One Stitch At a Time

So, even with all the stress and concerns of late, there are two new finishes around here. Funny how the finishes can be so far apart and then on occasion, somehow land on the same week. The first one 'Vintage Coxcombs', was started sometime in 2016 when I couldn't stand it any longer. Just needed to start a sunburst style applique block quilt with vaguely coxcomb details. No official pattern use, just something that I drew up from all sorts of inspiration seeds and cobbled together into a desired look.

Vintage Coxcombs is a completion!

These colors remind me of the Brachs Napoleon coconut candies that we loved to eat as kids and so for me, this has always been a feel-good sort of quilt. Though some have commented before about the black in this quit, it's actually all brown {some very deep, dark browns}, but no black fabric used at all. Quite a few of the backgrounds used in these blocks are a mix of at least two different fabrics, some with more. It's a subtle make-do look, but one that makes me smile.

It's all done...

I machine quilted in the ditch along-side of all the sashing, then came back and hand quilted the applique and hsts in the border. It probably could have used a little bit extra quilting around the stars, but I just wasn't feeling it. This is a very sweet looking but not-so-sweet-it-makes-your-teeth-hurt sort of quilt and an excess of quilting would have {probably} bridged the gap between cozy looking and too formal for everyday. At least that's what I'm telling myself. It sounds good in theory!

Loving the applique shapes...

I have determined that the sashing fabric used in this quilt might as well be used as a color catcher. Just cut it up into squares and throw it in with all my quilt washing efforts. This is the second quilt that it has managed to soak up some of the floating fugitive dyes, while other light colored fabric in the same quilt remain unaffected. It didn't totally ruin the look of this quilt, but it definitely dulled it just a bit. There is about half a yard or so of it left and I'm very seriously considering throwing it into the trash. What an awful fabric!

Another thing that happened with this quilt is that I didn't feel comfortable cutting away the background to all the stars. On the pieced background blocks I went ahead and left the fabric behind thinking it'd be safer not to weaken the seams by cutting away behind. This caused a different kind of bleeding effect in three different blocks {with the same fabric used in the problematic sashing areas and one other light colored fabric from the same exact line}. What happened was that brown/purple dye looked like it actually got trapped between the background fabric and lighter star circle and never properly released into the soaking water. There's a 'ring' of dye instead of a light rinse throughout. It's very faint, but oh so obvious if you're looking. Which I was! I soaked the quilt for a very long time and never managed to get all that bleeding dye out. So disappointing.

Don't feel sorry for me though. These are good things to know {change next time} and like I've said lots of times before, I'd much, much rather this happen to me than anyone whom I'd ever gift my quilts to. Another reason that I'm spending so much time these days pre-soaking buckets of fabric before even cutting into the pieces and starting the journey toward making a quilt! Hopefully the day will come when all this angst will be a thing way in the past! Plus, it didn't really, truly ruin this particular quilt. I pouted about it all one night and then looked at it again the next day in the harsh daylight hours. Could obviously never hang it in a show, but I could still probably gift it to the right person who might not even care....

Glad that I ended up making a border for this one...

The second quilt that was finished up this past week was 'Shimmer'. It looks ever so much better as a completed quilt top than it did as a partially finished quilt top!

Shimmer is a finish too!

This striking pattern is by Diane Knott out of her 'Strip Quilt Secrets' book. I would never have come up with something this complex and organized! It took me a long time to power through because it appears that following a pattern is not my strong suit. I grumble and gripe and generally have a terrible time bonding with something that is telling me what to do. Ha! I can hear you all laughing at me. What did I expect huh? I have definitely got into the habit of making things up as I go along and start feeling very boxed in when there seems to be no proper room to maneuver!

Took a chance on a very light colored biding

I did make a few changes in the coloring of the quilt, of course, which stressed me out during the sewing of the quilt. Oh no! I ruined it!! lol  My light-medium colored purples initially appeared mushy looking and not nearly as sharp as was needed in order to hold the clearly defined design together. In the finished whole, it seems like a dumb thing to be anxious about but you just never know, right? By choosing medium colored fabrics in those areas instead of distinctly dark/bold colors {suggested in the pattern} it subtlety softened the transition of the design into those creamy white areas. Which is what I was initially striving for, and then was left worried sick that there was no delineation whatsoever. That I blew the whole thing! Diane's pattern has a fun, modern feel to it. What I was hoping/wishing for, was more of a focus on the scrappiness vibe overall {instead of that clear design}. I even half dared to hope that perhaps an old fashioned charm could make itself known in those areas where the design 'line' was purposefully broken down. Oh the perils of being independent minded and taking color risks!

Looking cozy!

Anyone that has followed me for any length of time knows that I make quilting decisions by instinct or by 'gut'. That's just how I roll. The quilting police can go take a hike and patterns/planned ideas are just a suggestion. This quilt has been a problem child all along as every single step has seemed to caused me to second guess. The final issue was that I had very definite plans to machine quilt it. Based on the overall design of the quilt, hand quilting seemed like a waste of time and who wants to toil over a quilt for hours and hours and hours and not see the quilt properly soak up the texture? Then I changed plans mid-stream {very impulsively}, and found myself with a quilt in the hoop that was making me feel very grumpy. 

Glad this one is behind me!

Now that it is completely, totally finished, I can clearly see that my instincts were actually steering me right.*whew!  A very light colored binding on to further lighten the vibe of the quilt, the stitching texture almost embedded in the background of the quilt, this quilt now has a very, very quiet joy. How could I have ever predicted that outcome? How does that even happen? Something was just telling me, {insisting actually} that I make that effort. That my friend would appreciate it, might even need it during these trying times.

No, this was not FUN to hand quilt. I much prefer to see instant gratification, which is what's happening with the quilt below {next up in the hoop}. Unfortunately that's not the way it's always going to be with our quilting. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy? Sometime we have to deliberately step out on the limb of unknown, unverifiable, crazy-obsessive-down-to-that-stupid-nit picky detail, and just TRUST. Say, 'Okay! I believe that everything my logical brain is telling me is WRONG' and then just go with our gut. Do it. Or you'll never get any better! Be as grumpy and negative about it as it takes to hedge against the potential outcome of disappointment. And be sure and finish! 15 minutes at a time, whatever it takes, just never give up until it's done, done, done! That's where personal satisfaction and 'voice' come into play with quilting, don't kid yourself. It's not that things are always easy or confidence is rife on the ground and there are NO doubts. It's simply doing the 'right' thing even if you don't know why that one thing is so very important!

Next up in the hoop

So yes, I really felt that the next quilt should be the instant gratification type. I've already stitched up two sets of log cabin blocks and can already feel myself melt into the hoop each night.

Quarter Log Cabin #1

These days of uncertainty and not sleeping well at night are the pits. Hoping that all are well and getting some respite with their current quilting efforts! The color therapy and stitching efforts definitely do me a world of good as per my general mood and level of grouchiness, I'm guessing it helps most of you too. I have to admit to not being the most patient of people and really, what choice do we have right now? Just can't think about it too much or it overwhelms me. At least we can take a walk outside here in our area and get a dose of fresh air whenever needed. Our state is on week 3 with 4 more to go. Yeehaw. Maybe if we could find some flour, I'd start baking more? Just haven't had the motivation quite yet. Want to bet there's gonna be some Covid-19 weight loss measures in place for most of us later in the year too?

Thank Goodness For Quilting

I'm going about it all backwards, but the stack of tulip blocks below represent my answer to the #AHIQhourglass prompt over at AHIQ. Yep, I'm diving head first into yet another tulip quilt. The challenge was given out in January and I'm only now getting to it--so many internal questions about where to take this. You'd have to know that I've been mulling it over inside this brain of mine for almost the entire time.

Chunky Tulips

Where's the hourglass you ask? Well, that's going to be in the sashing units between 13 of these tulip blocks set on point. What took the most time is that I wanted the tulips to be red, but had my misgivings about the reds in this particular fabric stack. They tend to lean to the tomato-red side of the spectrum and I just wasn't sure that I was okay with that. But then in these uncertain times, decided why not. Go for it!

And then came the decisions about background fabric etc., which always is a challenge in and of itself. Never have large enough pieces of fabric, thus the blendy strips added to the block. Hideous fabric {so late 90's} but it should fade away to nothing once the quilt is all put together. 

I'm hoping to make the hourglass units in a subtle play-off of the neutrals and keep them very low key. We'll see. The thing that I'm happiest about at the moment is the blue/white print for the stems. Just love the energy it adds! Though the tulips will be similar but different fabrics overall, the stems will all be the same. My default was wanting to go searching for a green fabric for the stems and everything inside of me was rebelling. No! Do something different for a change! You can find the inspiration for these tulips over here. As you can see, my focus is not quite 'there' on the hourglass part of the quilt quite yet....

Coronacrazy Quilt

I've been spending some time in the quilting room here and there, getting some of my lists tidied up and running in and out with all the various pieces of fabric that might need to be soaked before cutting into. If you count the stack of fabric that I gathered together just yesterday, there are now 16 different stacks of wonderfully promising potential quilts. It's a bit over the top, I admit! but so much more rewarding than catching up on all the latest grim and terrible news. I am staying off the computer/phone even more now, but there's just no getting away from it completely.

You can thank me later, I just deleted four paragraphs of ranting about our current state of affairs here in the lovely state of Washington. Frustrations abound and I have questions. Enough said. Moving on....

The lists and inspiration board

Okay, so with that in mind {my general attitude and precarious emotional state of late} it's absolutely not surprising at all that I impulsively started a brand new quilt. Kind of a crazy one so yeah, I'm calling it Coronacrazy. It's the so-pink-it's-almost-red hills and valley's quilt up above. I took Sharon Strouds advice and have already thread basted the bias applique down. Why didn't I think of that? The whole thing is about 41" x 46" so having pins falling out while stitching is not a great plan. Love that its all ready to go whenever I feel the urge to get stitching too. The tentative plan at the moment is to applique some very small flowers in the open areas under the arches. And then from there I will probably add on a border or two or three. Perhaps more applique on them? I really don't know, don't even care. Will decide when I get there! The entire idea came about almost overnight and for some reason it felt right. Notice that I'm prepping lots of applique these days? lol

Hand quilting on Shimmer

I've also been hand quilting like a madwoman the last couple days. First I stitch at with a purple/black thread on the insides of all the purplish rectangles, emphasizing the overall design. Then I come back and echo stitch on the outside of those same purple rectangles, in the cream areas, with a mustard gold thread. Also, there is a double line of stitching in the very middle where 7 colored rectangles meet up. I've finally found my groove with the stitching and while it's not free sailing quilting where the seam allowance is extra thick, the rest is fairly relaxing. Which is good news. The whole thing is starting to take on a little bit of an old fashioned charm which really surprised me but shouldn't have. It's finally, finally coming together as a win, something I've been a little bit dubious about. All that scrappy goodness plus hand stitching, I should have know. It was bound to happen sooner or later! Though I will say it would have probably looked great with machine quilting as well. Not mine! But someone who knows what they're doing.....

Trying To Stay Sane in a Crazy World

I like to keep this blog mostly happy, but these are hard times. As an introvert, I'm someone who tends to pull inward during times of adversity. Regular posting, replying to comments, not to mention interesting new QAL's just seem to take entirely too much energy depending on what we've been dealing with on any specific day. Mentally and emotionally, I just don't seem to have any extra beyond helping to keep our family on an even keel.

Another layer for Ormes Inspired

Hand work has seemed to be the most satisfying lately even though I find myself very easily distracted. All the rest of the applique parts and pieces have been drawn up, cut out and placed {with pins} on the Orme's Inspired piece just in the last several days. Honestly? It's only because all the color decisions were made weeks ago. Otherwise I don't think this quilt would have been touched. And I made myself do it. Thought this quilt would be cheery and lighthearted, a good balance for a world that has gone completely off the rails of late.

There is still quite a lot of work to do in stitching down all those pretty, bright flowers and trees, but there is no deadline. It's only time! What does bother me just a little, is all those pins which will continually be trying to loosen and fall down onto the carpet or deep into the couch. I really, really should have limited myself to ONLY pinning down the trees. Or only the flowers. And then moving forward. But I just couldn't resist and now don't want to take anything off in the event that I forget where to place them. Oh! Don't I have a phone to take pictures and document? Bah. That seemed like more trouble than it was worth at the moment. And that is generally the way that {too} much of my decision making goes these days.

Latest quilt in the hoop

I did get another quilt sandwiched and pinned, all ready for the hoop. Clear up until the moment that I started putting the pins in it, the plan was for machine quilting. Then I pinned it for hand quilting because I got to thinking that the friend for whom it's intended, would greatly prefer the hand work. And I was being lazy. Yep. Every idea for how to machine quilt this top just made my head spin and hand quilting seemed like the easy way out. Bad choice. 

There are oodles of seams in this quilt, which means that it hasn't been quite as relaxing to stitch as others generally are. And I sooo.... need the peace and meditative rhythm right now. It's the first quilt in years that I've been very, very tempted to take out of the hoop and quickly replace with another. The worry is, would I ever actually bring this one back to the hoop and finish? Yeah, that's a real concern. Probably best not to go there.

And even after stitching, it's terribly hard to see the stitches. Which is incredibly annoying. {Not that its difficult to be easily irritated or impatient these days.} The only saving grace is that it feels marvelous after the hand stitching. Hopefully this friend is very tactile and will appreciate the effort involved? I kinda think she might need this quilt more than I need to have a tantrum, though I wouldn't stake anything important on that premise.... So the plan right now is that I'm gonna keep slogging away at it and dangle a super low-key, no pressure quilt top right in front of me as a carrot. It fact, it's already pinned and ready to go. It needs to feel like a tangible goal.

Hand stitching almost impossible to see

In my mind I really want to sew, spend time in the quilting room, cross things off the list, make the most of increased down-time and it all just sort of drifts away so easily. Digging into the stash totes has been a fun diversion, but there's only so much room for new stacks of fabric to sit and marinate. Inspiration has not been keeping up with the fabric potential lately, and that's another thing that has been greatly annoying me. Late last week I had enough! and have started going through every small tote and stacked up pile of fabric. Hm.. What do we have here?

Soaking fabric...

First off, I lay the fabrics out to see if they do the magic thing. My brain might not be working at maximum capacity for creativity right now, but I still know if a color palette is worth hanging onto for future quilt-making endeavors! Most are a YES because its not been very long since I went through them all. But there are new ones and a few that I wasn't 100% sure about but kept just in case. 

If its a NO, then it's time to get them off the counters and back into the stash totes. Surprisingly, I really haven't dithered much about this at all.  If yes? Then I look for anything that might be a potential bleeder, pulling it out and doing a preventative soak. The trick is to remember which fabric stack each piece belongs to and making sure it's returned to the rightful place directly after. Mostly I'm keeping the soaks to 2 groups at a time, and since that takes most of a day, starting on the next couple the very next day. It's been one of my rare, 'spot-on' decisions as I'm not cutting into fabrics and potentially making grave errors with math, wasting valuable fabric and going crazy with even more frustration. Which would be oh-so easy to do while my mind is over in la la land doing its moody, broody thing.

Another benefit to my latest endeavor is that several times a day my hands get an extra good washing while I'm splashing around in the newly warmed water {while simultaneously 'agitating' the fabrics}. It's all very win, win and then I'm returning the fabrics to the totes with a note to remind myself later that yes, I did in fact pre-soak these particular fabrics. 

My husband might be starting to get slightly annoyed with the totes always taking up space in our bathtub, but he'll get over it. He always does, good guy that he is! So wonderful that he totally understands me. And I'm almost done anyway. How many stacks of fabric can you have before you start to realize that some of those stacks look mysteriously similar to another one? hehe  We do get stuck in our ruts familiar, comforting patterns. Hey, we're all just trying to get by the best we can until things return to something resembling 'normal'! As for me, I'm just longing for the good 'ol days when grocery stores actually had a good stock of toilet paper. To all the hoarders out there, some of us get a little grumpy when the important stuff starts getting scarce.... Hopefully back to commenting on other peoples posts sometime this week if I can somehow avoid falling down the rabbit hole of chasing updates and the possibility of good news. 

Finish It Up January

It's amazing how quickly something can happen once we're in the right frame of mind. This quilt project has been on the back burner for practically forever. Then comes January and I'm chomping at the bit to clear off the 'in-progress' list. Gotta free up space to start new projects!

Shimmer is a finished quilt top!

All the blocks were done, but I was dragging my feet big time. All those strippy pieces cut, sewn and then cut again? Yep. Though I pinned at every seam, just the weight of the rows kept pulling seams apart until I wanted to scream. Finally, I hit on the solution to fold the rows up accordion style {while resting in my lap} to take a majority of the weight off. That was way better. And for the record, all the seams nested together wonderfully, could have eliminated many, many pins if the seams had just behaved better!

The full quilt

Love the scrappy look so much and yes, the design is a bit mushier in my quilt than in Diane's {look for this quilt pattern in Strip Quilt Secrets book by Diane Knott}. These fabrics choices pretty much guaranteed a soft look which is very sweet to see closer up. So glad that the red and yellow bits add just enough spark to keep things interesting. I was afraid they might end up being too distracting in the overall scheme of things, but hey, look at that, they might actually help! I spent so many of my early quilting years trying earnestly to make 'blended' quilts, that sometimes I think it happens almost subconsciously, my inborn saboteur. Then I can end up with these terribly muted, 'flat' looking quilts that I'm looking at thinking, 'What just happened here? {Never said my blended quilts were successful, now did I?} Seriously though, have to fight that habit off all of the time.

I had thoughts about adding a border after, 'cuz you know, BORDERS?  but couldn't come up with anything that set my pulse racing. Never say never as it's not quilted yet! There's still time to drag it out of the drawers and slap some fabric along the outside edges if I so get the urge....

Love the scrappiness!

Though it should be way down at the bottom of the quilting queue, I already have someone in mind for this quilt, so that feels good. Wonderful to have a destination already in the works. It just somehow looks like great potential for excellent snuggling and with all the purple involved here, maybe I won't have to intentionally make a purple quilt, which has been stressing me out. Just a little, nothing important. Definitely not my favorite thing though, to try and make a quilt FOR someone, with all their potential likes and dislikes in mind. Not that I ever ask, but we can only imagine?

So much easier to end up with a great 'match' at the end of a enjoyable little quilting adventure that had nothing at all to do with anything, other than the fact that we were just having fun. Did you catch all that? The point is, I'm exceedingly happy to have another stalled project checked off the list and team that up with 'maybe I don't have to make a special quilt for so&so after all, 'cuz hallelujah, this little quilt will work out just fine there.'  There's something about starting a new year that helps motivate me even more towards crossing things off lists and moving them along. It seems to come free with the frosty air around here!

Pattern is much more obvious when it's laid flat..

I put the last {quilting} stitch in 'Gather Ye Roses' quilt just the other day too. I had completely underestimated how much time I would be willing to put into this one. One area would be quilted and then I'd go back and add in more stitching. Just because it didn't look right. There's even more stitching that could probably be done, but I just don't wanna. I'm done. This isn't an heirloom quilt after all, and it's time to move on. The binding was put together from various, scrappy lengths of complimentary red fabrics, though darker than the reds used in the center of the quilt. It's a perfect quilt for the make-do, use-it-up binding look, and much, much easier on my pocket book!

Waiting for binding work

The next quilt in the hoop is 'Directions From a Local'. It has such an old fashioned, serene color palette, perfect for our very cold, winter weather of late. Been itching to get this one in the hoop! So looking forward to the simple quilting too. Nothing complicated about a big 'ol Log Cabin quilt.

Directions From a Local next up in the hoop

This project was started as an interpretation of one of those 'Unconventional & Unexpected' quilts that I so love to play with. Then later, the idea morphed into a blend of that, and also, meeting the Maps challenge over at AHIQ. I obviously went my own direction, but it's something that has made me smile. Never underestimate the power of a quilt that can make you smile!

Getting it sandwiched and pinned

So yeah, it ended up being a 'don't-take-me-seriously'' type of quilt, which is good, as I am absolutely loving jumping into the hand quilting now. Some quilts want to be stubborn and reticent, won't tell you right off what they need for the stitching. They make you attempt several different designs or colors of thread, and basically waste a lot of time with guesswork and what-ifs. This quilt doesn't seem to be the least bit interested in anything complex or different. So relaxing and chill, makes easy to settle into my corner of the couch and dive right in.

Already started with the stitching!

It's been a little challenging to carve out enough time to hand quilt,as my mind has been turning to hand work and attacking the applique projects once again too. You know how I sort of cycle back and forth with the hand work, sometimes expending big chunks of time on it and others, barely pecking away. Lately I've been wanting to do more with the hand work projects {they are starting to squawk loudly from sheer neglect}, but then found myself getting completely sidetracked on the latest Ugly quilt. Was gonna get it totally finished up and then... once I started working on it, decided to play with even more applique. Why do I do this? I have perfectly good applique projects begging for attention! Anyway, the real problem is that my sit down time is about the same time of day most days of the week, and it's usually either or. Either the hand applique or the hand quilting. Do one then their's not a lot of time for the other. I've been trying to squeeze in more minutes there and that does help. Maybe if I could kick myself off the computer more often?

Also, the upstairs has been in a constant state of uproar since sometime in October when our youngest son moved out. I wrote a long segment about that and then deleted it. Suffice it to say that my husband has completely taken over most of the upstairs with all his stuff, sorting, organizing and even tossing. Good stuff, it definitely needed to be done, but wowsers does he take forever. And a day. My brief time with laying quilts out flat on the floor nearby the quilt room has been done and over with for at least 2 months now, and now I'm basically just squeezing through, past all the rubble, just to get back to my area . I'm trying to be patient and supportive and have gained extra shelving in my quilt room as a result. Yay! No extra floor space, but a good place to get stuff up off the floor and help in de-cluttering the counter tops. Pretty amazing. Of course that means a little bit of time sorting and tidying myself. So ready for that chaos to be over and done with, but I keep telling myself, 'At least it's not in the living room'. Right?*sigh 

Sometimes You Just Have to Give In

First of all, thank you to QuiltGranma and Tricia for leaving the occasional wonderful comment, even though I have no way of responding back to you personally! It's always good to know when something here resonates. If anyone ever comments and doesn't receive a personal email back, then it's a good bet that I can't properly link to your email address. Yahoo addresses are treated the worst by Blogger. Can always leave the address in this form 'audkateaster at gmail dot com' if you're worried about spam.

Orphan blocks

I've been thinking lately that it would be good idea to have a couple comfort type quilt tops all pieced and ready to go. Thinking. Not doing. So what do you know? Right in the middle of some chain piecing the other day, I started wondering about some old courthouse step blocks. These and the house blocks had been culled from some mid 2000's project that had been totally abandoned. All the other components had been thrown away. Yes. They were actually that bad!

Trying to puzzle it out

After putting the courthouse blocks up on the wall, then of course I had to dig out the house blocks and see if they might help the quilt along. Uh huh. Looking good. And then, Eureka! I found the 'Est. 1991' block that was always intended to go with the house blocks. 1991 is the year my husband and I got married and the house blocks represent 7 out of the first 8 houses that we lived in. {It seemed like a good idea at the time!}

At the point that this particular project was finally abandoned, we had lived in 10 different homes total and I had gotten very bored with the entire concept. You know how it goes sometimes. Good idea but maybe bad color palette, too complex of a idea or just altogether too cheesy for words? {Yeah, there was a play on words with this quilt that got thrown out along with the terrible applique vines....}

A little trimming and a couple small fabric additions later

Anyway, back to the comfort quilt idea. This quilt went together lickety-split and in no time at all, I had found the perfect border fabric to wrap it all up. It's a red and white pinstripe fabric with very old school style flowers on it, something I've tried to use so very many times. Definitely charming and and kind of sweet, but actually very hard to use as it always seems to look pink and/or dull no matter what it rests next to. 

Old fabric to the rescue on the borders...

Standing back and celebrating my triumph in sewing a comfort quilt together so quickly, I realized something that had totally escaped my mind. How in the world can I give a quilt to someone {anyone} that says 'Est. 1991' on it? How personal is that? No-one would ever know what the house blocks represented to me unless I told them so that's fine, but the year is another thing altogether. The only other couple I know personally who were married in the same year as us, have been divorced longer than they were married. Wow. Good one Audrey.

Trying to get serious about sewing Shimmer

So back to the chain piecing I went. 'Shimmer' has been a difficult quilt to want to work on. Though Diane mentions the fact that these blocks could be sewn together without pins, it's not working out like that for me. The seams nest together very well, but I'm still using three pins per total strip length. Just to cut down on the seams that slip around and want to misbehave. You'll be shocked to know that I'm ignoring the seam ripper and letting more than a few points sort of wink and nod at joining up properly. We're all happier that way.

So many rows to sew together!

Originally I had a grand love thing going on for this selection of fabrics and then of course I ran low when cutting. Had to throw in a few less wonderful matches and thought 'It'll be fine, it always is'. Sewing the blocks together gave me more than a few moments of anxiety as the reality of limited choice started hitting home. I'm so used to making individual blocks and mixing and blending scrappy fabrics at will. These strip cut units severely lock down the fabric combinations and as you can see, there are all kinds of things going on that would not be my 'best choice'. I would never willingly make up a 'scrappy' block with two or more of the same exact fabric pieces residing so closely together. There are chunks of similar value fabrics nesting cozily together in areas {lines} where the values should be much more fluid. Aghh!!

Hhmm... There is actually a pattern emerging after all...

It feels easier to jump in and out of the project, than try to get it done in one big gulp. I have a feeling that it's not quite as bad as I fear, but it is definitely not what I'd call working in my comfort zone. And to clarify, I did relax just a tad after I got enough of the blocks done to put a handful on the wall, stand back and really take a good hard look. Hhmm... Maybe the mushy lavender purples will hold the line after all. We shall see. Fingers crossed!

A very quick comfort quilt

Okay, yeah. So now you know why I'm falling down rabbit holes and chasing squirrels. Might be a teeny, tiny bit of avoidance? Another strange quilt that uh, developed? lately is the purple/green comfort quilt. It just happened. All in a big rush of easy, no deep thoughts allowed. It was glorious. 

No really, what happened is this. I opened up one of the green totes to search for something and this odd colored paisley fabric got in the way. Again! I'm so very tired of this fabric! When it's in the brown tote, it looks green. When it's in the green tote, it looks brown. It was bought years and years ago because I greatly admired it {why?} and somehow it's been a bit of regret ever since. It's always in the way. So why not get rid of it? Well, that doesn't really happen much around here. It becomes a challenge. Maybe it can be used here, or there? Or maybe nowhere? 

The fabric that started it all

I know some of you have fabrics exactly like this. This cannot be an uncommon insanity! Anyway, I challenged myself to make a quick, comfort style sort of quilt with it or toss it and be done with it forever. So I did. Here's the quilt. It's not fabulous, stunning or even incredible. That weird green/brown paisley fabric is totally used up though! Yay! Be gone annoying fabric! Yay again! Now I'm contemplating putting these silly words on it just because I can't seem to help myself. The thinking is that it might make someone like the quilt a little better? Ha! That would be amusing. Use the fabric up and then be afraid to give the quilt away? Someone will like it. Just have to find the right person!

Applique words or no?

And well...., the squirrel thing has kind of been contagious. Next up is an attempt at a baby quilt. Which I was NOT going to make for the latest family babies. But you know.... Babies are really cute! These blocks were acquired at a quilt guild yard sale for 50 cents. Such a steal. I rarely buy childish fabrics and thought these might come in handy some day. How prescient, right?

Little baby blocks

The fabric pull is always the best part. We know that. I happily hemmed and hawed my way through all the obvious color choices and finally ended up with this little stack. The quilt top is already well on its way to completion because baby quilts are just fun like that. Even when working with this really different color palette! I love how small baby quilts are and how nobody ever expects a them to light the creative world on fire. Sweet, fun, cute are the very low bar to shoot for.

The fabric pull

When the top is officially sewn together and the light is better, I'll try to get some decent pictures of it. Right now it's in panels and simmering overnight in case something desperately needs changing out. There are numerous really good projects that I am right in the middle of. Some that need serious contemplation and all sorts of tricky decisions made. Others just need a stack of fabric cut out or some chain piecing time. As always, there is even hand work patiently waiting in the shadows. I am longing to properly attack some of these projects. But what do I do? Go shopping in the orphan totes and tired fabric bins for 'challenges'. Sometimes you just have to give in and get it out of your system. Yes, really.

Granddaughter love

Here's a recent pic of my adorable grand-daughters. They have packed up and moved away with their mommy and daddy to another state. We are very sad about that {though we admire their reasons} and will probably have to up our traveling game.*sigh  This is just way too much cuteness to do without on a regular basis!

The String Blocks Are A Quilt Top Now!

Did anyone else have an almost two day shutout with Bloglovin'? It looked like their feed wasn't picking up any posts for a very long time. Though I'm annoyed that my most recent post won't be in the blog history, the worst thing is missing new posts from other quilters. Hopefully I can find missing ones and catch up later.

String Blocks

My son was gone for about five days and so of course I took the opportunity to use his bedroom floor. Trying to settle on the layout for the strings quilt definitely took more room than my small design wall had to offer. Not that it actually took five days to make a decision, but so many distractions kept popping up, it did somehow take about four days to sew the rows together. And why not leave the blocks on the floor if they weren't bothering anyone?

Love a good scrap-bin quilt....

There wasn't a lot to choose from {in the stash totes} for the alternate blocks, something I knew all along. Way before this quilt top came together, I had come to the unhappy realization that a large enough piece of fabric {in the appropriate color}, wasn't going to magically materialize in my quilting room. A couple weeks ago, when shopping for binding fabric for Vintage Lily, I also kept an eye out for possibilities for this strings quilt. Because the blocks were so busy, I wanted to keep the background very simple--keep the focus on the energy of the subtle string movement.

A text print inner border

It was an odd choice of a quilt shop {rarely find anything I can't live without}, but the location was convenient at the time and I thought, 'Why not?' Though I wasn't looking specifically for a gray fabric, this Basic Gray tone on tone fabric really seemed to hit all the high notes. I love that it reads as a solid, but up close, there is a gorgeous, turquoise blue texture overlaid across the gray. The final choices seemed to be between a deep, dark, rich blue 'barely-there-print' and this gray 'almost solid'. The quilt store was minutes away from closing and the choice had to be made quickly. Honestly, I was {mentally} crossing my fingers all the way home! I just had this feeling and whew! What a relief to know that my instincts were right on the mark.

Another view

I bought just enough to add a small outer border as my thoughts were to kind of  'float' the string blocks in the background. Then later, when the rows were all sewn together and I could see the final look emerging, it just seemed a little drab. Maybe add a small inner, sashing type border? Off to the stash totes I went, ending up in the black totes after a very brief look at other colors. Nothing seemed to spark any joy until I saw the small cut of black and white text print. It was the remainder of what was originally bought for a border on the Fire quilt and so all that was left was cut on the length of the grain.

And another....

Unfortunately, it was only 7 1/3" wide. Wanting my thin inner border to be a minimum of 1" wide after seam allowance, my heart sank. Just not quite enough for the 5 strips I needed. I looked and looked for other options and thought about mixing up fabrics with similar look prints, something I usually do without any problems whatsoever. Nothing made me happy. Nothing seemed good enough. It's funny, you'd think that having made these blocks from the scrap bin, everything else could have been scrapped together and the make-do look would have done its usual thing. We would have fell in love and lived happily ever after, right? No! I had IDEAS. There was an EXPECTATION. Finally, I measured again, pondered and then cut 5 strips all at about a scant shy of 1 1/2".*sigh  So easy. Why didn't I think of that in the first place?

There's nothing quite like a true scrappy mix of fabrics

So very, very happy with that decision as the text print ends up looking vaguely like a striped fabric in the direction it was cut. Overall it seems to add a little extra spark or attitude to the quilt that mixing several different fabrics would have detracted from. I am absolutely delighted to see it work out. No need to worry why there are so very many pictures! Do you {like me}, admire how the string blocks 'list' here and there and are not perfect little soldiers? Roberta Horton in 'Plaids and Strips' would have said that they are 'casually off-grain'. Oh yes. Gloriously so!

Finished string quilt top

In making the blocks, I started with one string in the center-ish of the paper square and worked to one side and then rotated the block and worked the other side till the paper was covered. Since it was foundation piecing, then technically, I started with a 'pair' of strips. But that pair was always placed just so, in hopeful anticipation that the one on the bottom would be ground zero so to speak. And rarely, rarely are any of my strips a perfect width. They are scraps. Abandoned bits and pieces of whatever has been discarded from the cuttings. So yeah, bias for days.... Thus the foundation pieced efforts for this specific project! You can see it more clearly below, the back side of the quilt where all those lovely papers will have to be removed some day in the future.*ughh

The paper that needs to be taken off

The wonderful quilt below, was my original inspiration for these particular string blocks. You can see where I got my persnickety ideas of how the blocks, and then later the quilt, needed to look! True, I had a very hard time wanting to sew the blocks, but always knew if I could just suck it up and keep going, the quilt was going to be very worthwhile. Antique quilts are the very best form of inspiration, can't hardly get enough. Speaking of that, have you seen Julie's latest quilt? So incredible, you really should go have a look. I swear, she sends me down more squirrel trails than anyone!

Antique quilt inspiration

Something else finally got addressed this last few days too. All the large sets of strips have finally been cut down into the smaller strip units for Shimmer. It hasn't seen any love since February probably!

Cutting, cutting, cutting

It will no doubt still be awhile before I start sewing the units together, but now they are ready for that day when the urge to chain piece becomes irresistible. This project apparently got stuffed into a tote and then mostly forgot about. Shortly after finishing all the cutting, my ruler broke in half. Seriously! Just a fluke thing. Initially dismayed, I felt better about it when thinking back to how long it's been around. 18 years! Wowsers! That's a pretty good investment, considering how much use it gets on a regular basis!

Units for Shimmer quilt

Still working on finishing Big Tipsy Basket for the quilt show and now I feel a lot better about finding time to get some applique prep work in. It's nice to have the 'in-progress' quilt list whittled down to about 5 before I blow it all up and get it back up to the 9 or 10 that seems to be the norm {at least around here!}. What with the AHIQ Floral Challenge and a couple other potential projects taking up lots of head space, there's always plenty of quilt ideas ready and willing to jump on board.... Linking up with Lori's StringAlong. Thank you Lori! Don't think I would have pushed through this specific challenge without the QAL to prod me into action.