All the Hiccups in the Process

The Big Kiss quilt is totally finished up now! This one was started back in 2020 mostly because I could not resist the siren call of the simple, graphic design. 

The Big Kiss quilt is finished!

The top was complete {I thought} in about June of that year, but then, it just wasn't. I fiddled around with idea during the following January and then, finally got to true-blue quilt top stage by April. 

A little applique can go a very long ways!

Anyone who knows me understands that a quilt top has to be 'just right' before I can rest easy. And now it has a lot more of ME in it, I totally can.

Keeping the stitching simple as usual

I went with a very basic stitching pattern in those long strips. Totally copied Clare because it just made sense to keep things simple. The more that I stitched, the more I fell in love with this cheerful, happy quilt.

It definitely has the cozy vibe I usually shoot for

It always seemed kind of like a step-quilt instead of the real deal if you know what I mean, but now? I'm thinking it's all coming together just the way it was always meant to be.

Can't even hardly tell where the fabric was pieced

It's been really challenging over the past couple years to pull fabrics just from the stash totes and hardly ever buy anything new. Sometimes I feel like I'm thriving in this make-it-up, make-it-work sort of effort. The creativity is going gangbusters and good quilts are being made.

Using it up on the back

Then, at other times, I look at the available fabric and sort of die inside. What in the world is this garbage and what possibly good can come from that? But yeah. I'm sort of digging in and definitely not giving up. For instance, that batik fabric really did get used on the backside of the Big Kiss quilt. Uh huh. On over half the back in fact. Yep, I did soak it in boiling water {thanks for the tip!} and that helped soften the fibers. Also bled out a whole lotta black dye so now it looks more purple {in the soaking water thank goodness}. Whoopsie daisy! Now it doesn't match and blend quite so wonderful anymore.

AHIQ Hourglass quilt top

I'm sure the people using the quilt in the future will totally turn up their nose at the quilt and think it's 'not good enough'. 'Cuz that's clearly what all users of awesome quilts do.... And I'm still gonna make awesome quilts even if they are a different kind of awesome because of those self imposed limitations. Can you tell that I was a teenager in the 80's?

Time for the quilting stitches to commence!

The AHIQ Hourglass Tulips quilt is the next up for quilting. I am so loving the raspberry pink in the hoop! Just makes me feel happy to be stitching on it. It seems so basic, I should be able to plow through this one in a week or so, right? But no. It will probably be a good three weeks to a month like all the others. 

The strangely appealing blend of green blues, pink and olive

Kind of funny that I'm doing the hand applique for the cut-out tulip shapes from behind that AHIQ quilt right now. Kind of a compare and contrast thing. It's a really interesting color palette that I'm experimenting with, all the funny, old green/blues. I took the stack of fabrics and tried to use all the bits that I could in the block backgrounds. So much work but always something that I enjoy seeing in the finished product. These lanky tulips will obviously have their very own vibe and that's a relief. I can tell you that I'm still consciously {and unconsciously} dreaming up ideas for other tulip quilts, and actively working on them only makes it worse. It's probably starting to be a condition.

Still working at the applique ideas

Still playing with the possible applique for the Improv. Strip Quilt #2 Blue too. I know what some of you were saying about it looking fine without the applique, the quilting stitches filling in texture later on etc. Uh huh. Yep. I totally agree. But the thing is, it just doesn't feel like a me quilt for some inexplicable reason so I can't leave it alone. Just can't. 

Putting the flower shape inside an oval shape and then shortening the stem helped a lot, as did flipping the leaves so the tips were pointing down. Then it looked like it was sort of plopped onto the quilt top and soooo of course I had to make scallop shapes to over-compensate. And now we're cooking with Crisco! Totally feeling that glimmer of satisfaction of an idea starting to bloom. Such a hideous fabric with all the starfish and other fishy things on it. Uggh. Can't even believe it will do the trick, but the color was perfection for what was needed. Am thinking this is the real deal but we'll see after some more time spent simmering.

Kind of a county fair look

Got the main part of A Tisket-A Tasket quilt top put together. Now I will be pursuing borders. I mean, look at it? It doesn't have that I-am-completed look at all yet. Terribly hard to get a good picture of this one as the colors are so yellow-brownish it looks dull very easily. In actuality, it has a soft, down to earth vibe that feels somehow restful but cheery. I know, totally contradictory. Gonna have to trust me on this one.

Putting the quilts out there for stitching inspiration

And that's it for the quilt wrap-up for the last week or so. The bags of quilts are what I took to the last quilt meeting for people to look at in terms of quilting stitches and also, thread colors in use. One of the younger gals asked me to bring examples and it was a lot harder to put together than you might think. Once I started pulling quilts off of shelves it seemed that they all just sort of looked alike. At one point I threw my hands up in despair and told my daughter it seemed that all my quilts were practically identical! 

Hmm.. Maybe that's because I tend to use the same color palettes over and over until I get it 'just right'. Or I continually play with limited color palettes or softer hues. Maybe because I take the cast offs and cut outs from previous projects and dive right into the next quilt? Do basic hand quilting on all the finished quilts? Or perhaps it's because I've worked and worked for years, trying to get my voice inserted into every single part of my quilts. Yeah. It could really be just that simple.*whew! I was starting to think things were getting starting to get boring around here.

Seriously though, as crazy as it seems, it took me a couple days to work through that conundrum. It didn't help that I was right in the middle of perusing all my gathered stacks of fabric and trying to assign quilt design/ideas to many of them.  Coming up very empty. Feeling antsy and disconnected as a result of all this time spent directing my time to strippy quilts and planning directions and demos for quilt meetings. It took several days of fondling fabric and rearranging the stacks, looking through the inspiration binders, Pinterest boards, and even the quilt top drawers! until I found my center again. What is it that I truly want to make? Am I doing that? Or am I just going through the motions? Why is it that I use so much cream/green/gray/brown whatever fabric and can never find a piece of fabric large enough for good background flow? Does everything have to have applique? Silly, silly questions like that.

If you know anything about me, it's that I LOVE making quilts. Passionately, scarily laser-like focused in on what's coming next. When I start questioning what it is I'm actually producing and if it's any good? Well... it can get a little hairy around here. Okay, quilty meltdown all over, crisis has been averted. Time to get quilting!

Just Thinking Out Loud

I can't believe I'm staying up late to write this post, but here they are. All five of the quilts that I ended up putting in the NCW Quilt Show. I'll post later next week with pics of other quilts that caught my eye.

Scrappy Tulips

First of all, I went with a quiet but clearer mind this year. No 'comparison is the thief of joy' type of thoughts, 'not gonna nitpick the details', just a solid determination to enjoy. I'm a confident but filled with insecurities sort of gal and quilt shows can be difficult. The reason to do this is because nothing beats going to a quilt show and being inspired. By little ideas or big ones. Wonderful color and out of the box thinking. A saturation of the senses that is almost impossible to get strictly from pictures on the Net {especially when you're dealing with a camera-handicapped person like me!}.

Vintage Red

No ribbons this year which inexplicably made it all so much better. Wacko that I am, it was refreshing to know that none of my quilts stood out over any of the other ones I brought.*sigh  It's hard when people play favorites with our quilts! Scrappy Tulips {the first pic} almost didn't make the cut. The colors don't play nice in some lighting and it worried me. Turns out it was the one that absolutely shown under the lights at the quilt show. Totally melted my heart and I went back and stared at it several times. It looked sort of old timey, but sweet. Really, really sweet and dreamy. Why weren't more people staring at this quilt? lol

Vintage Red was one that I emphatically was not going to enter. Turns out I just couldn't resist seeing how it would look hanging up where I could see it full on. Oh my, did I love turning the corner and seeing that one. Totally vintage vibe going on which just made me smile so big. I totally nailed this idea! And well, I went ahead and looked at some of the other sewing details in others quilts. Uh huh. Maybe my mistakes aren't quite as horrible and blatantly obvious as I thought. Might have to rethink that one.

Quilty 365

I got a little jolt seeing Quilty 365 hanging up for the first time. That quiet looking stitching around every other block is a secret weapon. Can't see it in this pic at all, but all my concern over there not being enough stitching in this quilt were totally put to rest. I really, really loved seeing this one hanging out for others to peruse. I wished so hard it would have been where I could have stood back a long ways and looked at it from different distances. The colors/values do the dance thing. They really do. It wasn't just my imagination or wishful thinking.

Sunburst

I think Sunburst was in the poorest lighting overall. Yes, it's the brand new finish and looks so much better in proper lighting. I'll give it a post all its own next week so you can see how good the Baptist Fan stitching looks and sigh with me over the sweet look to it. Am I on a sweet kick? It seems to be so. There are lurking questions about this quilt, things I might have done different, but overall, it was a good one to umm, not compare to others. Not quite as complex as it appeared all the while I was hand sewing it. Funny how time and 'distance' change our perspectives.

Hills and Valleys

And Hills and Valleys was the other one that I wiffle, waffled about entering into the show. Turns out the lighting was fine for it, just not for me, the picture taker. Mostly I just wanted to look at the texture of this quilt in a hanging up presentation. Great idea as I just stood in front and sort of soaked it all in. Honestly, I'm super happy with this quilt, and yes, it looks tremendously better in person. It's kind of crazy that this quilt was made by me. 5 years ago, this wasn't in my wheelhouse at all--something to feel very good about today as I considered my growth as a quilter.

Don't worry if you're scratching your head over my enthusiasm, I can't see you and won't get my feelings hurt a bit. The thing I learned today is that I am completely, unabashedly making the sort of quilts that make my heart go pitter patter. Sometimes I worry at some of the squirrels that crop up, but a lot of these tangents lead to wonderful surprises and fabulous interpretations--things we might never have explored if we stick to the plan.  Every single time I turned the corner and saw one of my quilts, it was like 'Well, hello old friend'. Makes the effort and anxiety totally worthwhile. It's so good to get validation once in awhile that we do have a style, a look, or even a muse that is personal and custom fitted to us. And you know what?

This year being in the minority with that sort of thing didn't even bother me one little bit. So my quilts are softer, more simplistic, scrappy and naive looking. So what! I enjoyed the entire quilt show! All those sharp looking, fancy machine quilted quilts just got a different part of my attention. Maybe I'm finally reaching adulthood in my quilting journey? Please don't answer that. Thanks to NCW Quilty Guild for being so welcoming! I'll probably be back next year with another stack....

Fall 2017 Bloggers Quilt Festival: Scrappy Tulips

It's time once again for Amy's wonderful Bloggers Quilt Festival! It has a special place in my heart as it's what propelled me to first start lurking on quilt blogs and get interested in the online quilting community. My first entry is Scrappy Tulips, a quilt many have already seen here before.

Scrappy Tulips

Scrappy Tulips was finished up this August, but was started sometime back in 2014! {Not an abnormal lag time between start and finish time around here.} It is one of those quilts that I adore because the paper pieced tulips came straight out of my scrap bin. Oh those sweet little bits of fabric we are always discarding--so many good uses for them! The tulip pattern is out of an older book called 'Quick and Easy Strip Quilting' by Helen Whitson Rose I bought at a guild yard sale. I am always extremely intrigued by the idea of new adaptations or interpretations of old patterns, and this one certainly didn't disappoint.

Scrappy Tulips hanging on the railing

Otherwise, I made the design up as the quilt progressed, picking and choosing fabrics and colors as seemed to work best with the original tulips. Or as the quilt seemed to demand. As you can only imagine, the red/brown stripe being used as a background fabric completely set the tone of the quilt going forward. From there it was mostly a matter of trying to make everything come together without ending up with a circus of colors! It was a very fun quilt to play with and it also gave me a chance to use an old, funky blue fabric that never seemed to play well with any other quilt. Stuff like that makes me do a little {mental} victory dance. Wouldn't want to scare my kids with the real thing. They already think I'm weird enough!

Always love to see this particular border!

And all the fabrics in this quilt did come directly from the scrap bin or from my stash. That's always a fun line in the sand. Make do or somehow make something work? That's the sort of challenge that keeps me going. Love that.

The border was something I had to think about for awhile but eventually decided on a lighter look for the outside. As I currently had a fascination for snowball quilts {never made one before, but thought they could be interesting}, it seemed like a good time to experiment. From there, it was a short jump to continuing the dive into the scrap bin to find those little bits of color for the corners. I am so, so happy with the border on this quilt! I love how it give a lacy, sort of yo-yo look to the quilt. My regular readers know that I'm somewhat compelled to add borders, pieced or applique, to almost every quilt made around here. Can you even imagine this quilt without a border?

And a look at the stitching...

The entire quilt was hand quilted with various colors of #8 perle cotton thread, my go-to these days. Since most of my quilts are hand quilted, this is a super easy way to give instant texture {yum} and also, to get through the quilting in a speedier fashion than traditional hand quilting thread. If you're interested, I also have a 2nd entry in the quilt festival, Flocks of Geese, my brand new finish. Thanks to Amy Ellis for her hard work in putting this festival together. Always fun to cruise through the entries and find new inspiration!

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...

Always Something Going on Around Here

Scrappy Tulips is the quilt in the hoop these days. Since each red block is 22", I have to move the hoop a couple times in order to stitch each tulip in the block. I probably could have stitched the middle sashing down at the same time as the middle tulips, but was unsure what to do there.

Scrappy Tulip quilt starting to get some stitching

Lots of pondering about that and now it's starting to come together in my mind. I started out stitching every other string in the tulips and after about five of them, found myself going back and filling in. Finally I just gave up and am stitching through every single string. Much faster to do them all at once! Loving the look though. It's one of my favorite strings quilts ever.

A closer look at the blocks. It's amazing how different the
red looks depending on the light!

This afternoon also found me doing very basic sashiko mending on some summer capris. When the holes wear through to the point of showing skin on my upper thigh, it's a no-go. I had to go back and touch up the patch on the left as I didn't stitch quite far enough out on one side. I also clipped a few of the white threads so the patch could show through--just a bit. It's a fun, casual boho look. I don't mind it at all for hanging out at the house or going grocery shopping etc.

It's so hard to find capris that I feel look okay on my middle aged shape--I often give in and buy the ones with the pre-distressed look if necessary. {If they're cheap enough!} The mending is an annoying task, but also kind of interesting as I often play with different colors of thread and/or the shape of the stitch. Plus, it holds up really, really well. I taught my daughter how to do this several years ago and then wondered, why not do it for mine as well?

#sashikomending

And here's the next quilt project that persuaded me to jump in and play. I've been eyeing this stack of fabric for awhile now and quite by chance, stumbled on the green/turquoise stripe fabric the other day. I only bought a 1/3 of a yard {since they didn't cut fat quarters} and all of a sudden, the quilt started making sense.

My new quilt project that I'm calling 'Hey Grandma!'
because some of the fabrics remind me of prints she used.....

I know there's some 'ugly' looking background fabrics appearing in the quilt, but it's so intriguing to try and blend the old with the new. It just never gets old to me, unless I start churning out failure after failure of interpreting my ideas and inspiration. I'm also very interested to see if I can use that oldy, lighter turquoise print that I'm auditioning there for the border. That one was a fabric that almost got moved down the road when it was first gifted to me! Then I had second thoughts, 'Nah! Maybe save it for a backing fabric?' And now I've dug it out of the totes for something totally unexpected. We'll see. There's a lot of work to be done before I reach the border, blocks to cut out, applique to prep, stitching to happen. Well, you didn't really think I'd make something this colorful without applique did you?*wink

Just Enough Progress

Over thirty basket handles stitched on the background fabrics and ready for further sewing. Hoping to see some progress this weekend, but it's not looking super promising for the marathon sew-in I was hoping for. Who plans a baby shower for 1:00 on a Saturday afternoon? People with zero hobbies?

Basket Love

I spent quite a bit of time in the quilt room the last several days, playing with fabric stacks, drawing quick sketches and thinking about new quilt ideas. There have been at least five different stacks of fabrics that I've been contemplating for awhile, wondering which direction to go. Several of those stacks have very similar colorways {I do tend to get in a rut, ahem! groove}, although possibly in darker, lighter or brighter tones and shades and in every group there is at least one different color introduced as I continually play and experiment. The brightest fabric stack always causes me the most self doubt. I have one stack I've put back into the totes at least twice now and then pulled back out again at a later date. It keeps drawing me in, trying to get me to play, but I am sooo... nervous to dive in and test the waters! What if it ends up looking exactly like every other quilt I see on the Net these days? How boring would that be?*wink

Yesterday, after spending way too much valuable time seam ripping the hems out of several pairs of {my sons} khaki shorts, I finally gave in to temptation and started a new project. For real this time! Not just dreaming and a stack of fabric anymore, but actual cutting into fabric and applique prep. I still need to fiddle around with proportion, but I'm well on my way to taking the first stitch to the foundation of my new Big Basket. It's going to be a charmer, I can already tell....

Another Big Basket

 And then there's the new quilt in the hoop. The flowers in Scrappy Tulips are made strictly out of the scrap bin and all the fabric in the quilt top came straight out of the stash. I adore these stringy tulips, and as always, wonder why I don't make ALL my quilts exactly like this one. There's just something about a random mix of scrap bin prints that completely melt my heart.

Scrappy Tulips

These kinds of quilts are so easy to hand quilt because I just soak in the colors and fabrics and it never gets old. I started out hand quilting because I love the look and all these years later? Still loving the look, only maybe a teensy, tiny bit more because of the Perle Cotton. That texture. Hhmm, hymm good....

Saturday Odds & Ends

When we jump from project to project and then back around again, it often feels like {watching} a chicken peck, peck, pecking away. That's the way I like to approach my quiltmaking--little bites. Thank goodness I have lots of lists. They help keep me on track so that my inevitable restlessness will eventually add up to something of substance. The Marsala quilt below currently has all the hand quilting completed, a binding attached and is now awaiting the final hand sewing stage. Which I will do later 'cuz I'm just not quite in the mood yet!

Marsala {An Unexpected Crossroads} ready for binding

All in due time. For over a year I have tried to sandwich and pin two quilts at the same time. It's such a hassle to get help moving the dining room table out of the way and finding that block of time when the whole clan isn't tromping through the room. Next up in the line-up is the scrap-bin tulip quilt and Learning Curves, where I challenged myself to get drunkards path units figured out once and for all!

Next in line for quilting!

I stitched-in-the-ditch in between every 16-patch block and now I'm coming back to hand quilt the quarter circle units. It probably didn't need the machine quilting, but it was fast and easy to do and now I can hand quilt without any pins in the way. This is a large quilt so the hand quilting may take awhile. We'll see how motivated I get!

In the hoop...

After much contemplation, I finally settled on a solution for the blue applique heart blocks that had been shown before. Sadly, they will not be residing with the brown coin units anymore. This idea has completely separated itself into a new project that makes a little more sense. When I distilled all the elements down from the project before, it seemed like the two blocks {blue applique blocks & the coin units} were both equally determined to have their own way. So different directions here we go! I found a classic, ticking fabric to use instead of the coins and a Liberty look-alike voile to use as the cornerstone squares. Together, alongside the blue applique blocks, it starts taking on a much more serene look. Hopefully that doesn't mean boring!

Preparing Blue Plumes project

My rough drawing pattern has been edited and changed so much it's starting to get thin in places, but it served well enough to allow the basic rows to be sewn together. So far I'm leaving them in 2-row sections. This will keep the units small enough to manipulate while I applique the blue 'plumes' into place. Most of them at least! The ones at the top of the quilt will have to be attached after the entire quilt top has been sewn together. Ughh. Hate that. But there's no way around that as the plumes will overlap the seams above.

Units ready for more applique work

In the end I just couldn't discard the 'plumes' or exclamation marks as one person called them. It feels whimsical and fun. Right up my alley and it always seems worth it after the work is done.*wink  So that's the prep work--just a few hours. That's all! Done and all ready for the next phase though, that's the important part. It helps more than most people realize to have the prep work totally ready for the exact moment {or window of opportunity} when our hands are itching to dive in and start stitching. I get tired of a project, look around for the next eye-candy project and you just never know, it could be this one!

I've also figured out the direction forward for the brown coin blocks and hopefully will have some progress on that front sometime next week. It's a constant source of amazement to me that even when I'm deliberately trying to tamp down on the amount of open-ended projects around here, they just sort of happen anyway!

A Scrappy Tulips Quilt Top Finish

I knuckled down and finally sewed the borders on to Scrappy Tulips. It's not like it was difficult per se, but getting into the quilt room lately has been a chore. Every spare minute finds me curled up on the couch wrestling with an altogether different quilt. All the other projects seem to be very back burner at the moment!

Adding on the last border

This quilt is one that I absolutely love and yet, I am concerned that the center blue just gets duller and duller the more color that gets added to the quilt. It's not quite as dull as the picture tries to make it out to be and so I cringe a little to show my pictures. But it is a problem. {Sort of.}

Scrappy Tulips

If I want to make it one. And I honestly don't. Because who cares if it's not exactly perfect? I've decided this one will be an 'As Is' quilt. Like a skirt we buy on clearance missing the jacket it supposedly came with. We don't care because we love it anyway, never saw the original jacket and so don't really know what we're missing. And as this all came directly from my scrap bin or my totes of fabric stash? Well, no extra money spent = proud frugal quilter bennies, right? lol 

I just have this vague idea that Scrappy Tulips could have been a magnificent quilt if only. Maybe some big stitching {later on} will add back in the little something I feel it's missing. And if not, I'm not too proud to finish it just the way it is. I look at what's been accomplished here and think, 'okay, it still has that make-do, scrappy, vintage-type look I'm trying to understand and get more comfortable with.' Everything is a journey. An opportunity to learn. I won't be making that magnificent quilt some day in the future if I'm not willing to make a few mistakes along the way to getting there.....

A Little Progress on Scrappy Tulips

I pulled out the Scrappy Tulip quilt to play. The snowball blocks are going together in a very fast and sort of mindless way, which is good. I'm happy to be mindless occasionally.*wink  I'm trying to make sure the same prints are not directly next to each other, but that's about it. Gotta love when the plan ensures that nothing needs to match up!

Scrappy Tulips

The borders are going to be approximately 1/2" too long on each side. I knew that my measurements would result in a too-long border, but wasn't sure how to lose that little bit of extra in the length until it was actually sewn together. At this point, it's easy enough to sew a scant larger seam between a few of the snowball rows and get the measurement I need. Nobody will ever even have to know!

Three borders ready to go

On a different note, my daughters and I thoroughly enjoyed our trip to Spokane over the weekend. I gave them some birthday money and we all had our yard sale money too. I was so glad to have a list of things I was 'looking for' or it would have been complete impulse buying. These lovely spring colors out in the stores right now are totally singing my song. Mint and limey greens, peach, coral, the light turquoise blues.... Yum! I am so very tired of wearing navy and brown and definitely needed something brighter to wear to my youngest sons 8th grade promotion in June. Plus, there's just something fun about shopping with teenage girls. Hard to stick with the same ol' same ol' when they're around to make funny faces at my picks.

A Change of Pace. Or Not.

Things have been busy lately. I've been putting what little bit of time I have for quilting into applique or hand quilting work. Then I found myself in the quilting room digging through fabrics for no particular reason--just because it feels good. 

Little scrappy corners...

A project caught my eye and made me feel sorta guilty about the lack of attention. Then it kind of beckoned.

Chain piecing love.

Come work with me and things will move quickly.

A whole pile of quilty goodness!

Almost anything moves more quickly than needleturn applique...

Nicely ironed and ready for sizing...

It felt good and there was immediate progress made.

Cutting off almost as much fabric as I added on.

I admired my work and wondered if I could actually get it sewed onto the quilt someday soon.

The potential border....

Then I got distracted by the middle of the quilt. Does it need an applique fix? Hmm.. Lets try this and see if it makes things better.

Auditioning an applique fix....

Wash, rinse, repeat. How and why does it always come back to applique right now?*sigh  Don't mind me. I'm just having an obsessive, fixated issue with my needle and thread lately.....