A Good Finish

Not getting very far with the paperwork, but at least there has been time spent there. Just like with quilting, I figure every little bit accomplished equals forward progress. In better news, there's a new quilt finish! This has been such a cheerful quilt to work on. Can't believe it didn't end up in the hoop much sooner. Totally sanity saving, believe me! Why do people tend to believe that yellow isn't a positive mood enhancer?

Sweet Tarts

Maybe it's the combination of yellow and pink that works all the charm? This was a quilt top that was maybe started back in 2018? Can't find the original post now and don't want to scroll through pages and pages to find it. The beginning was sparked by an attempt at improv., free-style cut baskets and one of those stacks of simmering fabrics that are always begging to be next in line.

The full quilt

I seem to remember struggling with the inside of the baskets. Flowers? Leaves? And then somehow that morphed into adding little baskets too. Why not do both? There was a rough drawn design at one time, but it didn't take long to figure out that all the other border ideas didn't quite belong in this particular quilt. There is generally always that point in sewing a quilt top together, where the whole thing just kind of shrieks at you to 'go away' and leave it alone. Pretty please and thank you, with a cherry on top.

Close up of the little baskets

I loved the idea of framing the little baskets in simple half-squared triangle borders and using the bright, intense cheddar fabric just made the most sense at the time. Been itching to use it for years! And that pink floral fabric was just pleading to be included too. Didn't really know the very best use, but finally settled on super easy blocks. I like how the floral acts more like a background fabric in these understated blocks. Sometimes this sort of simplicity feels a bit like 'cheating', but what's the use of pretty printed fabric if we can't enjoy it?

Loving these larger baskets

I hand quilted around the edges of the baskets in organic, radiating rows {like usual}, but left the inside area free this time. It looks a little bit rumpled in the pics, but looks great in person. It's interesting when there are areas not quite as heavily quilted as the surroundings. See how the fabric looks so much lighter inside the baskets? It must be the thread color I used that appears to darken the outer basket fabric. It's a variegated cream/tan/light brown thread that seems all but invisible, but apparently not!

So happy with the cheddar/pink mix

After I posted the picture of this quilt being 'next up in the hoop', an observant reader emailed me and let me know that the cheddar triangles frame {on the very bottom right little basket} had a row turned upside down {check the second picture in the post}. Super kind of her to give me a heads up before the quilting actually happened!

In the end I decided to leave it be, though you can bet that I considered it very seriously for well over a 24 hour period--pretty much the time frame where it would have been the easiest to start ripping things out. It's something that I find to be charming and whimsical in another persons quilt, so whats the point of being fussy in mine? And there you go. Sometimes the mistakes just have to become part of the quilt around here. I had this feeling that it would be something to regret if this quilt ended up looking a little too perfect. And you know that I sometimes rip things out. I do! And would have this time for sure if I thought it would be something to bother me forever.

Some quilts just need the hand quilting love...

So funny that I had actually never noticed this mistake until the exact moment that it was pointed out! This quilt didn't seem demanding at all about the binding and so I went ahead with the scrappy look that seems to be my fall-back these days. There were several orphaned binding pieces in various shades of pink to make up the needed length. One of them is probably a little bit on the 'too light' side to perfectly compliment the quilt, but does it really matter? This quilt is striking enough not to have to rely on binding color for needful spark. For the life of me, I cannot figure out why those two little totes never seem to run out...

This one might have to stay with me

You may have noticed the sweet vintage-look floral used as the backing fabric. It's something that was bought last year at a senior citizens rummage room sale. Love it so much! Totally made my day to use it so successfully, though it probably would have been a fun challenge to incorporate it into the front of a quilt too. I had to smile at one of my daughters when she first saw it. Her face! Apparently this floral is an acquired taste. And here I thought it was absolutely fantastic!

Spring Flowers

All 18 of the Spring Flower blocks are finished up now too. Once I started hand stitching the leaves to the background it went really fast. Of course it helped that I was stuck in a vehicle for most of two days traveling to and fro a family funeral. While this was a very sad occasion, it wasn't exactly unexpected as the health issues had been ongoing and/or progressing for a little over five years.

All orphaned 'cut-out' circles and scrap bin fabric leaves

Of course, there's never enough time with loved ones, and I don't have a clue what to say to my sister.that would be the least bit comforting. Losing a companion is heartbreaking under almost any circumstance. We were just relieved that the graveside services allowed accommodation for all of the family who wanted to attend. Even a month or two earlier, the numbers would have been severely limited which would have made a distressing situation even more traumatic. As it was, my sister had to make unhappy choices within the Covid safety rules and just do the very best she could within those boundaries.

As far as these quilt blocks are concerned, something needs to be done to wake them up. I'm completely rethinking the colors/ideas for alternate blocks. Right now the blocks look very soft and cozy close up, but absolutely boring from a distance. Am keeping them on the wall until something interesting floats through my brain. Not feeling especially creative right now, but the hand stitching and hand quilting feels super soothing. Gotta take the 'feel goods' where you find them these days. And the rare moments of inspiration too...

 

A Little Bit At A Time

Life has been very disjointed and moody lately. We have deadlines and 'have-to's' out the kazoo. Things happening that seem quite heavy. Or at least it seems that way. It could be that our get-up-and-go is feeling recalcitrant, and everything seems to take an extra dose of effort just to get done. Our kids and grandkids came to visit last weekend, so that was a wonderful window of good times. Nothing like the honest joy of little children to make everything seem just a little bit brighter for a moment or two!

Coronacrazy progress

Governor proclamations and mandates have been getting especially wearisome of late. It feels like we're at permanent pause regardless of any available, pertinent data. I have family grappling with the public school question and I'm very relieved not to have to be dealing with that dilemma myself! Feel so sorry for the kids who will have to wear masks all day and not get to have any positive social time with their friends. Definitely time to seriously consider home school options, but if too many do that here in our valley, the result will probably be that our community permanently loses the school itself.

Good time to pull out the Coronacrazy quilt out and make a stab at moving things forward--put my crazy towards something beneficial. Just too many things completely out of our control! This picture above represents three hours of auditioning the layered flower bits and then taking off the pieces not needing to be tucked 'under' the hills. I'm not very much in the mood to do this particular applique at present, but it is all prepped and ready for when the time arrives. Which it always does.

Binding for Sweet Tarts

Lovely to have had the binding all ready for Sweet Tarts! It's well on its way to a post of its own here on the blog, and I must say, it will be very bittersweet to be finished up with this particularly sunny project. It's been a great mood elevator during these past weeks of having it in my lap.

Applique border on Seedpods

The Seedpod quilt has the applique addition all cut out, very carefully fussy cut from the remnants of a single fat quarter. Stumbled upon this fabric when combing through the stash totes and it seemed so obvious that it was the perfect choice to help make this centerpiece shine! Amazing what a little fussy cutting can do! Crossing my fingers all the colors work as well as expected....

Time for a basket!

This has been in the works for a couple weeks. One day I was perusing the multiple stacks of fabric marinating throughout the quilt room. This stack of older blues and pinks didn't seem very inspiring, but mixed with a few reds and greens, just had this little glimmer of possibility. 

A make-do background

On that particular day, I must have been feeling fairly invincible, as it was not the least bit scary to just start cutting and throwing things at the wall. In no time at all, there was a substantial basket looking back at me. Easy as pie to add more width to the chosen background fabric and then, next thing I knew, the preparation for applique was well on its way too. Love when a project barrels along, gaining momentum with every single decision made!

Figuring out the applique

I'm enjoying the faintly Scandinavian look/color palette to the applique, but you probably need to know that all the cues for this flower arrangement were taken directly from the darkest blue fabric in the basket. Still not 100% sure about the white stem and leaves, but am willing to try it out and see. The basket handle still needs some fine tuning, but otherwise, all is ready for hand stitching there too.

Next up in the hoop!

Though we did have a lot of distractions over the weekend, there is generally always a brief window for hand quilting around here too. Thankfully Peachy Cameo was already sandwiched and pinned, ready to be popped into the hoop at a moments notice! I've been dreading working on this quilt for some ridiculous reason, but finally the time had come. No more excuses or procrastination allowed!

Closer look at Peachy Cameo

Now that I've stitched a hoop or two, it seems like a rather silly 'dread' and I'm left wondering why? It was probably the open areas in the applique border that seemed rather intimidating. Sometimes it takes getting a quilt into the hoop before those decisions can ever be satisfactorily addressed in our minds. Gotta go through instead of trying to weasel our way around a problem.

Full view

Up till today, I've not had a boat load of problems with the New Blogger. Little bit of a learning curve, but not too overwhelming. Today was a doozy and I eventually just had to delete an entire post and just start over. Why? Something to do with {accidentally} engaging the link button and then trying to type out the entire post while in that particular mode. Definitely. Do. Not. Recommend. I've been working on getting a post out today for more hours than I want to admit to. You'd think I would have quickly figured it out, but no.... I'm not techy smart and it took me forever to understand why all my defaults had suddenly went pyscho. {Head banging stuff.} Blogger, you picked a fine time to change things up and I sincerely hate you. The end.

So the paperwork has been piling up around here and I've been ignoring it best that I can. {For a long, long time actually!} Thinking... Hmm.. Surely I can put it off till a less stressful time? Yeah. Not happening any time soon. I finally bit the bullet and started getting things organized for a big push in the home office. Will still try to blog here and there, but cannot guarantee any regularity. Or perhaps I will post pictures and leave off the wordy ramblings? Whatever. Will figure it all out in due time. Thankfully I have lots and lots of hand work prepped and ready to go for when I need the down time. 

Am currently trying to get my hand work bag sorted out with applique projects organized in order of priority. lol  Order of importance? Or order of interest? You tell me which ones more important...

Another Baby Quilt Getting in the Way

Lots of stuff going on around here what with Father's Day, my moms birthday and now, a new little niece to admire. You know how it is with a big family, everyone tries to step up and help out the new parents! So very thankful we don't have to entertain the older munchkins every day though. Wowsers, I am totally, completely out of the habit of running herd on kids aged seven and under!

Sweet Tart Baskets

Regardless of all the distractions, hand quilting did get accomplished, and finally.... it was time to pin the next quilt for the hoop. This one {Sweet Tart}, definitely wasn't anywhere near the top of the queue, but it's basically the only one that I looked forward to working on, at least for this moment in time. How do you argue with that?

Getting ready to pin the quilt...

Mostly, I think the next-up-in-the-hoop needed to be happy, convey positive vibes or at the very least, trick me into thinking I am happy with my world! I'm so very weary with the roller coaster of emotions these days. But here we are and it's only June. I don't think I'm alone in wistfully looking forward to the year 2021? Which is so sad. Wishing away our days is rarely an uplifting feeling!

Never enough baskets in my quilts....

So I just keep pushing off the news of the day and end up making my world a little bit smaller. Though our quilting stores are now open {even if with limited hours}, it's become a habit to shop in the quilting room first. Antique Crows already has the first round of binding stitched down. Most of the it came from the binding scraps tote, which of course, is something that never fails to impress me. Whether or not it looks very good is probably open to interpretation, but somehow it's almost become a signature look around here! The fabrics that actually come straight out of the totes for binding purposes are rarely magnificent, hard-to-cut-into specimens either. I generally shoot for a certain color range and then settle on the fabric bits that seem most reluctant to incorporate themselves into any one of my quilts.

Binding ready for the hand stitching

The new niece warrants a new baby quilt being made. Absolutely! Can't leave the littlest sister feeling left out! Since mama likes the old fashioned look just fine, I went ahead and challenged myself to work with more of those 'So-Tired greens' I've been trying to get rid of all year. The stack is surprisingly getting much reduced, which makes me feel all warm and fuzzy. Love seeing a good plan come together!

Ohio Star blocks on the wall

A simple color palette, non-flashy fabrics and an easy, oldish style block all came together very fast with almost zero dithering about the details. I couldn't resist adding a floral sashing {cut-offs from the back of another quilt!}, and at the last moment when cutting out, I impulsively added an extra 1/2" to the width. It just seemed like the right thing to do. That skinny little sashing 'look'  didn't seem nearly as much fun after the flowers were cut down to nothing. The corner stones were potentially going to be a bolder green than used in the blocks, and then looked so tame and 'flat', I ended up going in an entirely different direction color-wise.

Getting ready to sew the rows together

In the event you are interested, the Ohio Star blocks are 9" finished and sashing strips a finished 1 1/2", all adding up to a 40 1/2" quilt. Should have been fine and dandy at that size, but no.... You know me, big fan of the border addition! So I played around with several different options including this floral in the picture below, a deep green and then various pinks etc. Blah, blah, blah. Quickly decided that pieced borders were a 'no-go', and then finally settled on a random fabric that caught the corner of my eye.

Auditioning border fabrics

It was a really pretty {though odd} yellow-green plaid hanging out in one of the simmering stacks of fabric. I don't know what it is about raiding the stacks of fabric lately, but sooner or later I'm bound to regret all this indiscriminate pillaging! It perfectly lightened up the whole quilt though and made me a happy camper as to overall look and vibe. These things are important even if this is just a baby quilt! It was sandwiched and pinned late last night after running an errand with my husband, and this afternoon I was able to machine stitch-in-the-ditch around the sashing. Now the plan is for it to receive a little bit of hand quilting in the star blocks areas. 

A little binding prep

Yep, after only one evening of stitching on Sweet Tarts, that quilt gets to be shoved out of the way for the new kid on the block. I wrestled mightily with myself while machine quilting, because the baby quilt could have been finished off so very quickly and then been done. Why do I do this to myself? I suppose it all boils down to being truly satisfied with the end results. That's probably just as important as 'gifting' the quilt, knowing we did our best work within the perimeters of what the project is and how important it is in our creative journey. If I gift a quilt that feels 'less than' and it's for my precious little niece, well.... How precious is that niece exactly? One or two nights of having it in a hoop in my lap is nothing in the long term! And we all know the limits of my machine stitching skills. They are most definitely 'less than'.....

While hunting through the binding tote, I went ahead and pulled pieces for Sweet Tart and also one other quilt that's quickly coming up in the queue. The baby quilt binding ended up being yet another of the 'So-Tired' green fabrics and the only thing that would have made me happier, is if that binding would have needed ALL of it. Wonderful to having these bindings prepped and ready to go. While it feels like I'm just spinning my wheels and getting nowhere really fast, in reality, there are two quilts here almost on the verge of being totally, completely finished! Ahh... you know I'm just itching to dive into another fun quilt start. Something a whole lot more open ended than making a baby quilt! Just have to tidy up the quilt room and decide which particular fabric stack is calling out to me the loudest....

Linking up to Wendy's Peacock Party. She's got some really great advice on how to write the little blurb that ends up hanging with your quilt in a show. Interesting to think about though I don't have to worry about it for at least another year. Maybe you're lucky and actually have some quilt shows to look forward to this year?

It's Like Running Into a Brick Wall

I was cruising along, working on the border to Sweet Tart and getting a lot done. So much cheddar, it just about makes me cross my eyes from the glare! Then after the little basket border was sewn on, I was thrown to a screeching halt by the realization that the quilt top was already finished. Wow. It was just over and done with.

Sweet Tart quilt top

What? There is still another border to go, right? I couldn't believe how quickly this quilt decided to call it quits. I played and played with a couple different ideas, from simple one-fabric borders to multi-colored pieced or applique ideas and nope. No dice. The only thing that seems to make anything look better {in my imagination} is using some of that lovely grass green as a binding. That's all I could come up with!*sigh  If I would have known this was the one and only border, those little baskets would have definitely been sewn up in other, probably darker colors. Don't you hate that? Second guessing the previous decisions when the future decisions are moot 'cuz they aren't even happening anymore?

Loving the big flowers

So now I'm a little bit miffed, feeling rather restless and questioning my creativity. {There was a really good border idea waiting to happen!}. I've been spending way too much time scoping out other peoples fabulous quilting efforts and feeling pretty meager in comparison. It's really probably more like Summer blues hitting early and a little too much chaos in our life. We're trying to get things scheduled so we're better prepared for the big weekends, but it's just gonna be one of those fast, crazy summers.

Just won't let me make it any bigger...

Had to go to the airport and pick up our youngest son. Took the opportunity to buy a new pair of summer, wedge, high heeled sandals while we were in the big city. Now if I could just convince myself to quit wearing pantyhose! I'm so old school it's terrifying, but in my defense I am married to a minister. Also, being a redhead and one with very pale skin there is no trying to tan. My legs are either white or sunburned red, so really, there are no good options. And I won't fake tan so that's out too. Thus the never ending quest to find great hose in the appropriate color. My fave aren't the most durable in the world, but mostly I stick to Hanes Silk Reflections in the 'Barely There' color. They feel pretty breathable, which is a plus in summer, and I don't have to buy control top in that particular brand. Ugh..  Most companies assume that because you're wearing hose, you must also want to squeeze all your innards into a sausage casing too. Umm..., why are we having this conversation? Oh yeah. Lack of creativity and a jam packed summer. You never know. I may have to start five new projects just to overcome...  Linking up with Wendy at the Peacock Party

Monogamous Quilting is Not Really My Thing. I Get Bored So Quickly....

The Bullseye Medallion quilt has been quite shamelessly ignored for a good long time. Obviously something that needed to be rectified! Sometimes I'm just not in the mood and don't want to force anything into the wrong direction. This time, I only pulled it out of the shelf to take a look, remind myself that it had potential. Next thing I knew, the border idea was starting to come together in my minds eye and fabric started flying. You just never know when and why things might spark.....

First Round of Bullseye Medallion quilt

The general idea is for this, and every other border added to the centerpiece, to finish at 5". I don't want a lot of complex piecing going on, but intend to add just a touch of a pieced element here and there. At this particular moment in time {always subject to the whims of change!}, each subsequent border will follow the mock-up shown in the picture below, in regards to color. It would be good if the borders don't end up looking choppy, which is probably the biggest challenge of all moving forward. Most of the fabric I own is in fat quarters or slightly less than. You know how it is when the larger yardage is only bought for specific projects! That could be problematic in the overall flow and unity for each of the following border rounds.

Auditioning the following border colors

Wanting to keep the centerpiece looking bright and happy, black was chosen for the very first border color. Good contrast right? And black always adds a wonderfully folky vibe. Most of these black fabrics used are quite a bit more gray than black, as you can see, something I gravitated toward on purpose. I think it will end up creating a moodier 'look and feel' to the quilt, which might help save the quilt from coming off as too contemporary at time of completion. The goal around here is always 'cozy' versus 'modern', thereby invoking a look/feel that I am unreservedly more comfortable with.

Auditioning possible fabrics for this border

The pictures are terrible as I was working late into the evening. Hopefully you can still see that the very light blues used for the wonky flying geese tie right back to the color of the bird in the centerpiece. Not sure that I will use any more of those fabrics moving forward, but I do love the slight clash taking place in the blue/green family. It doesn't work for every single quilt, but there's something about using potentially clashy colors that can amp up the interest and spark in a quilt.

If you're ever unsure about where the 'going too far' line is, all you have to do is lay your new fabrics out on the quilt {as I did in the previous picture} and take a step back. Close your eyes, and pay attention to what your gut tells you when you quickly open your eyes and take a good hard look. Uggh! Get those hideous fabrics out of here! Or Hmmm..., very interesting. It might take a couple times of laying the fabrics on and taking them off again, perhaps mixing up the specifics of which 'clashing' fabrics work best together as a whole. You'll rarely be able to use only one conflicting color/fabric. It almost always takes a minimum of two or three to make it properly work. And yes, I originally chose the bird fabric precisely because I intended to add a little more of those dissimilar color choice fabrics later on. There are definitely methods to my madness!

All the flying geese sewn, just needing trimmed and arranged 

But of course, you already knew that if you've been following along with my creative journeys for any length of time at all! Rather than jump right into the next border, I also tried to work on the Sweet Tart basket blocks this weekend. Only got this far before I was completely done with working with cheddar and yellows. So bold and happy and well, sunny natured.... I started getting itchy and antsy, gave in and folded it all up for working on at a later date. So crazy because there really wasn't much left to do!

Making slow progress on the Sweet Tart baskets

Most probably I was feeling crabby because I've been longing to start a brand new applique quilt. Or two or three to be perfectly honest. And I had told myself very firmly the last time I started new applique {or maybe it was the time before that?}, that the Melon Patch project absolutely deserved progress before sidelining it once again. Yes, I have zero will power and had managed to sneak in a few little, teesy tiny applique additions such as the I Am a Maker quilt top. Always telling myself that these aren't serious applique commitments and so of course they don't count.

Another layer for the Melon Patch quilt

Poor, poor Melon Patch project. Taking so very long to gain any serious traction. I had almost talked myself out of loving it altogether. What horribly ugly fabrics and was it really going to have any redeeming qualities after digging everything out of the very depths of the stash totes? {I can always be relied upon to work up a very righteous indignation and even loathing to whatever project currently feeling inconvenient!}

Looking at what it might look like with the next layer

We all knew it was going to end this way, but as per usual, after finally making myself take the project in hand, starting to work with needle and thread, I felt curiously relaxed and was quite enjoying the process. So predictable. Look at these sweet fabrics! Why, they actually do look pretty interesting when sewn together in this subtle layering of colors and prints. Hmm... yes, what a good reminder to keep challenging myself to look harder and deeper into the stash totes. Not a waste of time and energy after all. lol  Isn't the entire creative process hilarious? Totally mind boggling at times when we think about how much we enjoy it all, every step of the way!

I started on Friday night and made steady if not amazing progress. If the neighbors hadn't been celebrating the 'after party' for their grand daughters Quinceanera on Sunday, there would no doubt be much more accomplished than these measly little stacks. Only a total of 36 finished out of 80 petals in all. After hours and hours of incessant music and loud drum beats drifting through the walls of our house, I finally retreated. So glad the Quinceanera itself was held somewhere else! They are honestly quite wonderful neighbors and we never complain about their maybe twice-a-year? large family gatherings. But wowsers, not a great environment to peacefully stitch away on the hand work!  

On another note, I counted it up and there have been at least 30 quilts with a basket element made around here in the past 10 years. Gearing up to put together an intense basket post--just for those of you who expressed an interest! lol  Gonna take a big chunk of time though, and crossing my fingers I can still find the pictures as most of these quilts are long gone...

A Finish and More Progress on the Applique Baskets

Playing With Scale is totally completed now! It was one of those Adhoc. Improv. challenges that really stretched the brain waves. In a perfectly relaxed sort of way of course....

Playing With Scale a finished quilt!

It's probably not something you see all the time out there on the Net, these colors and prints combined with the free-cut strips, but I find it ridiculously charming all the same. People who stick with solid colors just don't know what they're missing!

So glad I added the flower into the mix

The {oh-so-obvious} different widths of the free-cut strips are especially appealing to me. Must be part of the old fashioned, utility quilt look that consistently seems to melt my heart.

Interesting to have a graphic look with these subdued fabrics.

I had determined that this one was going to be machine quilted and then at the last second, dumped it into the hoop instead. There was this very real fear of massive puckering from those feed dogs pushing and pressing the off grain strips.

Loving the hand quilting texture

I am so, so glad as the hand quilting bumps it up a notch in my opinion. Plus, this one was a breeze to hand quilt which means it's full of all kinds of feel good vibes.

A snugly looking quilt!

The color palette is not one that I'm instantly drawn to or even have to return to again. Nevertheless, it filled the need of helping to empty out the stash totes of some lingering, but very good fabrics.You know how it goes when fabrics aren't being used up fast enough and before you can even blink, there are newer, shinier fabrics flirting with you instead.

So many different shades of green...

I wondered about the amount of hand quilting. Is it enough? Was I cheating the quilt? And then when the quilt was flipped over and I could see all the stitching on the back, it was totally fine. Big sigh. I want the backs to look 'full', not have large pockets of un-stitched areas.

Always interesting to see the back...

It was tough to get really good pictures of this one. The pale pink fabrics sewn next to the black and very dark brown fabrics wanted to wash out and tended to look white in all the pics, no matter which filter I tried. They aren't. Every single fabric in those areas is a very, very pale pink. The lightest colors have been intriguing me lately and it's always such an interesting challenge to try and make the most of their subtlety. Always so much to learn!

When the centerpiece isn't centered at all...

The first thing I did when finally getting back in the quilt room was to make a new stack of fabric. The yellow/gold stash tote has been overflowing for much too long and so I started there. Had myself an amazingly relaxing evening picking and choosing fabrics that tickled my fancy. Big surprise on the colors that ended up being picked to be added in! Somehow I always end up with this particular blend of colors though I find these quilts hard to give away. Not everyone enjoys a predominantly yellow quilt. Why? I need answers to this important questions! lol

A new stack of goodness

Instead of doing much hand quilting this week, I've been working on the applique for these sweet little baskets. They are approximately 7 1/2" inches but will be a 12 1/2" block when the cheddar hsts are added onto them.

Sweet Tart Baskets all lined up...

As you can see, all the baskets are slightly different as far as placement. I don't think it's very obvious and I wouldn't care anyway. The 'eyeball' placement is what I do best and an attempt at anything else just drives me insane. Completely ruins the enjoyment of the quilting process and so then I just quit sewing, which of course interferes with my ability to get anything done!

Hope this works the way I want it too!

The middle fabric is super sweet, but looking a little bit spotty from a distance. Oh well. Most quilts around here are used, not hung up on a wall to be admired. All 126 hst units have been trimmed up now and so hopefully there will be time to get the basket blocks all sewn up and ready to go. It's always a dilemma, isn't it? Catch up on the blog or spend time in the quilting room....

Always A Busy Time of Year

It's been a whirlwind around here lately. One of our busiest times of the year with the annual church campout we help organize. Normally I pack a small bag of applique to take with me, but though I had good intentions, nothing got gone on that front. Don't know why I bother as that is almost always the way it turns out!

Sweet Tarts basket border

As usual, the very last time I sandwiched and pinned a quilt, I actually pinned two. Thankfully, this one was ready to go a few days before the weekend onslaught arrived. A little bit of hand quilting can be wonderfully therapeutic.

Vintage Lily center

This one was based on one of Sujata Shahs quilt blocks in her book 'Cultural Fusion' and part of an Adhoc. Improv. quilt challenge to myself. It was finished up sometime in April of 2018 and though it's not exactly the 'next in line', for some reason it wanted its turn in the hoop now.

Vintage Lily ready to pin

Honestly, I haven't got very far on that at all, but regardless, it always feels better to have a quilt in the hoop and ready to go. I'm so looking forward to next week when life might, possibly settle down once again!

Love the appliqued centerpiece

It's feeling more and more like a monumental effort to prepare and attend this campout thing that we do. Don't know what will happen when our kids aren't around to help us anymore! They definitely do the heavy lifting when it comes time to loading and unloading the trailer.

My girls with one of their Oklahoma friends {in the middle}

We had a good crowd this year with about 250 people, two thirds of them typically being young adults, teenagers or children. Next year will be the 25th anniversary at this old boyscout camp up in the mountains, though we had years before that at a much smaller campground. It's only about 2 hours from where we live but the elevation is at approx. 3570 ft. Where we live is maybe 800 ft above sea level?

Campout volleyball is the best

There's always a lot of volleyball happening from dawn to dusk, softball, hikes to the 'big tree', walks to the lake and of course all of us adults are kept busy feeding all these hungry kids. The best games are when a team of young marrieds challenges the teenagers. So much determination on the part of the young marrieds, but none of the endurance of the younger and more fit! My husband and I gave up on the volleyball years ago. Let the younger ones have their fun, we prefer the lawn chairs and 'catch-up' visits.

Lots of good times and good memories, but I'm home now and absolutely exhausted. This year we had a group of kids who flew in from Oklahoma so there was the additional time spent before and after involving drive time to the airport {2 1/2 hrs. away}. Now I'm facing a mountain of dirty laundry and senior graduation for our youngest is only three days away.*whee!  Where does the time go?