Playing With a Pieced Background

Do you ever end up with up with something that doesn't seem to work for anything creative at all? I had pieced these leftover 5" tumblers together ages ago, thinking they'd be a wonderful applique background. But it just never came together no matter how much I played with the idea. I had almost pitched the entire concept about a million times.

A background piece bites the dust

But I'm kinda stubborn and there was a tiny glimmer of something good in that piece. And you know how it {so rarely} happens, an idea just appeared out of practically nowhere. Finally. Next thing I knew, I was laying the larger tumbler piece out on the floor and wallah! cutting out a large basket. The tumbler background had quite suddenly become the {to-be appliqued} basket fabric! There was certainly no sleeping on it or carefully planning out of the details. It could have been terrifying, but frankly, I was having a ball. So very good of the tumbler piece to have enough left for the handle too. That's a good touch.

Liking it so much better as part of the applique

And once that was up on the wall, then of course I had to play with some applique. What is a basket centerpiece without a bit of applique? A dig through my applique leftovers and I was looking at the first flower. Too simple? Nahh....

There's always a flower

It just needs another one for balance. Maybe one that isn't even fully in bloom.

Or two....

And yes, it's that classic, red, white and blue look that I always go back to. It's a good, solid look that tides me over in times of low-intensity thinking sessions. I'm still playing around with the handle, stretching it out to make a taller basket, wondering and contemplating, trying to find the right red fabrics in my stash. These flowers will be too small once the seam allowance is turned under. Plus, I'm looking around my quilt room for the perfect background fabric. Why don't I figure out how to piece the tumbler basket into a background fabric you ask? Trust me, it's just easier to hand stitch. My brain hurts and I'm exhausted from last week. Hand stitching often goes a very long way toward easing out my very frazzled edges. And I'm addicted to it. Nuff said.*wink

I Thought I Was Just Crossing Another Quilt Top Off the List

Time to work on my St. Paul quilt! I cut out the tumblers for the border awhile back, just guessing about how many I might need. Easy peasy stitching to assemble the border lengths.

Working on the St. Paul quilt

Then, I dithered and wrung my hands over the inner border colors. Nothing looked good. Nothing looked right, blah, blah, blah. So finally, I decided to forget about that proposed skinny inner border and just go with it. Why do I always think every quilt needs an in-between border anyway? It's a place I get stuck at a lot. So ridiculous really. I often question the reasons behind the way I assume.... 'things have to be done' all of the time. Eventually (thankfully), I always come to my senses and think 'quilting doesn't have a rule book!' And so here we are....

The entire quilt top....

Kinda busy isn't it? In a perfectly charming sort of way of course!*wink  The corner piecing was a result of my inadequacy in figuring out how to turn the corners with the tumblers. Not even sure it's possible!

St. Paul quilt top finished!

There might (or might not) be a plain one-fabric reddish border added on later. You know, to extend some of those rich autumny colors out. That totally remains to be seen. It also depends a lot on things like finding a luscious larger print that speaks 'St. Paul quilt' to me because there is nothing in my stash I like for the job at the moment. At this point... I'm chucking this particular quilt off the UFQ list! Yay!! {Shhh... Don't tell anyone, but I think it might have gotten a wee bit boring after all the complicated piecing was done.}

Just playing with tumblers--a very high risk situation....

And then I slapped the extra tumblers up on the wall. You know, just for fun. And because I can't resist playing. I was lacking one blue tumbler which only took seconds to take care of. Hmm... Definitely some possibilities going on there at the wall! Diane over at Butterfly Threads Quilting sells these wonderful tumbler templates if you want to play too. They make the sewing part super easy! 

And now I'm totally in awe at how quickly this has happened. Another quilt top done and me being so very good at winnowing down the UFQ list. Ha! Now it looks like another quilt might have cropped up in its place and with no pre-planning on my part whatsoever. I did not do this! It was all the fault of the orphan pieces looking so pitiful and sad....

More Work On the Partial St. Paul Quilt

I've been wanting to work on this particular quilt all fall. And then I really haven't. It's one of those things where the next step is pretty much figured out and yet I keep waffling about it. So pathetic. I even annoy myself.

Partial St. Paul quilt progress

I finally bit the bullet and started cutting the tumblers out. It's a long process that always leaves me feeling somewhat stunned to see the rotary cutter in my hand and being all busy cutting the fabric out. As an aside, I'm always grateful for the soothing qualities of working with cream printed fabrics. I know there are people who just gag at the traditional look to them, but they just melt something inside of me. Using these fabrics, I'm almost guaranteed to like what I'm doing eventually.

Cutting out cream tumblers

So this is how I boiled it down in my mind this time, trying to clear out all those sticky cobwebs created by that nasty balking syndrome I like to call simmering PROCRASTINATION. Lets just call it what it is! You know I always try to start on an upbeat note:

Worst case scenario I'll have enough tumblers to make a little cream and blue tumbler quilt. {Okay, that does sound kinda interesting.} Nothing ventured, nothing gained. {Really? How original.} Just do something. Anything is better than nothing. {Um... Are you sure about that 'cuz  sometimes 'anything' can turn out to be sort of ugly. Or embarrassing. Or even embarrassingly ugly.} Huh. Who's in charge of this quilting endeavor anyway?*wink  Seriously, what's the worst that can possibly happen? I won't like it? Wow. Like that's never happened around here. Lemons to lemonade and all that....

I bought the 5" tumbler templates over at Diane's and they work wonderfully. Totally getting me over the hump of diving into something I'm feeling a bit ambivalent about. Love to work with these acrylic templates, especially in this particular size. No tracing shapes onto fabric and cutting out with scissors involved at all! I did switch over to my smaller rotary cutter to cut the tumblers out as the larger rotary cutter kept shifting on me. Not sure what size this one is (maybe 18mm?), but it's the little guy. Really great for cutting nice and tight against the template. Don't buy a cheap rotary cutter though, as I know from experience they don't hold up well with constant use.

Cutting out the blue tumblers

I also got a bit of fun mail from Dorothy over at Dorothy's Threads of Life. She does stunning applique and embroidery work. Always lots of eye candy over there!

A win!

And just because I thought this was pretty fun, here's a picture of my two youngest practicing for honor band. Isn't that saxophone humongous? Especially compared to that little skinny flute!

An impromptu concert...

Even though my son is in 8th grade and my daughter is a junior, they both somehow managed to make it into the same honor band event! Always, always, always something interesting going on around here....