Orphan Annie is a Finish and Other Things in the Lineup

 Orphan Annie is a completed quilt top now! So nice to get another one finished up. Still hopeful there will time for another two or three to get knocked off the list before the end of the year.

Orphan Annie all crumpled and cozy looking!

The next picture made the quilt look a little bit washed out. The actual color is more intense like the previous picture. I really love this whimsical quilt with all its imperfections. Somehow this one ended up being so very blue. For some reason I thought it would feel like a green quilt, but nope. Its one hundred percent got the blues!

Loving the mixed print background in 
the blocks

The tulips were cut-outs from behind another quilt {AHIQ Hourglass Tulip}. I just couldn't throw them away. Really interesting to see the flatter looking tulip, all cut out of only two fabrics, made up into something that really shows them off. I just have to smile at making an entire quilt out of a less than wonderful looking tulip shape. Because why not? Don't they deserve a moment to shine too?

Somehow very blendy looking

And then there's the improv. quarter triangle border. It was kind of hard to cut the triangles off at the ends and just let them be. Made for very odd looking corners for sure! Wouldn't change it for anything though as it distinctively comes across as a 'make-do' sort of look and vibe. My all time fave look these days plus it goes very well with the unpretentious look to the tulips.

The whimsical corners!

Next up in the hoop is my 'Positive Thinking' quilt. It's an AHIQ challenge from 2020 involving using old clothes and of course positive thinking. One of my favorite quotes although I'm quite sure the 'willingly' part would not always apply to me in every context of my life!

Next up in the hoop!

I've been dreading doing the hand quilting on this one 'cuz, how to properly stitch the middle of the quilt? But as always, it's merely a case of getting it into the hoop and simply getting started. I tend to make things bigger in my head than reality warrants.

So odd to have flowers without leaves....

I also managed to get Tatterdemalion to a finished quilt top stage.*sigh  All that needed doing was to to sew the last little bits of applique to the middle border.

It's a completed quilt top!

This was one of the faster quilt tops that I have made in years, all of it sewn together in about six weeks or so. I am loving the unusual color palette and the overall moodiness!

The oddities of Tatterdemalion!

Definitely a quilt that is not ever going to take itself seriously. I suppose that's the beauty of starting with orphan blocks, parts and pieces! Absolutely not anything that I would ever have 'designed' if I was sitting down to draw out the details of a brand new quilt project! 

Good use of the orphan bits

Really happy to have found a good place for some of those brownish violet and purple fat quarters that have been piling up in the stash totes too. I can only wish there was enough left to sew the backing together! There's something deeply cozy about a dark backing on a utility quilt like this one.

Can't wait to see this one quilted

QAL details: I've been thinking non-stop about the QAL idea that was thrown out there in the last post. Like I said, the odds were good that I would proceed regardless of interest, but some of the comments definitely got me to thinking about how to move forward. {Thanks for the lovely amount of interest! I am honestly blown away!} How to make it interesting for both beginners and more experienced quilters? Gathering my thoughts and trying to collate them into a semblance of order here. I recognize my hodgepodge way of throwing a quilt together might not make sense to just everybody!

Potential fabric stacks for the QAL

Also, now I'm a little antsy because what if the entire idea bombs and you all end up with hideous quilts? Ughh.  Anyway....  That's the completely compelling thing about making an improv. style quilt right? It's like rooting for the underdog. The outcome could be amazing, but there are no guarantees! All we know is that if the outcome turns out to be wonderful, we'll be even more excited than if we were betting on the sure thing. Or something like that....

So. If you think you might want to do this with me, go ahead and get digging through the stash fabric lurking in the corners of the quilt room. I've come up with these three perfectly normal looking stacks of similar looking fabrics--{you'll want stacks similar to each other, not necessarily to my fabric stacks!} Take a look, nothing stupendous and exciting! Not much in the way of larger yardage either, just a lot of whole and partial fat quarters and the occasional third of a yard.

Don't worry about what you might or might not be lacking till something becomes a real problem moving forward. We'll dig again later if needed! Also, don't worry about coming up with three fabric stacks if you really can't wrap your head around more than one quilt at a time. Or if you want to make three different color palettes instead of the one? Go for it! {I get that not everybody can stomach making three back to back quilts in the same color palette.} The main thing is to try and get a little bit of value change, plenty of various, mixed fabric prints and yeah, yeah, the old adage, lights, darks, mediums, and brights. I really don't recommend stacks of truly hideous fabrics or stuff that makes you feel nauseous. Will try to finish organizing my thoughts and have the start of the QAL ready by the end of the month!

Am still catching up to answering comments, but if you don't have a reply back by the end of this week, then you must be a no-reply commenter. Even if your name is on the comment, if you haven't received a reply from me, then I have zero access to your email address! Loraine Everard, you leave wonderful comments but I can't reach out to you! And there are several more. Apologies for how picky and proprietary Blogger is these days.

It's All About The Process

Lots of applique prep going on this week! It takes an enormous amount of time, but now there's several projects all ready for stitching attention. This is the first awkward tulip {out of three} in the Good Vibes quilt. The stem, underneath circle and one side of the petals are stitched onto this one, still have to stitch the other petal and both leaves.

A little more stitching...

I'll need to stitch the rest of the circles onto their background blocks and then the quilt will probably take shape very quickly after that. Applique is sooo slow and then the quilt top often comes together lickety-split! 

Getting closer to a real finish every day!

I have another quilt with the hand quilting finished up. First phase of the binding is done, just waiting for time to hand stitch it down. Feeling very antsy as there isn't another quilt ready to put into the hoop just yet. I'm having to soak some of the backing fabric so as to ensure that it doesn't bleed all over the front some day in the future.

Just felt like it needed something more...

Tatterdemalion was at the stage of being a completed top when I decided that it probably needed a skootch more applique.*sigh  Why oh why does this always happen to me?

The layout I like best

I found a piece of fabric that really resonated with me {such perfect colors for this quilt!} and decided to echo the shape of the flower over the top of the vase. Uh oh! It wasn't doing quite what I needed it to do, so then I had to hunt for a piece of fabric to go underneath and hopefully help 'pop' the whole motif. Which it does, wonderfully. Yay for progress. 

Playing with layout

I played with a couple of layouts and finally decided on the flower motifs in the corners of the quilt. All going the same direction or some horizontal and some vertical? It was a lot of fun looking and weighing subtleties. I'm sure there are many of you who would rather see them anywhere else but on this quilt! Oh well. It's so interesting when personalities come into play with quilting.

Ready for the hand stitching

Had to start a brand new quilt even though I had promised myself that a quilt top had to be finished up first. Tatterdemalion is sooooo close though! So this one is called 'Worthy'. A little bit of applique to start things out and then it will be all improv. piecing. I think. That's the plan for now, but we'll see. 

On a different note altogether.... I'm also thinking seriously about starting a new, 3-part series with mixed applique, piecing and a little bit of the medallion look too. I have three stacks of very similar looking fabrics in brown, rosy reds, greens and creams. Oldy moldy stuff from years ago, but still, all good, lovely fabrics. The series would play off the similarities and differences of each successive quilt as it takes shape. And bonus! Give a reason to want to play with fabrics/colors that feel a bit tired and stale. Ughh. You know how difficult these fabrics can be when there is always luscious, brand new fabrics calling our name?

The tentative plan is to make it a very loose, casual QAL with simple guidance for anyone wanting to follow along. And I do mean very loose and casual. Like for instance, I will not be telling you exactly how much fabric is needed beforehand. How could I possibly know when I'm making the quilt up as things go along? When I do get things nailed down, then of course I will do my very best to relay that information. Applique shapes would be given in the form of a pdf after personal request in the comments or through my email. The whole project would presumably take a year or two as of course I'll be working on other quilts at the same time. Did you honestly think that I'd just focus on one quilt at a time? The horror!

All of the pertinent posts can {and will} be listed together at the top of my blog in the pages section so that people can take their time and move through the series at their own pace. Any likely takers? Don't feel that you have to respond yes or no, I'm almost definitely doing this regardless of interest, contrary person that I am! Blog reading has fallen way off in the past couple years and I'm super erratic at posting these days which doesn't help. Ha! Maybe this is too ambitious, but it's been something I've been thinking about doing for several years now and the idea just finally came together and clicked. It would be a great way for those of you who want to learn more about how/why/what it takes to work with older fabrics and maybe get the creative process moving and grooving--the Quilty Folk way. Often there is no big, bright lightbulb moments just getting down and DOING it. Changing up a couple elements and playing. Might as well jump on this and see where things end up!

 

September Progress

The past week has found me tackling the ongoing project list. With only six open ended projects, I figured it would be an easy task to make forward progress on most of them!

Peace Always Medallion progress

First off, the 'Peace Always Medallion' center needed a smallish border. I've been dithering over the colors for this, but when finally settling on the very light pink and darker blues? Yummm.... Love it so much! It was super tempting to leave it in the rough, slapped up on the wall, make-do look, but I resisted and tried to sharpen it up a bit. After the border was sewn on, the basket looked way too plain. Had to dig through the orphaned applique tote to see what might help! Now it has a much, much better presence and feels ready for the next go-round. Which is intended to be baskets, because, why not?

Looking a lot better!

I put my fingers to the grindstone and managed to get all the hand stitching taken care of for the petals on the 'Melon Patch Blossom' quilt. These units are going to be used as sashing. The orange rectangles and squares plus lighter peach triangles are the cut-out pieces for the blocks in the quilt. They will be a chubby X looking thing. Very simple, leaving the sashing to convey the vibe of the quilt. I'm also in the process of figuring out the cornerstone units. Will probably be little pomegranates, mostly because I adore the look of them! Have the cherry red fabric soaking as we speak! 

Happy to see these petals moving on

Another quilt that I've been having great fun playing with is 'Tatterdemalion'. It's the orphan parts and pieces quilt that quickly captured my attention after getting back from so much time away from home.

Will have to do something good with this fabric

The improv. 9-patch blocks had already been determined on, cut-out and sewn up. Then I stumbled on the older Ana Marie Horner floral in the totes. Yeah, it briefly got my hopes up with the lovely, moody, look and feel and the almost haunting combination of utility and large floral. You probably can't see it, but it almost gave me the shivers.

Gonna have to go with these colors!

Then I threw the 9-patch blocks at the quilt and delighted in the lighter, easier look to the whole thing. It's like it lifted the quilt to a whole 'nother level of happy and I just don't want go down the road of moody and broody right now. Don't wanna at all! Feeling all kinds of pangs about this decision, but I know it's the right thing to do.*sigh

Have to cut new units

All the blocks are trimmed up and ready to go. The only problem is, they ended up being quite a bit smaller than the 12 1/2" that I expected and hoped for. Nope. They all had to be trimmed to 10 3/4" because of the smaller improv. squares. Soo... Will have to add another two rows or so of 3-patch strips to each side of the quilt. Oh the joys of doing things the improv., fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants way!

This could be a good quilt someday

Which brings me to the wheels quilt. I had these dresden wheels all ready for applique before taking the month of August off. Didn't sew a single one. They were a bit worrisome in the amount of stretch and how warped they were. Just didn't take enough time with the precision sewing like they so clearly needed! Anyway.... I finally got a couple of them sewn down to the background fabric and ughhh... Don't want to deal with this right now at all! {Are you sensing a theme?}

Next up will see me using a seam ripper, getting them into the half circle shape once again. Then I will cut the background fabric in half and start working on the hand applique. After that is kind of up in the air as to the overall look of the quilt. All I know is, these wedges are just too darn cute to leave languishing in the orphan totes. My daughter calls this the 'Mistakes Squared' quilt, but I'm sure we will find it a more fitting name eventually.

Loving these fabrics together

And the last project on the moving forward track is 'Good Vibes' from the Circle Game series. I'm thinking #3 in the lineup? These are big circles, needing background squares a slightly larger than a fat quarter {what most of the stash starts out as around here}. So yeah... pieced backgrounds are my new go-to as you've undoubtedly noticed! Good thing I'm learning to love and appreciate the look!

Never take pictures in the evening

Each circle will have a 9-patch circle shape stitched into the center except for three of the circles. They will have a rough, somewhat awkward looking tulip shape appliqued right over the top. It's been a whole thing getting the leaves and petal shapes figured out, but wowsers has it been a joy to work on this quilt! Will see how the quilt shapes up, but for now I'm positively thrilled with the way the colors and fabrics look together. 

Sometimes it doesn't even seem to matter what the design of the quilt is, we just need to sew specific fabrics and/or colors together and see them rest side by side in a quilt. It's like they belong together and our job is to facilitate that, no more and no less!

Trying somewhere new

On another tangent, I have belatedly decided it's time and past to order new clamps for my QSnap quilting hoops. Uh huh. Out of two 17" hoops, I am down to three clamps and even one of those is now showing a crack.  Decided to take a chance on this company instead of Amazon like usual as their prices and references seem good. Isn't it nice to order from a smaller company instead of the huge monopolies? That's been my goal for the past year though there are a few things I can't seem to find anywhere else. In a couple cases, I've switched out the product brands normally bought {not usually quilting related}, and am trying to see how I feel about that.

Okay, that's the quilting round up for what's been happening in the Quilty Folk quilt room {and living room}. There's one more project that needs lots of attention and then..... it's fair game. Gonna start a couple brand new projects guilt free!!