A String Quilt Finish and Some Fabric Love

I can't believe it's already Halloween! What a year this has been. Tonight we've only had one family trick-or-treating. Between the Covid thing and the city trunk-or-treats, there's just not very many kids out doing the rounds.

String quilt

I wanted to show the latest quilt finish around here before getting buried in next weeks busyness. This was a string quilt started from Lori's December 2018 Stringalong. 

The full view

All the strings were pulled directly from the scrapbin and of course, I couldn't resist the charm of ensuring most were sewn in a slightly wonky fashion. It's such an old fashioned utility look, why not take advantage of the wonderful energy it creates?  I know you're going to be shocked when I admit to already wanting to make yet another one. If only foundation piecing wasn't so annoying at the tear-the-paper-off stage!

Love the off-grain, wonky strings

The quilt is hand quilted with Perle cotton thread across every string and then in a basic grid otherwise. I worried that there wasn't enough hand quilting to give good texture, but after it was washed up, decided there was plenty. I have a suspicion that this quilt would only look better with more hand stitching, but who has that kind of time?

So much fun to hand quilt these bits of fabric!

In fact, the latest {current} quilt in the hoop just cost me two or three extra days as I discovered a big 'oops' in thread color last night. At first I thought to ignore it, but then remembered that the wrong thread used was the very last ball in that particular color. Uggh. So yeah. Last night was spent unpicking the previous nights hand quilting. Normally I would just wing it and figure out something else when I got to the end of whatever ball of thread ran short. On this one, I really, really needed a specific color for emphasizing the applique. Or at least I thought it was needed. Whatever. The end result is wasted time and effort and now, starting over. Yippee skippee.

An unexpected addition to the stash

This week was a good one in that I finally, finally got all of the paperwork caught up in the home office! This is a huge deal for me. I hate being so far behind! It was kind of crazy, 'cuz I was feeling almost hysterical with giddiness and pure relief and then, the very next day, just sort of deflated down to feeling sort of numb. After poking around in the quilt room for a bit, I went ahead and started in on the baby quilt that I was contemplating last week. Didn't get very far at all when I received a phone call about picking up some fabric that someone close to me had recently asked about. They were getting rid of all of their quilting fabric, was I interested? Umm... How about a resounding YES!

There were four kitchen bags full {or mostly full} and surprisingly, I ended up keeping about three fourths of it! Honestly, though I love going through it, I don't think I've ever kept close to half of anything people have ever sent my way! The newest fabric was maybe 5 years old and most are about 8-12 years old with a few pieces slightly older. Since this was someone's entire stash, it was fascinating to see that there were only 4 pieces of purple, a very tiny stack of red and mostly light blues versus the deeper shades. Lots and lots of pink, greens, soft yellows and browns plus a bit of mellow oranges, muted blacks and creams, not white. One of the best parts is that I found enough yardage for backing for 6 of my quilt tops and most of what I need for a 7th top too! Maybe not perfect, but very, very nice for the price! Overall, there was a good lot of fabric that I knew would slip quite seamlessly into my stash. Most of you know that this is the sort of thing that I thrive on, getting the opportunity to use all these challenging, interesting bits that perhaps I never would have even thought to buy for myself!

As some of you know, after doing the Marie Kondo quilt room thing a year or two ago, I determined to keep my stash to the current amount of totes {maximum}. Basically it was a personal goal of trying to dig deep into the stash and get more creative. Plus, I was running out of room. Currently I have 9 large totes {18-20 gal ea.} and 6 med {10 gal.} totes. Not that all the totes are completely full, but that should be enough fabric, right? Riiiighhhttt.....  

So yeah. I've been doing really well--until a couple days ago! I've not been buying a lot of extra fabric with the result that, more and more, the lids are fitting on all the totes much, much better these days.*sigh After a couple days of sorting and washing all the new-to-me fabrics, I had zero choice but to sort through my own totes. Zero! There is simply no more room in the quilting areas for more totes! And no matter how much my husband tempted me with getting a couple new ones, I decided to just try and hold the line. Time to sort through my own fabric stash and see what and where the new stuff could be easily added in.

In the end, what made the most sense was to simply reorganize how I stash each and every color. And in order to do that, I basically had to dump the totes one by one and start over. For instance, there used to be a large tote for dark blue fabrics and a medium tote for med-light blue fabrics. Now I have the med-dark blue fabrics in the large tote and only the very light blue fabrics in the smaller tote, all because I seem to have a preponderance of light blue fabrics. Now, instead of one large tote of all my browns,  I now have a large tote for med-dark brown fabrics and then another large tote for light brown fabrics PLUS what used to be considered the darker cream fabrics and also, what I suppose would be called tan? Those used to be included in the yellow tote. It's all very confusing, except really, it's not. The whole purpose was to make room for all the newish fabric that I super, duper wanted to keep.

I did toss a few pieces here and there of my current stash, just to make proper room and ensure that the lids will still properly stay on and keep all the bright sunlight out. No cheating there, even though I almost let one medium tote of light pink fabrics spill completely over. It was so hard to figure out what to get rid of! And obviously, I made sure to remove all the larger backing fabrics first! No reason why they can't be stored with the specific quilt tops they are destined to be matched up with in the future.  

Now I just need to get rid of one fullish kitchen garbage bag of random discarded fabrics. Really great way to wrap up the roller-coaster week though. Couldn't have planned anything better! I will admit to sending a text and offering to hand quilt one of this gals quilt tops too. Just as a way of saying 'Thanks, this was so much fun'! Crossing my fingers next week will include plenty of time to get caught up on my blog reading. I've been having to stay off the computer a little bit more in order to not lose precious time everywhere else...

Love Seeing the Abandoned Bits Come Together

So the Scrapbin Improv. {Wing and a Prayer} quilt top is completed. It ended up being 51" x 57" after I decided to throw on the black print border.

Scrapbin Improv. quilt top is finished

That's barely up to a size that seems properly useful, but I had started running out of anything except itty bitty pieces. Ughh.. Not in the mood to work with those right now at all!

Just trying to see what can be done with the scrappy bits...

The black border is the remains of leftover strips cut off from a backing on some other quilt. Love that it carried on the use-it-up mentality of this particular effort! I'm thinking these were good colors/fabric to use for my first time attempting this style of freewheeling scrapbin sort of quilt. All the bright, happy colors just seemed more than ready to match up to each other with little to no fuss. Eventually I hope to try something similar in a much more subtle or muted colorway. This may be the start of another series, we shall see...

Love all the different pieces that ended up being included

On another note, the last three weeks have been brutal. When I posted last, I was just finishing up with a nasty flu and then promptly relapsed. Probably because I've been having to take care of my husband who had the flu, recovered, worked one day and then started having other health problems. He isn't always a particularly healthy person and has some ongoing issues which this flu has seemed to exacerbate. February has been going by in a blur of coughing, hacking, tending, and oh yes, little pockets of hand work. Not getting a lot accomplished in the quilting room, but it sure feels good to have a needle in my hand elsewhere. So very grateful for a well stocked hand work bag! We are definitely on the mend finally, but I just cannot find time to connect better. Will return when things settle down...

Always Trying to Get it Figured Out

Why are you even here? Didn't you know blogging was dead? hehe Don't you just love the people who write a post after being gone for 9 months, tell us how wonderful the blogging community is and how they're recommitting? Then after another post or two they disappear forever. We're like, 'Hey, come back here! We love you!'. But it's no use, they're off over at Instagram scooping up the 'likes'.

Autumnal Tulips quilt

It does seem easier, prettier, and wowsers, so much less time consuming as per the posting. Oh well, you're probably stuck with me at Blogger for the long haul. Just too much to say! And after all, every new quilt has a story behind it, right? It doesn't make sense to wordy people like me to show off the latest fantabulous completion without giving you at least a tiny glimpse of the back story. I am dreadfully sorry for all the problems some people have experienced in trying to comment here. Have done a lot of research to fix things on my end and it appears that we're at an impasse until Blogger addresses the third party cookie issue. Basically you have to allow for cookies when commenting on a site that has threaded comments {such as mine}, and some people just don't want to do that. Or their favorite browser doesn't let them. That's okay, perfectly understandable, but I'm not moving to a site where I have to pay a monthly or yearly fee either. So yeah. Kinda stuck.

I've mentioned before about how strange it is that a bright, shiny quilt idea can occasionally, 'instantly' morph into brand new quilt start. That's what happened here with a previously unintended quilt just this past October. I think it was entirely unintended, but now I have to wonder. It all sort of fell into place so quickly! Captivated by a thought, surprisingly willing to be lead off on a tangent {so shocking}, and then, all of a sudden, there I was, cutting out the parts and pieces to an applique flower quilt. All because I fell in love with the word 'Autumnal'.

A close-up of the blocks

Of course it wasn't quite that simplistic, but you know how it is when a very vague idea, {one that's been hanging around in the shadows of our subconscious}, suddenly steps forward and demands some attention. Of course it had to be tulips, because that's my fave flower for applique. Will I ever truly have enough tulip quilts made to satisfy? Or basket quilts? The mind boggles. So many potential variations!

A finished quilt top!

And now the quilt top is finished up. Just had to plow thorough 30 blocks of applique. Why so many? I seemed to have this yearning for an old fashioned, antique-look vibe. Something like what you'd expect Lucy to take a picture of. Or make. Which means I'll probably have to do an enormous amount of hand quilting too, but we'll leave that thought for another day....

The flowers are all placed just a little wonky and it's only now that I wish that some of the flowers had been made to lean left as opposed to an enthusiastic placement of right leaning flowers. Why did that not happen? And no, we are decidedly NOT talking about politics here, but only sweet looking flowers. The leaf shapes are a tiny bit different per color, but of course the stitching there is very 'eye-balled' and organic. Did not do any of them absolutely identical. And I never, ever use a placement diagrams if a reason can be conjured up to eliminate the need. In this case, I would have had to draw up one of those fussy diagrams from scratch and honestly, I couldn't be bothered. No regrets!

Loving this simple quilt so much...

It was tough to determine the little connector square color between the sashing strips. I originally thought to use navy there. Everything auditioned looked pretty dull though, or took way from the tranquil look of the quilt and created a spotty effect. In the end I kept coming back to a fabric that was a touch deeper than the lighter gold flowers, and a lot happier {brighter} looking than the stems. Not perfect, but available in the stash. Whatever shade it ended up being, the main thing was that it not compete in any way with the flowers.

Crossing another off the list!

People often want to know about the original inspiration. Well.... here it is. A shirt worn {during the fall usually} underneath my sweaters. These flowers are a bit too chaotic to reproduce in a quilt setting, but the colors always sort of melt me. It felt like a fantastic piece of inspiration to pull the likely quilt colors from. Looking at it now, it seems obvious that there should have been more of an effort to use a sharper cheddar color as well. Mostly I was bogged down in trying to decipher the true oranges. Oh no, do I really have to use that color? Up close, some of them are almost ugly looking, but combined with the whole, give the entire color range something important. It was also from intense study of this particular floral print shirt that I came to the decision to keep all {or most} of the fabrics to a solid or very low key print. Not sure how important that was in the overall scheme of things, but for sure, it was interesting. Very nice change-up in how I normally do things and one that I will no doubt return to again in the future.

The color inspiration

Of course, I went immediately to an old book of mine, 'The Collectors Dictionary of Quilt Names and Patterns' by Yvonne M. Khin to find a likely pattern. There wasn't anything that struck my fancy right off, but after cruising Pinterest for awhile, I came back and found this middle block 'Four Tulips'. Though I didn't want the four-block look, it gave me something to start with in drawing up my own design.  

And that's how this particular tulip quilt came to be. Is there too many tulip blocks after all? My quilts usually end up with 20 blocks instead of 30, but these are 8" finished. That seemed like a better size for these blocks. Maybe it should have some sort of border, but for now I'm pleased with the simple floating frame. It feels finished.

A great quilting resource...

Also back in October, I went a little crazy and dumped out one of my scrap bin baskets. Now is a season for 'finishing' but back in the fall, apparently it was a season for chasing squirrels! I didn't dump the basket to sort everything by color and put away. No, I did it to play with all the bits and pieces. Somehow the current U&U quilt on the wall, also known as the AHIQFlowers quilt, made me think of opportunities. It was like the maker of the original quilt had dumped out her very own scrap bin and well, had a play. Like I did that very evening. Initially I just sorted fabrics that looked interesting together and grouped them into similar size piles. Then I ironed and sorted into stacks of squares, strips etc., slowly developing a more focused color palette, all the while cutting and trimming. Basically trying not to get too fixated on what the final result might end up being, and just letting the subconscious do its thing.

The start of something

On a whim, I sewed groupings of similar sized strips together and then sewed a setting of rectangles together, similar to what was in the U&U quilt. Having absolutely no idea where any of this was going, but still, somehow determined not to let this seed of an idea slip away. It was a very fragile idea indeed. The next day I impulsively sew a few 'plus' blocks together and then after several days of nothing, no ideas, nada, zip!, stacked it all up and put it away in a tote to simmer well out of the way.

Trying to figure out where to go from the middle

These sorts of Improv. quilts have always seemed the most impossible to me. How to know what length to cut the strips and if/when it was time to add a different element perhaps? How to control the chaos and make something cohesive? Working on the AHIQFlower challenge quilt {that U&U quilt again}, plus watching Kaja  for years, puzzling out her bits and pieces until she ends up with a masterpiece, had finally given me just enough courage {and insight?} to want to try my own version.

Taking pieces out and trying to puzzle them back in....

After letting it simmer for a couple months! I pulled the project out of the shelves and fondled the fabrics just a bit. Yes, I actually did think they all belonged together in the same quilt! I spent a tiny bit of time dithering over which piece to start with, and then, in total exasperation, just grabbed a length of sewn strips and slapped it on the wall. There. That's the starting place! And then I started placing different fabrics and/or sewn units around it until something eventually clicked. Okay, that looks fine. Maybe this is better? Then I did more. And more, until ending up with the first smaller pieced unit {See the very first Improv. picture above}.*Whew! That wasn't so bad!

A Wing and a Prayer Improv. quilt in the making.

The next day I found time to play a little more, focusing on the area below the initial, squarish pieced unit. It was at this time that I determined that everything was going to work better if I had something to focus on 'balancing' throughout the quilt. Otherwise, I might end up moving fabric around forever and getting absolutely nowhere!

You might think totally different than me, but when working on Random Sampler, Orphan block or these Everything-but-the-kitchen-sink sort of quilts, it helps tremendously to have a base plan. Are the pieces divisible by the same number? That can work, but no, not here. Are the colors working in a very narrow repeat? No, not at all. Is it a copy or a specific look that I'm aiming for? No, no such reference. Okay. How to get unstuck? I mean that seriously. Though just starting the quilt, my brain was already spinning in circles, considering a million directions to go! Nothing concrete you understand, but still, the possibilities seemed rather endless. So confusing. After pondering the initial pieced unit on the wall, I decided that I really, really liked the 'plus' blocks. Out of everything, they spoke to me. How about making more as the underlying theme and using that as a pathway forward? And just that easily, 'The Plan' was formed and I was ready to play again.

Not that it's all come easily. That would be ridiculous! I'm still in the learn-as-you-go stage for sure. But now the entire left side {14" wide} is sewn together now and also the centerpiece {16 1/4"} down to within about 7" from the bottom. None of the right side is sewn as yet. I'm having to partial piece here and there, but not too much as I try to avoid having to do that. Because it's being done in the Improv. method, I am definitely sewing and trimming without regard to measuring. Just making sure the outside width of each larger unit is a set number works fine. That set number becomes fixed only when I particularly like a small part of the much larger unit and say, 'Okay, that particular area doesn't need to be any wider!' So simple!

I can see a couple clunky areas in the larger piece as I look at the last picture, but we'll see if I opt to pick anything apart. The right side is of course, very fluid, as things will change marginally when the seam allowance starts to come into play. Though parts and pieces are overlapped to take into account that seam, it never ends up being totally accurate until sewn on the machine.

So far I'm having a great time playing with my own scrap bin pieces and hope to get comfortable enough to try again at a later date. I greatly admire quilters such as Kaja who have a way of making this all look very easy peasy! So gifted!  I've tried cutting all the scrap fabric down to uniform widths and lengths etc. in the past, but always end up getting burnt out on the sheer time involved. This way takes a short amount of time ironing, sorting, simple piecing, {perhaps longer amount of time simmering if you're me!}, and then it's time to play!

Another interesting thing about this quilt is that it seems to be turning into my own version of a quilt that I've long wondered about making. Never quite found enough oomph to get going on though!  Nancy made this great looking 'Primitive Crosses' quilt that caught my eye years and years ago. I've pondered and pondered making it, but always felt like it was bit more 'mourning' than what I was perhaps comfortable with at this time in my life. My Improv. attempt doesn't have cross blocks like her quilt, but the plus blocks remind me of them somewhat, somehow? It's vague I know, but connections? Quilters have some odd ones for sure! Lots of stuff going on in our life presently that require deep thinking, and I do try to be a prayerful person. For now, I'm calling this my 'Wing and a Prayer' quilt. It remains to be seen if there will also be a bird included.*wink

What's on the Wall {and Floor} Today

Sometimes I don't even know where to start, how to walk you through to where my quilting is at this current moment. It's kinda a mess really, but hopefully more of a 'creative' mess than an ugly sort of mess that we'd all probably turn up our noses at. After getting two other projects up to completed quilt top stage, it seemed like a perfect time to dive head first into this U&U interpretation project.

The very beginning of the  Interpretation quilt

This fabric has been all stacked up and ready for play since August, but somehow the 'right time' never came along. It's one of those projects where I'm really excited to see how it works out, but kinda scared too. Interpretation is never as easy as it might seem! Finally the time came where I was ready, the project was ready and hallelujah! There was actually available hours in the day!!

Making things easy

It helps so much to have the fabric pre-selected, especially when the color palette is a bit outside of my normal comfort zone. Wading through all the stash totes for one specific color or shade can be a total time suck too. The pre-sort gives me options, value changes, and limitations too. Okay, here's the best choices. If all else fails, my fall back will definitely be scouring through the stash totes once again, but it would be great if I never have to.

I started everything with the larger floral rectangle, mostly because I was absolutely determined to put that piece of fabric into this specific quilt. It's got an old fashioned charm to it that is important to me as it pertains to 'shaping' the look and feel of the entire quilt. Does that make sense?  The size cut for that rectangle determines every other measurement from here on out. Can you believe that? Better make it right the first time, 'cuz that's almost all there is!

Will this work? Or that? 

Some areas are measured out, others are 'eye-balled'. There's a little bit of free-cutting and a lot of rotary cutting. Everything is cut out and placed based on proportion of what it rests directly next too. A little bit above or below? Wider? Longer? Though I adore the rambling, curvy, rough cut look of the original, it just wasn't going to work for me to work without any boundaries whatsoever. I am absolutely NOT a perfectionist anymore, but my quilts do need to lay flat and mostly square.

Always auditioning

Will it ruin the look and feel of the quilt if things are trimmed and tidied up? I am crossing my fingers it won't. Maybe crossing more than two fingers. I just don't know. That's just something you have to 'see' and that requires a little bit of effort first! I'm hoping the quilt will finish up somewhere in the range of a good sized lap quilt, but who knows. Though I tried to start with a reasonable estimate of 'if this column is 3" then that will make the quilt X amount of inches across', it's still just all guess work. Knowing me, it might need scrappy borders or something later on to finish out a decent size. We'll cross that bridge when we get there.

The first big chunk of the quilt is done now

There was a certain point where I was spending way too much time thinking about how the original improv. piece came to be. Doesn't it look like someone upended their scrap basket and just started sewing? So of course that's exactly what I did! Ditched the current project and started in on yet another. Why not? It was definitely time for a break from the color palette if nothing else! After all the sorting that was done last summer, all the new scrap pieces have been thrown into a smaller basket. The idea being that eventually they too would be sorted and dumped into the 'proper' color totes. Uh huh.

Playing with the scrap bin

I happily spent one whole evening sorting out all the scraps that looked like they might play nicely together. Yes I did. And it was great fun! A few things were sewn together impulsively, but most of the time was spent ironing and sorting into similar size units. I don't have a clue where this project will end up, but it sure was great to imagine. How ironic that this one nights play would never have even taken place except for working on {and needing a break from} the Interpretation quilt! For now it's taking up important real estate on the floor, right where I normally walk through. I am determined not to clean things up until enough work is done on it that it will not be unceremoniously tossed back into the scrap bin basket. There's just something about this project that feels.... interesting? Worthwhile? Important?

All ready for binding!

And then there's the little fall table runner which was fun to sew on initially, but since has not fired me up at all. Last night saw me putting the last bit of hand stitching in and so now, it's ready for binding! Which is good because the gift date is rapidly approaching.

The start of the Autumnal Tulip block applique

And it might not look like much, but all thirty {yes, I said THIRTY} of the tulip block stems are sewn into place now. I keep getting derailed or I'm sure there would be many, many of the tulip flower parts stitched down as well. They are just that simple and straightforward. Oh well. It's all good times, I guess it doesn't really matter what gets the attention so long as my fingers are busy stitching...

All Finished With the String Blocks

Here they are, those string blocks that I almost gave up on doing. While I love and adore quilts made out of the scrap bin, there's just something about the process that requires a certain mood.

String blocks

In this case, it was a desire to bury my head in some well loved fabrics, not have to make a lot of decisions and just chain piece myself into a place of serenity. Or calmness. I don't think there's ever really any true serenity when doing foundation piecing! It worked pretty well right up to the point where I had to high step, jump or practically crawl over the messy little totes of spilling scraps just to get out of the quilt room. And we're ignoring all the bits and pieces of trim-offs scattered all over the floor everywhere. Wowsers! Oh yes we are! The string blocks are completely done though. All 56 of them! After working on them in fits and starts for two days, I went back upstairs last night and powered through the last 19 blocks. Didn't want to push them off for another couple months once again.

Thanks to Kyle for mentioning that she's been a 'sewing maniac' lately. She blew out her wonderful 'Burgoyne Surrounded' quilt top in just days! While I was sewing on my string blocks, her words would resonate with me and inspire me to push through {I don't like foundation piecing at all, though I love the finished product}.

I can also thank Julie for helping to inspire me too. Her blocks have been popping up on a daily basis and though I couldn't even image wanting to make one of these a day, it forced me to consider my languishing project. Like, really deeply consider it! Did I want to have this string quilt or not, 'cuz it wasn't getting anywhere all by itself? lol  

Linking up to Lori's Stringalong. Without this particular QAL, I probably would have never even started this quilt! Next up will be to trim up these blocks and then decide on the ever-other-block fabric that are needed to continue. Or if I want to make the quilt larger and make more blocks. Or if I want to add applique. Or a border. Or any one of the myriad of decisions that I love to torture myself with. Totally kidding! With the foundation piecing behind me, the torture part is OVER....

Lots of Things Going On This Month

What have I been up to? Oh the list is so very long! For one thing thing, at the prompting of Ann, I attempted to clean up my blog. That resulted in having to eliminate a few widgets that I rather liked, such as 'LinkWithin', thumbnails at the bottom of each post to previous, but similar subject matter. I don't understand a lot of it, but don't want people to feel unsafe coming to my site.

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The Big Woven Basket quilt in the hoop....

I cleaned up some of the clutter, deciding to keep the 'Current Quilt in the Hoop' at the top of the sidebar. You've probably seen the progression of hand quilting projects there for years and years now. The latest quilt in the hoop happens to be 'Big Woven Basket'. It was one of those improv. projects that also sort of jumped into my Big Basket quilt series. I really love this one so was happy to get this one sandwiched and snug in the hoop awaiting quilting efforts.

Getting it ready for quilting

The hand quilting has been really sporadic on this one though, not an every night sort of thing like I expected. Sometimes I want to hand quilt so badly that's all the quilting that happens of an evening, but with other quilts, it's a different story. I've discovered that it's usually a stitching dilemma most of the time. Decisions, decision! If I can just push through, then it all gets sorted out and I'm back in the groove of wanting to stitch again.With a quilt like this, I often tend to get paralyzed at the thought of 'what' to stitch in those wide open borders. Stencils are just not my thing, so it can take me awhile to make up my mind how to address all that yawning emptiness. It's scary. That's where people can more readily see the stitching...

Always trying to figure out the game plan for stitching!

Being a new year, I've also been diligently trying to trim down the open ended quilt project list. How can I start all these new projects tantalizing me if I have oodles of old projects demanding my time and attention? One of the things that help to make certain projects drag on for so long is the addition of applique. Which is totally fine by me. There are always at least two or three {or more} projects that need applique attention around here and that is completely by design!

Quarter Circles sewn together

Eventually they all need some piecing work done on the machine though. This particular project was started with the leftover quarter circles cut from the back of another project. Rather than throwing them away, I saved them for a rainy day. In my original thinking, these blocks {after the spiky bits were added}, would have been left in the quarter circle presentation and simple joined together in rows. Then sometime during layout auditions, I absolutely fell in love with the look of four quarter circle blocks being joined together and making a sort of 'sun'.

Initial block layout

Okay. So off in that direction we went, having a grand old time. The reality was, unfortunately, that I wasn't truly happy with so much lightness glaring out at from what had become a busy, busy quilt. I played with all sorts of colors and ideas for sashing , alternate blocks,and/or applique in the centers. Finally, I settled on a cream/gray text fabric for the sashing and a basic dark fabric for the cornerstone squares. The text fabric was a last ditch effort to find something, anything and it worked because it adds whimsy, which I love. The center of the larger blocks took quite a bit more time and effort and in the end I just had to sleep on the idea one more night. The final solution just seemed way too easy, which always makes me nervous for some inexplicable reason.

Looking at the applique centers

Can you see that the circle applique is all the same fabric? The pink with white print really did the trick for me. And it's not a great fabric, just a basic two toned floral print! What's funny is that I pulled it directly out of the scrap bin totes, all that was left from the backing fabric on another quilt! Nothing else even came close to giving the feel that I was looking for. Okay then. All the circles were rough cut in different sizes and deliberately placed slightly off center. It's a really subtle thing from a distance, but really gives excellent feel-good vibes. Well, to those of us who like that sort of imperfection....

At least one thing about this project has remained constant from the beginning! Back in 2017, I saw a picture over at Kankerdoodle blog. At that moment, I knew the antique crows would be making their way into a quilt of mine at at later date! Isn't it funny the things that set off a spark of inspiration? I've been fiddling around with the parts and pieces, trying to expand the graphic out to a longer border look. Still have to get the bias stem sewn up of course, but I'm almost at the point of being able to situate the pieces and get them ready for the applique stitching.

Playing with the applique border parts and pieces for antique crows border

And last but not least has been the quilt room re-organization, de-clutter attempt. It started when I took an afternoon and pulled out a few small totes worth of scraps, thinking to use them in my string quilt blocks. The impulse was very strong to get rid of all the rest of the scraps--just toss them into the dumpster!

The larger scrap re-organization attempt....

Being a frugal soul, I resisted and delayed, thinking there had to be a better solution. Then one evening I read through Cheryl's 'KonMari Your Sewing Room Space'. I've heard lots about the book and recent show, but am not much of a trend follower honestly! Cheryl's blog though, is something I generally read. This post was very timely for me as it hit on several of the key things I had been struggling with. 

Getting things organized....

Although I do keep things fairly tidy {else I couldn't ever even function properly}, the scrap bin for sure had gotten completely out of control, my love of quilting books were crowding into every corner of my space and entirely too much 'stuff' had resulted in yes, a feeling of being flooded and overwhelmed.  Cheryl made the case that , 'We are sewers and quilters, arguably everything we have for creating sparks joy - eventually.'  That really made me think. She gets it, us, the whole creators extraordinaire! Maybe I should pay attention and see how it could apply to my lovely mess.

She started from a different angle altogether, and broke things down into simple categories. Then she lined out a plan of attack in a direct and no-nonsense way that totally made sense to me. And part of the good timing was that it happened during those days while I had such a bad head cold so didn't feel like doing much else. Otherwise, I might never have done anything but read through the post and think 'what a good idea that is, maybe I'll get to it sometime later in the year...'

The wall of totes between my sewing room
and my sons bedroom....

It took three very long days, but I went through every single drawer, tote and shelf except for the stash fabric itself. In the end, I tossed out three black garbage bags full of stuff and kept back one box of quilting books, patterns, blocks etc. to give to some quilting friends. I organized ALL of the scraps by color and put them into totes--something I've always scoffed at before. If they don't see a whole lot more use by being organized in this manner, then the goal is to eventually start tossing certain un-used colors at the time of cutting. I keep all the stash fabrics in opaque totes so that the sun doesn't bleach them, but the scraps were put into see-through totes. Hopefully this way they will catch my eye on occasion and inspire me to do a little bit of string play or whatever. It just feels weird to keep so many scraps, but I could NOT ditch them all, though I did dump more than you realize. Part of one black garbage bag was filled with scrap fabric. That's a start!

My quilting space feels so much better now. It's been needing this for several years now. I was brutal in throwing/giving away things that hadn't been looked at for a very long time {other than the scraps}. The books are down to two shelves and a small book caddy on my ironing counter. All the old thread has been discarded and the batting remnants organized by size into two totes or otherwise tossed. All the old applique templates {kept from every project ever attempted}, have been gone through and reduced to a small drawer full. I found things that I didn't even know were lurking in the corners of my quilt room! It felt good though I was exhausted every single evening after. 

The stash fabric itself is still up in the air. As long as it fits into the current totes I use, it feels okay. One of the things I love most about scrappy quilts and flying blindly through quilt making, is the idea that I can somehow manage to use a piece of unloved, deep in the stash totes kind of fabric and make them shine. Tossing every piece of stash fabric that is years old, an odd color or so-dated-as-to-be-ugly might take away from my joy. So I'm calling it good. Brushing my hands together in a 'project finished', 'putting it all behind me' sort of way. The lure of those new projects is starting to sound pretty irresistible....

Loving My Scrappy Tulips Finish

Scrappy Tulips is finally a finish! Yay! I opted to hand quilt this one a little more intensely than I usually do of late. It seemed like it just soaked up the texture like a sponge, so it was a good call.

Scrappy Tulips a new finish!

This one was started back in 2014 sometime, but I can't find the original post. The paper pieced tulip pattern was found in an older quilt book I picked up at a guild yardsale for $1--Quick & Easy Strip Quilting by Helen Whitson Rose. Such a great find!

Loving the hand quilting texture....

The tulips turned out to be a very fun way to use up some of those languishing scraps in the scrap basket. Of course if I'd have known the background color they would end up on, none of the tips would have been red! Which just goes to show that pre-planning isn't always the best way to operate. How could I have known how very much I'd love the fade-in, fade-out effect of those red tips?

Might have to keep this one for myself!

The stipey background choice was pure luck as I was auditioning every color under the sun and not feeling any love. Then I remembered a funky, striped backing fabric I'd bought and thought 'why not?' And the quilt just continued to develop with a mind of its own, like so many of my quilts do!

Such a fun quilt

I worried and fretted about the color of the triple blue, center sashing. Thought it was a bit too dull and 'meh'. Tried to fix it with the next border and then later with a bit of applique. The snowball border was an impulse decision made while I was currently infatuated with the idea of making a snowball quilt. That quilt never happened because apparently this border got all of that out of my system. At least I thought it did! Now I'm wondering if it should be made after all? Those scrappy little bits sparkling in the corners of the snowball blocks really make me happy!

Scrap bin quilts make the best sorts of quilts!

In fact, the entire quilt feels like happiness. It's just one of those that came together very well in spite of all the worries and concerns. Just the right amount of scrappy, great colors and a happy, fun vibe. What more can we ask for? If I'd have only known this kind of result was possible 15 years ago, I'd have pushed myself to be much more adventuresome a long, long time ago!

Linking up with Linda and Julie over at sew-stitch-snap-share!

I Think There Will Be Time to Quilt This Weekend

A little bit of everything going on in the quilt room! I have one quilt out of the hoop with binding attached by machine. Luckily I had three fat quarters of suitable fabrics to use so I didn't have to go out and buy special. Next up will be hand stitching the binding to the back of the quilt, something that shouldn't take very long at all. Just need the motivation!

Scrappy Tulips with binding ready to stitch down

Hey Grandma! now has the smaller part of the flower applique attached to the larger flower pieces. Once I get the stems stitched down, then it's time to stitch the flower and leaves down to the background. I'm a bit worried about the leaves because they are very, very small and they might, possibly, probably, definitely? be too narrow to completely cover the stripey stem ends. What was I thinking?*aghh!  And they're all cut out of course. Will have to start from scratch too because that was most of whatever amount was left in that fabric....

Applique prep for Hey Grandma!

Since Scrappy Tulips is out of the hoop and on its way to a real finish, it's time to get another one back in quickly. Can't stand to have that hoop sit idle you know! I chose this scrap bin Improv. quilt for 'next up' as I was hoping it could be a fast finish.

Cherries & Improv.

The plan is to machine quilt the inside of the quilt in a basic cross-hatch grid, probably with those forgiving organic, straight lines, and then hand quilt the outside applique very simply with Perle Cotton. I love how the inside is straight out of the scrap bin and together with the outside fabric, it has that slightly old fashioned look. All together it makes me very happy. Possibly the colors? The scrappy bits? The vintage pops of red? My kids are like, 'Yeah, it's nice mom', but I am positively dreamy eyed over the various bits of pink and butter yellow. It just feels happy and cheery to me.

Lots of scraps

Anyway, it's starting to get a few lines of stitching this weekend and I'm crossing my fingers all the quilting {both machine and hand quilting} can be done in a week! Just keeping it very simple!! Hey, there are drawers and even a couple shelves full of completed quilt tops around here. If I don't make progress with completions, then I feel terribly somewhat guilty about working on current quilt projects. My kids and I have actually had conversations about what to do with those quilt tops if for some reason I die unexpectedly. Don't you dare throw them away! lol  I will come back and haunt you! We might be a strange family. I'm hardly in the best position to judge.

A little machine quilting

But yeah, that guilty feeling that pops up occasionally? Most of the time it's not a real and present problem 'cuz I just brush it off like a pesky little fly. Quilting is good for me. The truth is, because I am primarily a hand quilter, the quilt tops and true-blue finishes are a wee bit out of balance. It's a fact. One I'm dealing with it in my own way. Like, now that Folksy Flower is actually a completed quilt top? I've already made plans for the next medallion quilt. This time no applique. At least I waited...

My AHIQ Make-Fabric Geese

So this 28'x 28' scrappy piece has resurfaced after about a two year nap. I've almost tossed it a time or two and then reconsidered. Nah... There's just something about it that makes me wonder.

Make-Fabric Centerpiece

Wonder if it could be the start to something a lot more interesting. The entire thing is made up of 4" make-fabric {or crumb} blocks straight from the scrap bin. I like that. In the past month I pulled it out where it could be seen and have been letting it sort of simmer in my mind. And that's how I came to the idea of making a whole bunch of make-fabric flying geese {yep, I'm the crazy lady}. Creating wide rows of them in different colors. Possibly have them going in different directions vertically for lots of energy. I'm still contemplating, but need something I can put my hands on for auditioning purposes!

Adding potential flying geese rows

For now I'm working with the red scraps, but next up will be blue, brown/black and then probably some spots of orange too. I'm just sewing bits and pieces together, ironing the tar out of them and then using a template to cut my triangles. To make the rows as neat as possible, I won't be making the end pieces of the geese out of scraps. Very tempting, but I think the rows will look better if there's a straight of the grain somewhere in sight!

Make-fabric flying geese units

So here's my start, about 1/10th of what my math tells me is needed. And I really enjoy sewing bits of the scraps together and watching that new piece of fabric emerge. Then when it all comes together, there's the surprise of how it fits together as a whole. Very unpredictable, ofttimes a bit challenging, but still, so interesting! Will it work? Can it work? All we can do is try or there's really no way to know.

These are the scraps from good things, projects of the past. It becomes glaringly obvious to me when I work this way that working from the scrap bin feels a bit more freeing. I have zero anxiety about the outcome because, hello! I'm not about to {potentially} waste any 'good' fabric.*sigh  Which could definitely be a crutch that stops me from making good things from the stash. Got to watch that! In the meantime, it's fun to charge off in pursuit of yet another AHIQ idea! Linking up with Kaja and Ann for their great monthly linkup....