6and6in2018 is Getting a Few Results!

The 6and6in2018 for July crept up on me pretty fast. I've been working on my oldest quilt top off an on, trying to get it finished up for this particular linkup. It was part of a series started a very long time ago and one that ended up being monstrously large. So big {105" x 107"} that I never wanted to actually quilt it myself. Do you blame me? What was I thinking?

9-Patch Building Blocks is a finish!

For awhile I planned on having it professionally quilted and then decided it wasn't worth spending that kind of money on. I tentatively decided to hand quilt it and even had a grand stitching plan, special piece of batting bought and everything. Meh.  Still not feeling it and quite honestly, almost gave the quilt top away to a group of ladies I know who make a quilt every year for a fundraiser.

What was holding me back was all the hand work along the edge. That applique border took me forever and was something I felt pretty proud of at the time. It felt so creative!  In hindsight I wish it could have been completed fairly quickly so it could have been one of those celebratory finishes we all love so much. All's well that ends well though as my youngest son really admires the size and simplicity of the design. Yay! It's only been a year and a half since he got a new quilt, but if he likes this one, then I'm a whole year ahead of the gifting-a-quilt-for-graduation thing that I do. Bonus!

It's a big one...

Oh yeah, the details. I finally broken down and decided to sandwich and pin this quilt for machine quilting on my Bernina 740. It has a larger harp than my old machine {the backup these days}, so it seemed doable, at least in abstract. Lets just say that I will probably never, EVER do that again. The machine handled it just fine, no problems there, but the sandwiching, pinning and marking took forever and many more days. Ughh....  Not fun at all.

I used an orange/gold Aurifil thread for stitching and various pieces of green fabrics {pulled from deep down in the stash totes} to make a scrappy binding. It's all done now and washed up in a very loose, drapey feel that my son will love. After he popped a bunch of quilting threads on the last quilt {pushing his feet into it and stretching out like the total dork that he is}, I have given him the big fat lecture on how to properly treat a quilt: Feel free to use it, maul it, snuggle up in and generally wrap up and/or drool on. Wipe your Cheeto fingers on it if you must! but please, please stop with the gross mistreatment!

The basket is my favorite part

And no it wasn't old, sun faded thread or anything like that. It took awhile and much pondering and panicking about other quilts that I've gifted. Would people tell me if their quilts are coming apart at the seams? We finally narrowed it down to the problem child though.*whew! I take care of my threads and don't use garbage for machine quilting so that's that. This new quilt will be a great test quilt to see if he's learned anything or actually even heard a word that his mom said. Hmm... How does this even happen to a quilter? Not sure I'd place any money on this particular bet though and you can be sure he won't be getting a very impressive quilt anytime soon.....

Patchwork Triangles a new quilt top!

The quilt top for Patchwork Triangles is done now too. It was on the 6in6in2018 list as well. Just cut-off triangles in the beginning, but they certainly shaped up into a fun looking quilt top! So glad I challenged myself with these as I always get such a charge out of figuring out something to do with the orphaned bits and pieces. The sharp yellow solid fabric was bought at a quilt show last year just because I couldn't resist. Love seeing it end up in something like this! The top ended up being 62 1/2" x 68 1/2", so a nice sized lap quilt that could be a sweet gift for one of our extended family members some day. Loving the slightly vintage looking vibe of it all and feeling more determined than ever to keep playing with the castoffs.

A good border works wonders

And you've already seen the quilt top pics for the HaHa quilt. So glad that one is finished up and out of my hair for now. I knew it had to be on this list to receive any more attention this year, and yep, that's exactly what happened. I'd look at the list and start to feel guilt pains if I kept pushing it aside. It's so interesting that with some quilts we can't hardly make ourselves quit working on them and others? Wow! Such a slog. Never seriously want to get busy with them, although that doesn't mean we don't like them just as much in the end!

HaHa quilt checked off the list too

I haven't been keeping very good track of new quilts as this list has been more valuable for keeping me on task for finishing. There is never a problem with wanting to start new quilts around here so not gonna worry about that for now!

Washington cherries are the best

My cousin unexpectedly dropped off three boxes of cherries this afternoon. After making a few phone calls and unloading two of them {they needed immediate attention}, I decided to freeze the rest. It doesn't take much time, just have to wash them, pick all the stems off and toss the bad cherries. They don't even have to be totally dry before putting them in freezer Ziplocs and then later in the year they are a great snack for the {bottomless stomach}, youngest son. We ate frozen cherries like candy when we were kids. Junk food? That was for summer picnics and vacation. Linking up with Meredithe and Anne for 6and6in2018-July!

How The HaHa Quilt Came to Be

Yay for me! This Solids Challenge quilt is finally, finally, finally at completed quilt top stage. Whew! It only took 2 1/2 years. If you remember, back in June, I mentioned cutting the border triangles a little too large. That promptly took me to the next challenge, what to do for an intermediate border?

The middle border

Somehow I ended up with the idea to sew a HaHa border based on a gorgeous quilt over at Nifty Quilts. That left me with a small coping border in between the HaHa's and the middle of the quilt that had to be addressed.

Contemplating using red...

I auditioned different colors, quickly realizing that it was going to have to be a neutral to play nice. Red was definitely a no go.

Black is too stark

 As was black and gray.

Gray is too 'meh'

And much to my internal resistance, white was the obvious choice. You may think that my instinctive balking is odd, but I'm just not into all those stark 'white' quilts that are so popular. Like the only color that responds wonderfully to COLOR, is a non-color.

And white makes perfect sense....

 So I earnestly set my biases aside and sewed the quilt top together with the white inner coping border. Honestly, I almost just left the entire triangle border completely off! Doesn't the first picture look wonderful 'as is'? But then the quilt would be too small to do anything much with and the thought of all those wasted triangles just made me feel queasy.

Another square quilt!

So I forged ahead and yes, it felt good to have the triangles sewing together nicely. Sometimes I seriously start doubting my math skills and it's good to have a reminder that I can occasionally do something right! lol

It looks positively lovely in some light....

And the more I looked at my quilt, the more it started feeling okay again. Maybe the outside borders weren't a giant mistake after all.

The HaHa border was a good decision

I've changed the name of this quilt to the 'HaHa' quilt. It sorta named itself and seems more appropriate now than ever. Such a challenge all the way through! My family thinks the HaHa blocks are very weird and strange, but then they don't get the connection to an antique quilt or my crazy fumbles and missteps through the entire evolution of the quilt.

I think it might already be growing on me....

I wish the green triangles framed the quilt all the way around as they look best next to the HaHa blocks. That's what happens though when ideas have to be changed and tinkered with halfway through! I'm very excited to fold this quilt up and have it languish a good long while in the quilt top drawers. Maybe when I pull it back out in a few months or a year, I'll have a new found appreciation for it? In the meantime, I'm making a big 'ol check mark next to one of my most prioritized goals for this year. The Solids Challenge quilt top is DONE! Never, ever give up or you'll never get where you're going.....

Slow, Plodding Progress on the 6in6 in 2018

I only have one applique project on the go at the moment and for some reason I am very resistant to working on it. This past weekend I finally got it out and stitched five more petals. Since there are 80 in all, this didn't even make a dent. But it did serve to remind me of why I started it in the first place--the colors are just yummy...

Melon Patch quilt

You can see that I tend to grab whatever thread that will best match the fabric, regardless of brand. While there are most definitely superior threads that glide through fabric 'like silk', matching color is important too. {For those that want to know, DMC machine embroidery thread is still my absolute fave for hand work. The problem is, local supply is extremely limited!}

Another project which continually gets shoved off at the least provocation is my Solids Color Challenge quilt. As my measurements were way off for the last border addition, I thought to add an in-between border solution. Do you remember the HaHa quilt over at nifty quilts? Such a fabulous quilt. I'm using that as the inspiration to create one row of HaHa blocks. While the original quilt had more somber beginnings, my blocks are a good poke at my seeming inability to get math right lately. I'm hoping the gray background fabrics will serve as a good transition between the center and more colorful triangle border that comes after. Trust me to be the one to work completely backwards!

Another border for the Solids Challenge quilt

This overlarge basket was the third in a series of what was vaguely intended to be four large basket quilts. The first one was Gather Ye Rosebuds and the second one was Woven Basket. This one ended up being just a little larger than I expected it to be. And the chances of there being a fourth largish basket? Probably not happening anymore as I am getting increasingly tired of this series, but we'll see. Stranger things have happened around here!

Auditioning a border for Another Big Basket

 All the border ideas I came up with ended up with a potential freakishly large quilt. You know--in order for everything to be 'in proportion'.  I briefly toyed with the idea of not adding anything to it and finishing it as a wall hanging for my bedroom. Hmm... Not exactly the colors I want to hang on my bedroom wall for the next 20 years. So finally, I did some creative brainstorming with that process that most of us call throwing fabric on the floor next to the quilt. It's a very simplistic way of attacking the problem, but sometimes has surprisingly good results. When you've drawn up a hundred ideas and thrown them all away because they don't 'look right', it often helps to engage a different part of the brain.

A finished quilt top!

Once I got the basic idea/look solidified for the border piecing, then I spent an hour and a half trying to figure out how to add more applique. Of course I did. {Because I can never seem to leave well enough alone.} Eventually I reached the point of complete exasperation and realized that it was all just a little too much. Off came all the applique parts and pieces and when the border was finally sewn on, it proved out to be the very best solution of all. Yes! Simple and sweet was exactly what was needed for my ginormous tipsy basket with the odd side handles. Sometimes we just don't know when to quit until we hit our head against the brick wall enough times to finally wake up.

Sunburst finally moving forward again!

And yes, here's the next quilt to go into the hoop. I have a couple bindings needing attention on others, but can't leave that hoop empty for long! Sunburst was started back in 2014 but didn't reach finished quilt top status until spring of 2016. It was the first quilt that I had ever done with such a large centerpiece sewn completely of applique parts and pieces.

Sunburst in the hoop

As per usual, that much applique earnestly compels me to take the extra time to hand stitch the quilt top. To honor and respect the effort, hehe.... So in the hoop it went, finally reaching the top of the queue. After thinking through many stitching options, I am once again going with a freehand style of Baptist Fan quilting--trying to keep the curves approx. an inch or slightly more apart. I want it to have a 'background' look and feel {thus the black perle cotton}, but also an airiness to it when all the stitching is completed on the quilt {why I'm keeping the curves spread farther apart than usual}.

At this point I am almost finished stitching two rows across the bottom of the quilt, but my oh my, has it been a panicky, nerve-wracking start. Working freehand always feels hairy-scary starting out and I second, third and fourth guessed myself. Now, here at the end of the second row, it's starting to feel like it might, just might be the look that I intended in the first place. 

Of course I'm still drawing the lines prior to stitching {all in a freehand, eyeball-it sort of manner}, but once I get more comfortable and into a good rhythm, then I won't need to mark quite as much. Freehand stitching is not for everyone, but all the quirkiness that results from this sort of quilting still totally melts my heart and makes me feel true sisterhood to quilters from long years ago. Linking up with 6and6in2018. It has been slow, plodding progress, but I've made things happen on three different projects and even crossed of them right off the list! Woohoo!

Always Time For Play

I've been having a hard time keeping up with blogging. Must be that time of year! We finally got our heat and air system fixed so now it's easier to hand quilt in the evenings again. Oooh, it was really warm here in the house for a couple weeks!

Vintage Red getting some hand quilting done!

The Solids Challenge project got a little bit of attention this past week. Just enough to convince me that I don't have a clue about math. Somehow my triangles for the border work were cut out without any thought for the fact that they are much longer on the diagonal than the original square dimension.*meh  I'm blaming the heat. That said, now I need to figure out a extra border for in between the bulk of the quilt and the nifty triangle border I have already sewn together. Or I could take it all apart and start fresh. Nahhh... That sounds like an invitation to chuck the entire project into the darkest corner of the quilt room and give up for a few more years!

The outside border work for Solids Challenge quilt

So of course I went right to work..... on the leftover triangles. You know how it is, just throw them up on the wall for a few minutes.

Just playing....

 That somehow turned into a couple hours....

Maybe some sashing?

 And then, ahem! Maybe one or two evenings?

Too late to rip it out, there's too much time invested!

I do so love playing with colors and the original composition, tho perfectly lovely, felt boring and possibly a bit flat.

'Off On a Tangent' starting to turn into a quilt top!

This actually looks better on the wall than what I've captured here with my camera. I'm already dreaming up some interesting border ideas with, yeah, you guessed it, applique. Whew. Good thing I didn't have a whole list of quilt projects begging for some forward progress! Might have to feel guilty for getting completely sidetracked and disappearing down a rabbit hole. The gal at a local quilt store was telling me just the other day that she has finished up every single one of her UFO's! Wowsers, I can't even imagine that ever happening around here. I think there's a self sabotage button that activates any time I even start thinking about making a serious dent in my UFO's.

Oh, and the new Blogger scenario where the comments don't connect with our email? That is sooo.... frustrating. I've tried the workaround to comment on my own post etc. and that doesn't seem to work. Hopefully they will be fixing this soon, but in the meantime, please have patience with me responding! It all just takes a bit more time and that is in very short supply around here this month. I'm headed to Oregon for my niece and nephews graduation so replies will probably be even later than normal. Yep, I'm a slacker when it comes to computer time. If it comes down to a choice between quilting and cruising the internet, the fabric obsession usually wins....  Linking to Pomegranate and Chintz for the 6in6in2018. Just squeaked in on the final day of linkup!

Little Bits of Progress This Week

There hasn't been nearly as much hand quilting as I would like lately. Too many interruptions in our normal routine and also, I've been reading a lot more. I'm easily seduced by those 25 cent books from the senior center thrift store...

Quilty 365 in the hoop

Looking ahead to when this quilt is ready to move out of the hoop, I settled on the next quilt top in line. Then I decided that it obviously needed another border on the top and bottom. Of course it has to be applique. Never go the easy route when there's a more complicated option! That's me on the nose, but in my defense, I'm not a huge fan of ignoring the insistent pleas from an unfinished quilt top aspiring for 'more'. If there's work to be done in pursuit of its betterment, so be it. Better to buckle down and do it now than regret the lack forever.

Another border...

Hemming and hawing over the Solids Challenge quilt once again. Finally went with the white printed sashing of which I am not exactly thrilled about. But it's better than any other option I could come up with from the stash. And I like how it helps keep the quilt sweet and happy looking, so that's a bonus.

Getting the middle part of the quilt sewn together

This quilt--oh this crazy quilt. I like it {even love it sometimes}, but it hasn't been easy to move forward at any particular point in the journey. I cut out the white triangles in the same creamy white used with the solid colored {little} triangle sashings. Then I ran out before I could cut enough for the very outside of the quilt. Will have to come up with some sort of solution soon so the sewing can commence and frankly, I'm tired of having to take up the entire living room floor for this sort of thing. Might do what Cathy normally does and just wing it. Her quilts usually turn out to be pretty amazing even without fine-tuning the layout every step of the way!

Auditioning the outer border

I really, really want to get this quilt wrapped up and behind me. Maybe, possibly, hopefully, there will be more time next week. Do you ever feel like the quilts that you most want to work on haven't even been started yet? Linking up with 6and6 in 2018 and sew stitch snap SHARE.

Every Stitch Counts....

I just couldn't stand it any longer. This quilt {Quilty 365} needed to be in the hoop and that was that. You know how it is. Once a decision is made about the next quilt-in-the-hoop, it's just seems to be time!

Next up in the hoop!

I did manage to wait until the Tree of Life quilt was ready for binding, but it was touch and go. Not that this quilt was hard to work on at all. Oh no. These colors were perfectly satisfying to have in the hoop. The binding was an interesting choice as I really thought the orange/peach would give it a too matchy, matchy vibe. Nothing else popped though and using a brown or black just seemed boring. Surprisingly, this drab peach works well, especially when it's folded over and such a tiny little bit of color is all that will be showing. It was thrilling to find an larger, much older piece of plaid fabric that worked wonderfully for the binding. It's been hanging around in the stash totes for years and years! Now to get it all hand stitched to the back of the quilt.

Ready to stitch down the binding

Trying to keep up with the 6and6in2018 was problematic this month, just like last month. This little Tidbits quilt has most of the little 'hills' stitched down though. Only a few left to go now. Well, maybe it's more than a few, but still.... My granddaughter was at our house for five days and nights so this little bit of hand work felt like serious progress! The applique probably would have been all finished, but there was so much up and down, putting it aside etc., that finally I just folded it up and put it away. Didn't want a loose pin to find it's way into her foot or something equally traumatic!

Just a little more applique left...

Also for the 6and6in2018 challenge, I pulled out the Solids challenge quilt and finally, finally made a decision about the border. I've been agonizing about where to take it from these simple, punchy blocks. I've dithered between a clamshell type border, pieced triangles, applique work and everything in between. The funny thing, is that it probably won't even matter what the border looks like. It's just that the quilt is so small at this point, it's going to need something! I'm still cutting out the pieces, but as you can see, solids are not much in the equation anymore either. That was a huge decision too, as solids was the initial 'challenge' goal. It's a relief to let that go and just do my own thing, unfettered from restriction, from here on out.

So yes, it's a little strange, but I'm not sewing the center of the quilt together until I know exactly how long the borders will be. Of course I know what the measurement is supposed to be, but that doesn't mean it will actually happen. It feels safer to wait and adjust the sashing widths as necessary rather than try for a skinny coping border solution. Lots of confidence that my border will be wonky huh? Yep. It's gonna be a three deep sawtooth border. Lots of wiggle room there with the way I sew!

Starting to cut the border pieces...

And here's the little munchkin who kept G'ma and Papa hopping this past week. Wowsers, was I tired by the end of her time with us. Two year olds just don't fit seamlessly into our lives anymore!

Taking over Grandma's bed...

Good times though. She's such a little bundle of sunshine and love! Wouldn't trade it for all the quilting time in the world. Although.... now that my time is more freed up? Can't wait to get back to the quilting room! Linking up to 6and6in2018! Only worked on those two projects {Tidbits and Solids Challenge} for the month, but even a little bit of progress is better than none?

Keeping Up With 6and6in2018

I'm running a bit behind this week, thought this post would be up by at least Friday. Nope! Too much going on here to sit at the computer long enough to type out a post. What we have here is progress on the 6and6in2018 over at Meredithe's. It almost feels like cheating to 'get' to start six new projects, but really, I wouldn't have joined otherwise. Finishing stuff up feels good, but starting is better.*wink

The Big Basket quilt

So I finally knuckled down and figured out the next step for my Big Basket quilt. I wanted a lattice look in between the basket slats and had to decide how to do it best for efficiencies sake. First I laid some freezer paper down on top of the basket and cut them exactly to fit inside each of the slats. Then I took some quick measurements to determine the number best divisible by what I had to work with length and width wise. That all went swimmingly and it was drawn up lickety split. Then I ironed the papers onto the fabrics chosen out for each slat and started cutting. Oops! I accidentally cut the seam allowances off where they join up on the vertical. Guess I'll just have to add a 'button' of contrasting color at all the joints now, probably where the seam allowance is intact as well. Oh well. That's what happens when I make things up as I go along!

Then I jumped into the Solids Challenge project which has been in progress for well over a year now. This is a project that I never really want to work on until I'm knee deep in the fabric. It's cute and feels good while in motion, but otherwise doesn't seem very exciting to me. The fabric that I had picked out for sashing looks terrible as does most everything else that I auditioned. In desperation I turned to the black/gray fabric tote and started looking there, hoping something {anything!} would help keep the applique blocks in the forefront and not busy the whole quilt even more. The fabric that I finally selected is a very small gray/white pinstripe and seems to do a good job. I know some people would have went white, but that just leaves me cold. A little bit of white goes a very long way for me.

Solids Challenge quilt

And then there's the new project: Melon Patch. I think there will be 20 blocks as that seems to be the latest magic number when it comes to block amounts in current quilts. One of my friends suggested I have a bit of OCD and I started to get very annoyed before shrugging it off. If I do, then it's working very well for me, thank you very much! As you can see, the circles in these little centerpieces, are quite a bit wobbly in places and definitely not centered. I am NOT a Kay Buckley perfect circle type of quilter though I know a lot of you like very sharp looking circles. Each to their own is what I say.

Melon Patch

Our life gets very hectic, a bit messy and oftentimes feels like we're just a leaf in a fast moving stream. We have things like mice invasions and when I get to the end of my rope with the mice licking the peanut butter off the traps and running away without getting trapped, then my husband and son get out the pellet gun and find a way to kill them while {the mice} hide under the furniture. Very redneck but hey, it works. I cannot handle the idea of living peacefully with mice while having so many lovely quilts lounging around. Ughh...

We also have things happen like our heat pump going out in the dead of winter and our electric bill skyrocketing from the emergency strips running full blast. Ouch! When we figured it out. Finally. {Remember the November fire scare? It apparently caused the heat pump to start failing too....} We brought in several little heaters that are supposed to keep the living room temp. balanced out enough to not trigger the thermostat into making the furnace work. You know, unless it's really, really cold out. Meanwhile, I sit on the couch and try to do hand work with freezing fingers and hello? My stitching gets a little bumpy occasionally. This will all get sorted out eventually but winter is not exactly our best time of year for big dollar expenses. Ughh...

And then we had a friend borrow my suburban to go see a gravely ill relative. They got left much later than expected coming home over the mountain passes, and yes, wrecked the truck on the way home. Thankfully they are fine, but now I don't have a vehicle to drive because, while the insurance paid out, it's a pretty old suburban and the money didn't come to much. Probably shouldn't have claimed it really, but why else do we pay insurance? You know what I'm most upset about? Now we don't have any vehicles with seat heaters and also, I'm desperately afraid my husband will take this opportunity to replace that sturdy winter-driving vehicle with a dinky little car that gets better gas mileage. Ughh...

So.... the moral to my long, sad story is this, if my applique looks a little on the sloppy side, you know, it really doesn't bother me a whit. If my quilts could talk, my oh my, the stories they'd tell. There is a lot of stress, anxiety and just plain old dealing with life's little ups and downs stitched into everything that I do. You do the same! There's joy and there's tedium and so very much determination to create something beautiful with our own two hands. What I see is the human touch and it makes me so very happy. What are your quilts saying about you? A Legacy of Stitches is a great poem that says it very well. My favorite though, is the story of  'that quilt' in one of my old quilt books. I really need to embroider it, put it in a frame and terrorize my family just a little bit. They'd never, ever look at my quilts the same again.

17 in 2017 Still Moving Along

Still working on the 17-ufos-in-2017. For the Peachy Cameo Medallion, I have been working on a scalloped border. Couldn't find the right border fabric and then stumbled upon this funky print in the stash. I feel in love with it not knowing how it would end up being used and so this is a surprising choice to me.

Peachy Cameo Medallion

Overall though, the entire quilt has been surprising. It seems odd to still be incorporating more red and blue into this quilt instead of branching off into other colors like usual! Still have two border units left to go before this scallop border will be complete and also the corner blocks--not sure what's going to happen their either. For now I am contemplating a little applique addition to what I already have going on, perhaps add a bit more spice to the quilt...

Auditioning another idea for the border

The solids challenge quilt is on the list as well and finally, I went forward with a plan that's been in the works for months now. I drew this triangle sashing plan out in a rough sketch, but didn't know if I like it or not. Well, you know how that goes. Sometimes you just have to sew it together to find out! And so the first three blocks are up on my wall for all to see. Hmm... I think adding in more of those solids is probably the right choice and I am happy they won't all be the same. Still, am I making more work for myself just because I can? 

Looking at the new sashing detail

 And then there is the Eagle quilt. It's definitely in the hoop and after a very rough start {ripping out thread colors I didn't like}, we are well on our way to something positive. It's often hard to 'see' the best way forward when getting started. This one would have looked fine in many different stitching patterns, but there's always one we seem to prefer, right?

In the hoop...

As usual, we have had very busy times here--a cousin wedding last weekend with lots of family in town. So much fun but now I have been hit with the flu. Ugghh... Will hopefully be back to my normal routine very soon....

Applique and More Applique

There's been a little bit of progress on my 17ufosin2017. Mainly I was focused on getting this particular border finished up and sewn onto my Peachy Cameo quilt. Originally I was going to just have the simpler border work shown in the first panel on top. Bleh! Too boring. So I played around with some ideas and came up with the idea to add on the blue flowers.

Border work on Peachy Cameo Medallion

I was worried about too many 'circle' shapes and how that would look. Yes, no? and then in the end decided the quilt needed that bit of orangey-coral to connect back into the centerpiece. I'm all about creating movement and energy in a quilt and one of the easiest ways to do this is by strategically using color!

This plain peach background fabric has been really different to work with. Not sure I LOVE it, but overall, it's been a very different and a fun, albeit challenging, change-up. Looking at the quilt with these borders all sewn on, now I'm wishing I would have extended the long 'vines' down into the bottom border. Oh well. Hindsight is most always 20/20. At this point I'm trying to decide if I should pursue the next, but last border that was roughed out in the basic plan, or leave it 'as is'. Also, I'm contemplating taking the bottom border off and turning it upside down. Hhmmm.... So many decisions.

Another border on Peachy Cameo Medallion

 On another quilt in this challenge, all of the Solids Challenge blocks are finished! Yay! Only nine blocks and they have taken me well over a year and a half! Some quilts are just not in a hurry. And yes, I designed and drew them all out myself. Of course there have been many influences from the lovely applique I have seen and been exposed to for years. That's the beauty and charm of quilting. Trying to make something new but using the genesis of so many beautiful quilts from before!

Blocks for the Solids challenge

If I could point you to a single piece of inspiration for any of these blocks, I would. But honestly, when doing applique like this, it's often just wispy little memories and a basic idea being drawn and then re-drawn onto paper. From there the shapes have to be manipulated into fabric form and many times there's a detour at that point as well.

This is one of those quilts where the original plan is not wanting to play nice and so I'm staring at my blocks and scratching my head. I don't want to make more blocks, that's for sure. Guess I'll have to let these simmer awhile longer until that light bulb goes off. Somehow I have a feeling this isn't a project to force into submission. Might inadvertently lose all the charm....

Linking up with Meredithe and many others trying to check things off that 2017 list!

On My Design Wall

I have been thoroughly enjoying my time in the quilt room this week. Obviously I have a bit of a thing for pink and gold right now, but that's just the way tend to things happen around here! This week saw me finally diving into trying to make pieced letters.

What's on my design wall

The capital 'I' was super easy and so that was a good start. From there it got a little mind boggling at times, but eventually there was a rhythm going that felt easy and good. I had forgotten until diving into these playful letters, that years ago, I put pieced wording on the back of one of my younger brothers graduation quilt. It was laborious work, cutting every piece of the letter just so. Tonya's free form method {Word Play Quilts by Tonya Ricucci} is so much more fun! Sometimes I follow her general guidelines and sometimes I don't, but it's definitely keeping me entertained. For instance, I made the 'M' accidentally by cutting and sewing the angles wrong on the 'W'. Oh well. It will work just fine in another word. There are certainly going to be plenty of words before I get done!

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I also got a good start on the hst medallion quilt. It was a bit tricky making sure the measurements were right for the first black row, but after getting that settled, the rest should just be a matter of repeats. I decided to use the Easy Angle method {Diane's tutorial is my go-to} for increased accuracy and well, less trimming. I hate the trimming part of the traditional hst method! And as this quilt will continue to build around rows of hst's, accuracy is key for ending up with a square quilt, right?

Right.... Hah.  I ran into trouble immediately because that increased accuracy only occurs when cutting and sewing is happening in a precision sort of way. Ugghh... Too many distractions happening around me and so my hst rows were a little bit too long. Consistently too long, but still. Not good. And then it occurred to me that those black strips would be placed between every single row of hst's! Serendipity, or a very smart quilter. Hmm... Me thinks the black rows had a different sort of function than just good aesthetics. 

So I did what I would normally do and just fudged on the seam allowance here and there. {*Confessing my sins here...} Just a smidge extra sewn into the seam in about three spots on every row. With that, the row of hst's shrunk to the proper length, easily allowing the corner squares to fit properly. Can you even tell when you look at the top picture? I can't! From here on out, every corner square at the end of both the black rows and the hst rows, will have to be the exact same size. That means I can play around {and fudge with the hst's wherever I need to} as long as the black rows and corner squares remain a constant. *whew!

Are you shaking your head at me and wondering why I don't just sharpen up my cutting and piecing skills? This is an old make-do sort of quilt that I'm interpreting. On closer examination, the hst's don't even represent the same way from side to side of the quilt or even a complete row around the quilt--the only constant is that the dark part of the hst is pointing upwards throughout. I couldn't believe it when I started taking a closer look. So fascinating! And because there are so many rows and rows of hst's, it's not at all obvious to the casual viewer. Woohoo! This means I can fudge with impunity and yes, great glee!

Another couple blocks for the Solids Challenge quilt

I have also found time to do some applique work. These blocks have been practically begging for some attention all year. After this there are only three left, and as always, they have been ridiculously easy to do. And fun. I love the stark, simple beauty of them! Why I have drug my feet for so long on these is a mystery. Having several new applique projects waiting in the wings finally compelled me to get going on finishing these blocks, but really, the reasons for why I continually dawdle around on certain projects, then speed right through others? Motivation and Mojo. Crazy stuff....

Linking up with Sew, stitch, snap, share....