, I didn't really care. Honestly. I just needed to cut and sew. No rulers, no plan beyond one unit at a time--no precision or serious forethought. Two improv. rows at a time {one repeated unit at a time} and eventually I reached a point where a subtle adjustment on the design board gave me something to be interested in. Instead of placing the rows together in sets, right now the intent is to move outward from the middle, mirroring unit rows top and bottom. It's starting to, well...., turn into a plan of sorts? Ha! Only up to and as far as sewing the next set of units! The one thing we quickly learn about improv. is that the outcome is very fluid. And that's okay.

Being in a mood really helped bring about instinctive decision making, something I've noticed {after the fact} two other times in my quilting life. When I don't actually care, it becomes a gut reaction, something a bit more primal. The thing is, if I were really awake on all fronts, I would have quit after the first unit results and probably tossed it all in the trash, emptied all the fabric pieces back into the proper totes, {what was I thinking!!} and promptly turned to another, much prettier project. Being on auto-pilot definitely got me over the hump of feeling queasy about design decisions and yes, firmly up to the point of considered thought and contemplation. Hmmm.... What do we have here?

I'm so glad to have fabric as a calming effect, working it's magic and smoothing out the rougher edges of life. Gotta say, in hindsight, yesterday is nothing that's going to change the course of my life or my love for anybody--one way or the other.