Dried Flowers Quilt Top is Finished!

Some quilts come about from sheer whimsy. Completely unplanned, nonetheless sparked  by something deep within our conscience, we feel there is no choice but to start stitching. Only later do we gradually realize that there needs to be an end to the story! Picture me scribbling madly on notebook paper, drawing up potential layout ideas. This of course after impulsively coming up with these flower blocks! Hmm.. What to do, what to do....

Dried Flowers quilt top

This quilt was one of those deceptively simple, but madcap sort of starts and no-one is more surprised than me at how it has turned out! I'm not sure if this is a end-of-the-summer-flower-garden or an ode to spring but, whatever! It's all good! I am loving the use-it-up feel of starting with cast-off circles and then winding my way through the depths of the stash totes, and then finally, having a play with a bit more formal looking applique! Where were the seeds of this quilt hiding and why didn't I even realize they were always there, lying in wait?

A closer look at the coin strips

Having slowly plodded through {most} of the details for the applique work, all that was needed was to add on the outside border strips. Then I impulsively decided to applique the small orangey squares at the corners too. The brighter coral flowers in the center rows were overshadowing the poor Dried Flower blocks. These little spots of color seemed to help bring a little more focus back to the sweet looking flowers. Plus, it felt whimsical and that's usually a win in my book.

The little add-ons at the corners....

I'm so pleased with the improv. cut coin strips in between the flowers. It's getting to be a default decision, adding in strippy free-cut piecing to so many of my quilts.  It might seem silly or maybe even pointless to sew them with such blendy fabrics, but the resulting texture absolutely thrills me on such an elemental level. How could I resist and why would I even want to to try....

Such a feel-good sort of finish!

Figuring out the side borders was always going to be a little tricky. I had a {perfectly perfect} brown fabric with a subtle stripe that hopped on board almost from the beginning. I knew it had to go somewhere, and eventually that 'somewhere' became obvious as an outside border. The horizontal applique border strips just kept insisting that they needed to spill out into that border. Okay, fine, but I didn't want to break up the flow up those subtle stripes either. So, yeah. Nobody was ever going to notice but me, and we all know how these things wind up. Gotta make it happen so it won't drive us insane later! Oh I should have, could have, knew it would have been better the other way.... Right?

Trying to decide measurements for the border...

It finally came down to cutting the horizontal brown strips at exactly the width of the sewn together flower block/coin strips; ie, the current width of the quilt. Then I measured {and measured again}, finally cutting the cream applique background just long enough to extend beyond, and over, into the outside border. So yes, I sewed the horizontal brown strips to the flower/coin strips in a huge big unit, then cut and sewed the outside borders onto the sides of the quilt. At that point, I then unpinned the folded up ends of the cream fabric and laid the excess lengths out over into the outside border. I used a paper template that I had drawn up to gauge where to cut the 'triangle' shape, and then finished appliqueing the rest of that strip down.*whew!  So much trouble for a a very stubborn idea.

Where the center strips extend into the side borders...

It looks a little ruffled in the picture, but in reality it lays quite flat. Maybe if I wouldn't leave my quilt tops laying around for awhile before taking pictures or even, better yet, ironed things more carefully? You wouldn't be scratching your heads at any or all of the quilts that do {amazingly} end up looking fairly square around here...

In the initial layout drawing, I had drawn two stacked circles where each of the black circles are, kind of like a colon, but it didn't look right. Eventually I determined that only one circle was needed but that it needed to be larger. Thankfully there was just enough of that particular fabric left to cut new, larger circles because for some reason that was the very best black fabric available from the stash. You know how black has so many different tones? This fabric was a super subtle woven, but spot on in intensity. With so very much brown represented in the quilt, I definitely didn't want a too-saturated black to come off as jarring and strident. And it couldn't be a modern or contemporary print. Fabric is important to the feel and vibe in a quilt. I care about these things quite a lot actually, as do many of you!

Now it'll be time to work on the baby girl quilt which was made up of the cast-off coin strips from this project. Only a week or so till the shower! Linking up with Wendy's Peacock Party!

It Finally Has a Real Name Now

We've been having our winter storm weather for the past two weeks. Lots and lots of snow, which makes for gorgeous scenery, and also, whenever it stops snowing, lovely, lovely light shining into the house. Thankfully it looks like it will melt off rather quickly and not stick around for too long. We don't care to drive in those conditions on a regular basis!

Antique Crows a completed quilt top now!

Feeling quite home bound when the snow is doing its worst, I have dedicated myself to finishing up the quilt top for Quarter Circles, hereafter to be called 'Antique Crows'. I'm not sure when this one was officially started, but I think it was sometime in 2017? As all the blocks were applique, it's something that I took time with working on, never making it a top priority. And in fact, this project was more of a 'squirrel' project as the little cream quarter circles were cut-outs from behind the applique on a previous quilt. Waste not, want not!

Looking at the top border....

It always amuses me how one quilt project can so extemporaneously spark yet another idea or even, at times, turn into an unplanned series of quilts created with similar elements. The ideas just keep flowing and with this one in particular, two ideas somehow joined together: the chunky New York Beauty blocks {leftover quarter circles} and the interpretation of the Antique Crows applique. So efficient when it works that way!*wink

These blocks just make me smile

The inspiration photo really made an impression on me when first seeing it. I so wanted to add it into one of my quilts some day! How to do that? Start from scratch and design a quilt around the idea? Like a lot of other great ideas, this one was probably better in theory than in actual practice, but whatever, had to try! And this was the quilt it landed on. If you looked at the photo, the whole design was a little bit short for the top border of a quilt, unless perhaps all the pieces were made really large. Putting the entire design in the center of a quilt? Maybe a better idea, but nah! I wanted these blocks to be a unit. Not every quilt is destined to be a medallion style.

So yeah, that's the real reason this particular design ended up being extended lengthwise. All about where I decided to place these larger birds in my quilt. Rather than absolute repeats of the original, I just determined to add on to the 'story'. I'm sure there are a lot of great ways this design could have tinkered with, but this way makes me smile. Plus it feels right for the fabric choices on hand. Lets not forget how important that is!

And just so you know, originally I wanted the crows to be anything but black {just to try something not as traditional looking?}, but, hmm...,  it just didn't make sense. I already had the blocks made for the base of the quilt. That part was NOT changing! No matter which fabric/color I auditioned with, those birds were determined to be made out of the darkest fabric. Okay, fine, have it your way! Who am I to argue with a quilt! In an effort to make that black look a little less stark, I made the smaller birds out of similar fabrics too. That's kinda the rule of thumb. If something stands out a little too much, then simply add more of it. Easy peasy. It's not like there's a lot of black in the quilt otherwise, right?

A close up

So no, its not identical to the original. I'm not one to worry much about accuracy in interpretation, you know that. Its more about successfully translating the feel of it all--that part that resonates so well in our heads for whatever reason. The green stems and leaves are possibly {I'm still considering} a little too florescent looking for my taste, still, they were the only greens that I could find to properly blend with all the other colors. 

Overall, I'd say this was a good ending, somehow keeping with the primitive look while at the same time leaving off most of the dark and broody elements. There was a time that I adored the darker look of most traditional primitive quilts. Now, however, I tend to want something with that same, lovely, lovely naive look {feel?}, but with perhaps a lighter, happier vibe. You know exactly what I'm talking about.

Strips sewn together for Shimmer Quilt

I also ended up sewing together all the strips for Shimmer, the strip quilt that was started during Diane Knotts book blog hop. As usual, I am looking at my fabric choices and wanting to poke my eyes out with a big stick. How could this have been a good idea? Just kidding! I'm not really that much of an emotional basket case. Mostly I'm just a wee bit concerned that I didn't use enough variation in the color palette.  I seem to have this comfort zone of two colors, an accent, and then lots and lots of neutrals that behave themselves and play very nicely in the background.

This is a common theme with me--getting all excited about my original stacks of fabric, cutting into them and then at some point, having a form of buyers remorse. Questioning myself. Doubting everything. Wanting to turn back the clock and make a small correction. Thankfully, that's usually a very brief stage of the process and honestly, it's not even very stressful anymore because I just figure it comes with the territory! If I was a complete and total control freak, it would be easy enough to reload Electric Quilt 7 on my computer and do a computer generation. They say it can be done in color and with actual look-like-the-fabric swatches. Oh my goodness, how boring would that be? Knowing exactly what our quilts would like like before we ever sewed up a single stitch! 

Off On a Tangent

It's done. My honest-to-goodness squirrel quilt has the binding on and it's ready to head down the road to its new home! It was started on a whim one day when the leftover triangles seemed more interesting than the finding-a-solution session would ever be.

Off on a Tangent

It quickly morphed into a quilt with a destination. There's this friend of mine who has had some scary health problems earlier this year and of course, I'm always thinking 'surely, a quilt will make everything better!'

A happy quilt...

I loved adding that oldish red/yellow/purple plaid. It's one that I bought years ago in the feel sorry for me clearance bin. You know how it works, gotta buy a whole yard before you actually get the 'deal'. Uh huh. I'm a sucker for them too.

Hand quilting along the triangles....

The lettering added onto the quilt was a bit of a disappointment. Not very visually striking at all. But I took some of your advice and just let it be. I could've done some really interesting things to darken the edges of the letters and all kinds of super creative things.... that would have taken a lot of time.... things that would have totally annoyed me.... And well, it's just not that important to me with this particular quilt.

And hand quilting in the border....

It's a feel good quilt. A fast and easy 'squirrel' quilt that took me totally off on an unplanned detour. Which is why it's called 'Off on a Tangent'. Fun to be distracted once in awhile, but seriously, I have quilts that I'm much more invested in. If that makes any sense?

Good way to take care of those leftover bits!

Did you catch the big 'oops? I know some of you like to shake your finger at me when I point out the errors, but this one is classic. Totally worth pointing out! It wasn't until the quilt was almost totally quilted that it finally even caught my attention. Which is good, right? With these sorts of '9-patch' borders, I always do a rough drawing, count out the either-or squares of color and do the placement just so. Ideally, we want the border pattern to flow properly around the quilt. Well, somewhere in the sewing phase, I flipped the left side border upside down. 

Yep, look closely my friends, the 9-patch flow is definitely interrupted at the corners, top and bottom. How did that happen when I planned so carefully?!!  Waaaay too late for a fix and probably not even that important in the scheme of things. Did I drag my hands up to my hair and sort of push into my head with my fingers and pull at my hair for a few seconds? Uh huh. And laughed. Kind of crazy-quilt lady style if you want to know the truth of it. Gotta love the human touch! Never have to do it on purpose around here, that's for sure!

Using Up the Leftovers Any Way I Can!

Tried all day to get a post in and it was just too busy around here. My daughter tells me that it's pointless to blog on Wednesday or Friday, that nobody will read the posts! Oh well. Just keeping up with the flow of creativity around here.

Auditioning the borders....

First of all, I wasn't satisfied with a simple red border for the abandoned 'Patchwork Triangles' quilt after all. Oh no, Must do something more complicated. I figured out all the measurements and then drew out a basic sawtooth border attachment.

Cutting the sawtooth borders before applique

Not really all that simple and basic when you consider that it probably took me almost two hours start to finish just getting ready for stitching. But still. I love the process. That's what makes the time fly by. And I've done these sorts of borders so often now, the most time consuming part of the process is the measuring, measuring, measuring. And then drawing and/or adjusting all the lines before it's time to iron the freezer paper onto the border length. It doesn't feel hard anymore though, and that makes all the difference in the world.

Looking at these circles for possible applique....

And then once I laid out the borders next to the quilt, I didn't like them. Uggh.. I just sighed in exasperation and stared. How does this happen? It took a little creative thinking, but finally it occurred to me to flip the borders upside down. Oh yeah. Much better with the red on the outside of the quilt! Why didn't I 'see' that initially, before I went to all the time and trouble?

Moving the yellow to the inside changed things. For one thing, it helped keep the vertical look going instead of boxing it in. Yep, good thing. But now I saw an area that was crying out for applique. Because of course that's the way my brain thinks. A sawtooth border without added circles or flowers or something is very rare around here. It's insane how my mind goes straight there and will not be budged until convinced it might be detrimental to the quilt!

So to the parts and pieces applique tote I went, looking for something left behind by another project. Luckily I found these fussy cut circles in the perfect colors. So much better than what I had imagined in my head! Loving how this seems to soften the almost busy, 'circus' feel to this quilt and downgrades that boldness to a much more vintage looking vibe. And I never even thought for one moment about fussy cut circles before coming upon these! Yay for the parts and pieces totes!

Off On a Tangent

This 'Off On a Tangent' quilt top had been shaping up rather quickly too. If you remember, the triangles were leftover from the HaHa quilt and seemed too good to toss aside forever. For right now the borders on the top and bottom of the quilt are not sewn on. It's hard to tell from these pictures, but all the cream fabrics are text prints too. It was something that really made me smile when I was contemplating how to put together this particular border.

Should look better with some more color added on!

And I love how it looks close up. The problem is, any real distance and the text prints read 'gray' and tend to dull the quilt down to a rather disappointing degree. Meh!  Every single time I think something is going to be whipped up super fast, my quilts talk back and tell me, 'Nope, not today!' Okay. Fine then. After a couple days contemplating possible easy fixes {without scrapping the border altogether}, I've decided to add words to the top and bottom. There have been a couple options running through my head including song lyrics or maybe even a humorous phrase. {My fave is 'Good quilts don't have to match the couch!', but Ultimately I settled on the phrase 'It is well with my soul', which I'm planning to cut out in various green fabrics. The letters have already been freehand drawn {my go-to method} in an appropriate size, cut out, and ready to trace onto those fabrics.

It's funny how we can be playing with a project and then from out of the blue, it seems like the quilt has suddenly become someone else's quilt. What? When? But that's exactly what has happened here, thus the more thoughtful wording. It just needs to be. There is this friend whom I've contemplated gifting a quilt to for quite awhile {for various and assorted reasons} and it just seems to be the right time. How ironic and actually kinda wonderful, that this random, just-wanna-play-type-of-quilt, has quietly morphed into something that now, speaks to me of her! So yeah, it totally makes sense to just go with that and not fight against. Make it even more her if that's even possible!

On a different note, this week makes for 8 years of quilty blogging! Wowsers!  I've almost given up on this blog several times throughout the years, but there's just something about journaling the quilting experience that helps to connect all the dots. I honestly feel that it's made for better quilts along the way. And it doesn't take long reading through my posts, to understand that I am a process quilter through and through. In some ways {much as I hate to admit it}, that part is as much or more fun than the finished product! Too, blogging is a great way to share my story with like-minded people and maybe encourage others along the way? This was the very first line, of my very first post, on Quilty Folk:  'It's boring to talk quilts with the uninterested, tacky to talk to yourself, and I'm too old for an imaginary friend.' Hhmmm... I'm thinking that all still holds true today.....