Wrapping Up 2019 So We Can All Move On

I always think this end of the year retrospective should be a quick post, but somehow

it never quite works out quite that way. Oh well. Time for a glimpse of whatever finishes 

managed to come to fruition during the past year! It always surprises me how it stacks

up. Never quite what I imagined somehow!

2019 Finishes (1)

It's been a surprisingly productive year. So many times it felt like I was just sort of spinning my wheels, or at times, chasing after ever single squirrel that popped around the corner. Some of the oldest quilt tops did get checked off the list, but it felt arduous at times. 'I don't wanna' was not an uncommon feeling at the start of some of these quilting/stitching finish-it-up endeavors.

2019 Finishes (2)

A surprising amount of larger quilts were completely hand quilted. Well, maybe not so surprising.as it was a terribly stressful year here on the home front. So happy to see 2020 roll around with the all the possibilities of a fresh new year! When life's troubles start to get extra heavy, I tend to have a habit of ending every evening nose deep in the quilting hoop. Well, right after finishing off the popcorn and catching up on Blogger and Instagram.*wink  Helps me sleep ever so much better, that hand work. Seriously therapeutic. If I didn't have so many hot flashes, I'd probably pile on about six quilts every night when I go to bed. Just bury myself in them. You know, for the good vibes?

2019 Finishes (3)

Lots of baby quilts were made and finished up, plus quite a few little bitty ones. Very fun, fast quilting sessions which felt kind of rewarding. I don't think that would be good for me full time though. The feeling lasts only a little while and then it's gone. Poof! Almost like it never happened.

2019 Finishes (4)

So now it's time for the stats. 23 Total Quilt Completions last year! Woohoo! {If you count the Barbie quilts.} But lets not. Leaving off those smaller, quickie quilting projects, it's really more like 18 for the true total. Not too shabby. And because I like to break things down even further....

• 9 Bed sized quilts finished up
• 5 Lap quilts
• 4 Baby quilts
• 5 Doll, Table Runner or Barbie quilts
• 9 of these quilts were completely hand quilted
• 8 quilts were completely machine quilted
• 5 quilts were a combination of both machine and hand quilting
• 1 quilt was a combination of machine quilting and hand tying

It was a good year. Also a good year for giving quilts away! 20 different quilts, including the 5 mini quilts, but not limited to completed-in-2019-quilts, were gifted to a hopefully happy recipient.Two or three other quilts should have been given as well, but I'm sort of dragging my heels about those. Not quite ready to give them up just yet. Still having pangs about a couple of the quilts I gave to my daughters!

Some thoughts about looking ahead:

I'm still very invested in keeping lists as per usual. The most important one is for the quilt projects that have been started, but are still in the works. These are ongoing, in many different phases, but most importantly, they have fabric cut out though not yet a completed quilt top. Its not just a fabric stack of dreamy potential! I'm committed, hopefully engaged and generally always pushing forward toward a conclusion. 

There is also a list for the finished quilt tops that are not as yet quilted. Totally separate lists for different categories of UFO's. That's because the 'in progress' quilt project list fluctuates all year long. What I've finally found to be an optimal balance {for the way that I work} is somewhere between 6 to 10 projects. Anything over that and it inevitably starts stressing me out. Anything under that and I start feeling incredibly bored. Good incentive to cross projects off the list and then promptly dive right into the new!

The 'finished quilt top' list has been slowly shrinking from a high of 28 several years ago, to this past year where I seem to have regressed. These tops are listed in order of when they were completed with a vague idea toward quilting the oldest one firsts. Ha. For now I'm going to ignore the fact that quilt tops are multiplying like rabbits and just keep on doing my thing. I really don't know what else to do.I tried severely limiting quilt starts, but that was stifling. There's only so much a person can do to put the breaks on creativity/new starts/inspiration before all momentum comes screeching to a halt. Some day maybe I'll be able to afford having a few tops long armed again, but what probably needs to happen is for me to work a little harder at {being open to} combining machine and hand quilting. That's where I seem to gain the most ground.

Last year saw me taking an even more intentional look at the fabric stash. Many of you know that I truly love digging deep and coming up with interesting or unexpected combinations of fabrics and colors. I'm super pleased to have a 20-30 plus year range of quilting fabric colors/prints, but to be frank, some of those fabrics are stale dated now. Over time there are fabrics which have somehow become bland or completely and totally uninspiring. It's kind of sad, but mostly it irritates me because every single time I've tried to earnestly address these dated 'colors', the ideas crash and burn. The quilting plan seems lackluster and pointless so I give up.

On a whim late last year, I tore through the green fabric totes and pulled out most of the worst offenders. Some of them really aren't that bad. Truly. They're just dated. They've sort of gotten lost in the trends of colors changing. Marketing.That sort of thing. When digging through for fabric choices, they are easily pushed aside and ignored because they don't always play nice with the new additions and then, of course, the situation compounds itself through time. Take a look at the Sherwin-Williams 'Color Through the Decades' to see what I mean. I'm totally stuck in the 70's, 80's, 90's and 2000's in regards to over half of the fabric stash! What to do?

At somewhat of a loss, I took these annoying {green} fabrics and put them in largish clear plastic bags and purposefully left it all out where I couldn't fail to look. See. Be reminded and think about solutions. Eventually I came up with a personal challenge that involves using these 'So Tired' fabrics. The first phase of that saw me making a really weird {okay, it's ugly}, purple and green comfort sort of quilt top, and since then, I've incorporated quite a few of these less-loved fabrics into the Christmas quilts. Other than the first quilt {totally an experiment}, I don't really intend to waste a lot of time making ugly quilts though. Finding a good place for them is the ultimate goal. That and using them up so they aren't in the way anymore!

The most awful of all these fabrics have already been sewn into a large quilt backing for one of the recent Christmas quilts. Extra time, but hey, the fabrics were put to good use and I save money on a backing. One way or another, I totally intend to sneak these troublesome colors/fabrics into quilts and find a way to love them again. Maximize their potential. Then I'm going to move on to a different color and start all over again. Yes! Loving this challenge so much. Look for the 'So-Tired' label at the bottom of  posts moving forward. This challenge could last for a long time.

If somehow the hours can be found, {crossing my fingers}, I plan to put together a 'Hand Quilting with Perle Cotton' tutorial this year. Yikes. So intimidating. Several people have inquired and seem to want to know how to get the 'Quilty Folk' look and feel to their quilts. Deep thoughts here. Please don't get in a rush expecting anything. My life is full of crazy ups and downs and I often barely have time to proofread current posts for misspelling, much less organize an intelligible tutorial.

Yay. This is also the year when I will be turning 50 years young. See how excited I am? Just loving the gaining-weight-at-warp speed and experiencing my lack of mind/mouth coherence due primarily to hormones. How is it that I'm thinking a specific name in my mind, but what comes out is totally different and sometimes I don't even realize?*sigh  My kids think this is hysterical and I just feel stupid. This has turned my thoughts to perhaps making a celebratory quilt such as Lori and Barb both did in years past? Why not make turning 50 into a good thing? I want to walk more and take better care of myself for sure. Will keeping thinking about Jubilee quilt ideas though. It's not a terrible idea.

And last but not least, I plan to keeping on making interpretations of antique, utility style quilts and also, continue to follow along with the AHIQ prompts. Both of these challenges, while difficult at times, seem to feed my creativity in a way that helps me to flourish as a quilter. As a maker. Very important during this particular phase of our life! Thanks so much for following along with me along the way. It wouldn't be nearly as much fun without you....

Vintage Lily is A Lovely Finish

Here we go with another good finish! Vintage Lily is all wrapped up except for the label and I only do those once a year. Make a nice big stack and just attack them all at once! A little surprising, but there's just something about this quilt that makes me feel a little bit possessive of it.

Vintage Lily is a completion!

My oldest daughter has already been making noises about taking off with this one and I'm like, 'No, this is MY quilt, back off already!' Which is so funny because I know good and well how as time goes by, there will be others that I like just a wee bit better. Isn't that how it works? Always assuming that I keep quilting of course!

Loving the different red values

This quilt was made with one of Sujata Shah's free-pieced block formula's from her 'Cultural Fusion' book. I took the square-in-a-square block and cut the corners smaller so as to have the look of a snowball block instead. The thing about making the snowballs with this method, is that all the blocks will have the same four fabric corner triangles instead of mixing them up per block. With this quilt, it probably helps tone down any extra busyness, so I don't mind at all.

Lily centerpiece

I did try to orient some of the conversation print blocks 'right side up', but didn't get too obsessive about it. There is one of the larger tulip print blocks in the far left corner {don't think I caught any pics of it tho} that does drive me a little crazy. Yep, my perfectionist traits still pop up even though I've been trying to stomp them out for years and years now. At least in regards to quilting. Ha!

Looking across the quilt

I second guessed adding in the few black blocks but thought the quilt needed the depth. Antique quilt often have an unexpected color that for whatever reason seems to emphasize the main color scheme. You might not even 'see' the random color when first looking at the quilt, but upon studying it, think, 'Hmm... that's an interesting color addition!'. Though this particular mix of colors is not the traditional red, white and blue, it does tend to read that way at a quick glance and the black, in my opinion, keeps the quilt from looking shallow.

Can quilts actually look shallow? They can definitely look uninteresting or one dimensional. I always look for a combination of ideas/elements that will draw someone into {or over} to my quilt. Something that makes them want to take a deeper, longer look than they otherwise would be inclined to. See, it's a compliment even if non-quilters say things like, 'Hey, she's really obsessed about quilting, but you know, her quilts do look pretty cool'. As for quilters, I will never mind things like, 'Her stuff really isn't my style, but I like her quilts regardless.' Interest is interest is interest, right? The best comments are the sincerely given 'I love it, looks amazing etc.,' but we gotta be realistic. Not everyone is as fascinated by quilting as we are!

The side of the quilt

I'm very happy with the way the edges of the quilt look. Cutting all those snowball blocks in half at the edge of the quilt was a very good decision. There's just something about this quilt that still makes me question the proportions. Could it have used another row at the bottom of the quilt to elongate the quilt and give it a slightly better feel? I did play around with that idea and could never 100% decide that it was a better choice. Ended up accidentally sewing extra rows onto the sides of the quilt, knowing for sure that was a bad move immediately after viewing it! Chopping off the sides {to scale?}, was the best that I could come up with other than adding on a border, and that just didn't seem necessary. Though I love and adore borders, not every quilt actually needs one and I'm so relieved to have gained the maturity to finally recognize that particularly important insight.*wink

Loving this one so much!

Just because I'm me and it's fruit season. Had to brag about our first real taste of fresh peaches for the summer! My sister texted me yesterday evening with a cryptic line of  'have some peaches, biscuits and whip'. Okay. Not a huge fan of biscuits with fresh fruit, but this was my sister who has been known to make some amazing desserts. Mouth watering, drool worthy desserts barely being mentioned and off we went hoping to get there before it was all demolished.

How many times can I 'Like' it? lol

I stole this picture off of her later Instagram post just to tease you a little. The biscuits were some kind of dessert biscuit, loaded with real butter and chopped pecans. The peaches were very fresh, the taste so rich and flavorful, it was actually a bit mind boggling! Everyone knows that the first crops in our area aren't usually the best of the best, but wowsers! So yummy! The whip was her famous, sorta-secret recipe for whipped cream that includes a little bit of yogurt mixed in, and well...., lets just say the entire concoction was a huge hit! Yay for peach season! 'Course now I'm thinking about fresh peach cobbler. You'd never know I have been earnestly striving to NOT gain weight this whole year! Yikes! Don't know how I'm ever gonna survive this years fruit harvest without some ridiculous backsliding.

It Doesn't Look Like Much, But I'm Making Progress

Next up in the hoop is the Big Tipsy Basket quilt. I don't think it was really supposed to be next in line, but I'm playing around with the idea of putting this one into the regional quilt show. It's all been sort of up in the air as we have an older friend getting married that particular weekend near Portland, Oregon.  

Big Tipsy Basket

Quilts are supposed to be picked up directly after the end of the quilt show and I've been having trouble lining up someone to collect my 'potential' entries. Still working on that minor detail. There's a still a slim chance that we'll just skip the entire weekend away, as my husbands work has been piling up on him and so many of our weekends are being booked up. So will I? Finish this quilt in time? Yes, no, maybe so. It should quilt up quickly, but on the other hand I'm not one for added pressures in life so we'll see. In the meantime, I'm just enjoying the almost mindlessness to the echo stitching and subconsciously pondering many of life's complexities. We think as adults we should have complete and utter control over our lives, but wowsers. Just not the way it usually is!

Getting sandwiched and pinned

It was nice to get the hand quilting finished up on Vintage Flowers though. It feels like I've been working on that one forever! The binding has since been machine stitched into place and it's now just waiting for the hand work time. I don't dread hand stitching the binding like some people, just need to find the opportune moment and be 'in the mood'. Hand stitching binding doesn't take days and weeks to do as I can be pretty fast with plying my needle. I don't know how others manage, but my machine finished binding always looked terribly sloppy and would have to be redone anyway. Why bother wasting that time?

Vintage Lily

Speaking of time. Melon Patch {below} has been co-opting a ton of my time lately. Ughh! So tired of stitching these innocuous looking petals! Out of 20 sets of 4 petals, it's down to just 3 sets left to stitch. The main problem is that it takes approximately an hour from start to finish to stitch one set of petals, so do the math. There are three hours left until this particular phase is completed! And I've told myself, NO more applique projects until getting this part done. No real surprise that anything and everything else gets in the way. I've read books, made apricot jam, drove to Home Depot with my husband, played with my granddaughters, took walks with my daughter, wrote a quilty blog post...

Always more petals to stitch

Too, all the nine-patch blocks for Patchwork Garden quilt have been finished up and now are sewn into the horizontal rows. I'm not sewing those rows together until I stitch as much of the applique possible so...., yeah......*sigh  Not happening until I get going on the previous project. Cuz I mean it! Bummer. This one looks like more fun, right? I've been gathering the potential fabric together for the applique though, so it's not like I've been sitting around twiddling my thumbs here.

Patchwork Garden progress

There's even another 'all applique'  that I've been eyeballing lately too. {not that I'm counting the stacks of fabric marinating on the counter tops at all....} It's a print that I saw online and already contacted the designer to ask permission to try and recreate in fabric. Ahem! Yes. It's been gathering steam behind the scenes so to speak, fabric being gathered and contemplated in great, serious detail. Hhmm... Maybe if I get enough interesting applique projects out ahead of  me then the carrot and stick approach might actually start working?

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?

Vintage Lily

It was rainy, gray day when I tried to take these pictures. Really a shame, because this {now finished} quilt top looks much more vibrant than the pictures might indicate. Vintage Lily was started sometime in the fall of last year. Kaja got me started on this particular color palette with two different quilts of hers that just sorta pulled me in and made me long to play.

Vintage Lily is a finished quilt top!

At first there was a fabric stack {probably started much earlier in the year?} pulled directly from my stash of course. That simmered for a very long time. It slowly attracted like-fabrics into the stack, and occasionally, kicked one out that didn't quite gel. I absolutely wanted a old time/vintage feel to the quilt, which isn't as easy as it might seem. Throughout those months, I carefully added in several shirting fabrics. A few came from second hand stores, one directly from my sons closet and another was a shirt he wore as a toddler! There were many vintage-look florals and/or prints tossed in and out, but it wasn't until after the fall quilt show though, that the initial 'start' to this quilt finally happened.

The overall approach to this quilt almost eluded me forever as I had great difficulty in being able to see the entire look and feel in my minds eye. How to start, how to start? Sometimes that is the greatest struggle of all--making sure that those carefully gathered stacks of fabric reach their best potential. It's a very common theme around here. In fact, at this moment in time, there are probably seven or eight stacks of carefully collected fabrics sitting around my quilt room. Just waiting for that perfect storm of inspiration and motivation!

Trying to determine if I like it.....

I used the 'Cultural Fusion' book as to the formula for making the simple improv. blocks in this quilt. There were similar blocks in the Scrappy Tulips quilt, but those little corner bits came straight out of the scrap bin. I loved that particular snowball border solution so much, but wowsers, lots and lots of extra cutting. Very time consuming! Sujata's method, tho involving lots of trimming after the blocks are sewn, is a bit more streamlined in terms of cutting and piecing. This seemed to work very well with the limited color palette going on here too. All I had to do for this 'look', was adjust the cutting in the block formula to get the smaller corners I wanted. The imperfection of the corners {that I love so much} is built right into the formula.

Testing, testing....

And one wonderful thing about getting all the blocks trimmed up after being sewn, is the rows go together very fast. It would've been even faster if I hadn't had to remove one row from each side of the quilt while it was still in the large unit stage. Miscalculation in my rough diagram.*grr  In the end, I didn't like the proportion of the finished quilt top either. There was an exact repeat amount of blocks radiating out from the centerpiece, and in person, it looked a little odd. Even to my no-opinions-about-quilts {haha} husband, it was something that needed changed. This just made me grit my teeth to think of getting out the seam ripper again. Oh just let me think about this for a minute or two, surely there's another solution! And thankfully there was. I decided on a whim to fold the edges of the quilt over and see what it looked like with a smidgen of those rows chopped off.

Making a minor adjustment...

And it was all decided in a matter of minutes. Yes! to cutting the blocks in half at the sides of the quilt! Me, the frugal, don't-want-to-waste-any-fabric-ever kind of quilter, happily chopping off the sides of a quilt. It simply boggles the mind.....

Vintage Lily

Gotta love the end result though. Somehow all the elements that I was originally inspired with translated into a good thing. Makes me feel sorta warm and fuzzy honestly! Linking up to Koka Quilts and JulieLou at sew, stitch, snap, SHARE!

February Adhoc. Improv. Play

The next AHIQ challenge is an interesting one. It's all about playing with scale--in whatever manner we'd like to interpret. I've been contemplating the idea of making a quilt with rows of simple blocks and/or shapes. Something in subdued colors and just playing with value changes to see if I could make something with an antique 'utility' look.

Playing with Scale--The start

It was an obvious choice for incorporating scale changes as I already had the fabric pull and rows can be easily tweaked for size. As I went digging for inspiration, I kept coming back to the idea of having a centerpiece though. There's something about the idea of a pretty center with radiating piecework that just appeals to me. So of course it had to be applique. Everything lit up when I saw this on my Pinterest boards {sorry Lori for not linking directly to the pertinent post}.

Sewing together the foundation piece

So as things go when we're making things up as we go along, I doodled some quick ideas until one looked about right. Not an exact copy, but something with similar vibes! Then it was time to start making the drawing happen in fabric. I started with rows of small strings or coins for the background. Just a mellow blend of sagey greens and a piece of cream/black toile. I deliberately left the middle of the foundation free of pieced units as I didn't want to cut any of that fabric out of the back of my applique. It's really not large enough, but I also needed enough foundation to securely sew the applique 'circles' to.

To get the appropriate sizes for the applique, I re-drew my doodle drawing onto a perfectly sized piece of freezer paper. Then I carefully cut out each circle, ironed it onto the chosen fabrics and cut out with plenty of seam allowance--especially the inside brown circle as it's easy to move overlay applique a little too far in one direction or another. At that point, I sewed the outside seam of the brown applique with a quick straight stitch on the sewing machine. Who cares. Nobodys ever gonna see that seam! I trimmed the pink circle a little bit, especially at the bottom where it was too flat looking and hand stitched the outside edge of the circle. I cut the cream {applique foundation} circle out and carefully slipped it inside and underneath the brown circle. And yes, I deliberately chose a fabric with a smaller scale of print! Ooh... gotta love layers of interest!

And so I stitched the brown circle to the cream applique background and then the pink circle to the brown circle. On and on until it was time to cut out my flower pieces, still from that same freezer paper drawing! {So efficient!} It was tough on my fingers stitching over areas with seamed rows, but like I said, NOT going to cut the background out on this one. Too much fear of raveling. It's a good start to my 'playing with scale' quilt and for now I'm mentally calling it 'The Quiet Quilt', the centerpiece notwithstanding.  Lots of the fabric pull are soft, quiet and a little blendy. We'll see where it goes from here. At some point I definitely intend to start with some vertical rows, but just had to establish the beginnings to get a feel for the rest!

Adding some applique details

I was hoping to be farther along with the Vintage Lily quilt, but these snowball blocks have been soooo tedious to sew. Easy as pie, but just yawn inducing. All are sewn now, but next up is the ironing and trimming.*ughh  Not my favorite part of the quilting process! Robin is doing something similar with her scale challenge, so it should be interesting to see both of our quilts progress. My snowballs are a little different than hers as I wanted the corners on mine to end up looking very scrappy and a bit messy. You might remember the look from my Scrappy Tulips finish?

Improv. Snowball blocks for Vintage Lily

So the other adhoc. improv. work in progress are these postage stamp baskets. Originally I had plans to mix them with my pineapple applique, but that flew out the window in a hurry. These baskets are just a little too strong to mix with sweet looking applique shapes. First I laid them out next to each other and tried every which way to be happy with the look. I'm certainly intrigued at the intersection where each basket joins up, but it's so not me. It just feels like a waste of all that time I spent stitching on the basket handles!

Improv. Postage Stamp Baskets

On to other plans! There's not much I can do to make these look more like basket blocks and less like loops with stripey corner units. I contemplated adding 'feet' to the basket like someone suggested the other day, but it just made a muddle at the point where the baskets met. There's probably oodles of different things that could be done with these basket blocks, but what appeals to me right now is giving them lots of breathing room.

Auditioning a layout

So yep. The're going to get the good old, classic sashing treatment. Kind of a fall back around here, but when you like something, there's not point in trying to reinvent the wheel! I cut up all the rest of the pale background fabrics {had barely enough} and started auditioning placement. Two brighter blocks got tossed out immediately and the rest seem to be cooperating. For now, I'm using little fussy cut roses I cut out of a fat quarter for all those inside sashing squares. There's not enough for the outside squares, so that and the setting triangle fabric still remain a mystery. 

Overall, I'm quite pleased with where this quilt is headed though I admit to being a wee bit disappointed when the original plain went south. It's not a bad thing to be surprised by a quilts independence though. Just makes us more determined to try and get it right! Linking with Kaja and Ann for AHIQ #30. Are you having fun yet? 'Cuz I certainly am.....

The Adhoc. Improv. #29 Catch-up Post

I can hardly believe we're into the third year of Kaja and Ann's adhoc. improv. challenges! This focus on utility improv. has been so timely for me as a quilter and I'm thrilled they are continuing with the prompts. First up for AHIQ #29 is the completed quilt top for Ann's last challenge, 'Use Your Words'.

Make Beautiful Things a completed quilt top!

This top started with orphan blocks and the idea that that the entire quilt would be a message of sorts. What do I want my quilts to say?  It took awhile to come up with something meaningful as I'm used to ending rather than starting with word additions, but in the end, I was quite satisfied with the results. How interesting that this quilt was also a jump start for their very next challenge, 'Playing With Scale'!  All those little, wonky crosses I ended up appliqueing onto the border {trying to fix the too-bold border without taking it completely apart} are just smaller repetition for the larger yellow crosses in the center of the quilt.

Playing with scale is something I've been nibbling around the edges of for a long time now, ie, making largish, out of proportion basket quilts and of course, adding repeat elements into much of my border work. Continued use of earlier used shapes and/or design is practically Quilting 101 right? But this particular prompt forces us to think about using scale in a more focused and practical way. Love that! And yes, ideas are already percolating on every available burner....

A closer look at Make Beautiful Things

As most of you know, there is almost always a quilt in the hoop around here. This latest one is a {much} former Adhoc. Improv. quilt where I was trying to play with strings in a less inhibited way. Starting with fabrics and a colorway that seemed 'peaceful' felt right. Way back at the beginning, it was a really good way to help me calm those scary, you're-gonna-make-a-big-mess-and-regret-it, sort of panic attack. Onward Ho! Nearly two years later into the Adhoc. Improv. invitationals and I feel waaaaay more confident about working with improv. strings. Just generally more confident about the whole improv. thing altogether if you know what I mean! This quilt feels very satisfying as a 'me' quilt and I'm not real sure this place would have been reached without the improv. linkups and supportive community and conversations.

Blue and Gold Strings quilt in the hoop

I was really hoping to be at the point of starting to sew these improv. basket blocks together by now.  However, there will 20 of them in total and guess what? That makes 80 basket handles to applique.*sigh  A couple of posts really resonated with me this week as I contemplated my personal 'making' approach. Kyle said what I've been thinking with her late 'How do you eat an Elephant?' post and then Cathy said it again, only briefer. It just makes me laugh to know I'm not the only quilter who just switches off on a project occasionally!

Working on the stringy improv. basket blocks

As these improv. basket blocks are a bit tricky to handle, I decided not to cut the string slabs apart until I'm ready to sew them all together. As you can see, the stay stitching is already taken care of so there won't be a delay when all the basket handles are ready to go. At that point I intend to audition the basket handle parts with the stringy basket parts, and then hopefully all will be in perfect harmony. At which point they will be set on point alongside the pineapple blocks and then we will be discussing side/corner setting options!

The Pineapple Quilt

And last, but not least of the open-ended adhoc. improv. projects is Vintage Lily. A little bit has to be trimmed off the top of the center block and then it will gain a 2 1/2" or so border all the way around. I'm kind of taking the wait and see approach with that until all the improv. snowball blocks are sewn together and trimmed. For these, I'm using the 'square in a square' formula from Sujata Shah's book 'Cultural Fusion Quilts'. To get the snowball effect, I'm just not cutting quite as far into the center of each square as the instructions might indicate.

Vintage Lily

As I had mentioned earlier, this quilt seemed to be begging for a very simple, perhaps casual, framework of blocks in order to have that vintage-y look that makes me so happy. After completing Scrappy Tulips last fall, I've been in the mood to try a scrappy snowball look once again. That time I cut little squares and sewed in a diagonal from corner to corner. For these 5" blocks, Sujata's method makes more sense and also seems to result in a bit less waste. {No affiliation, just telling you the method inspiration!} I am loving working with many of these fabrics and have particularly enjoyed adding in several button down shirts of my son or husband. There's just something about shirting fabrics that add to the vintage appeal!

So yes, do go check out Ann and Kaja's AHIQ current link-up and invitation. Anyone interested is welcome to join in! And in a total aside, read this if you have a chance. Some people just GET 'quilting', even under the most challenging of circumstances....

Taking a Good Look at the Current AHIQ Projects

It's that AHIQ time of the month again! Considering how close to the end of the year we are, it feels like a good time to evaluate what projects are currently 'in the works'. Here is where things left off back in October for the 'Use Your Words Quilt', now changed to 'Make Beautiful Things'.

Make Beautiful Things getting a little border work!

Since I was feeling a bit lazy about taking the pieced borders completely apart, my goal was to find a small change that would make everything {somehow} work wonderfully well together. Hopefully with a minimum of fuss and confusion! And I think the solution was finally found in these small lavender and purple crosses. The addition of these small bits of color seems to take some of the punch and power away from this hot, hot pink that was trying to overpower the rest of the quilt. I'm having a hard time finding enough floor space during the holidays to lay the entire quilt out and show you how it will look in entirety, but trust me. Though the color is a little tricky, it somehow works to the good. At the moment there are still lots and lots of crosses to stitch. Ahem! Did someone mention a minimum of fuss?

Another AHIQ project that has been in the works for a long while, but was barely moving forward? These are the slab strings that will eventually be turned into postage stamp basket blocks for the every-other blocks in The Pineapple Quilt.

Slab strips for the improv. postage stamp basket blocks

Right now I am wincing at some of the Seahawks colored combinations, but when paired with the other fabrics from the stack, it all makes perfect sense. My mock-up postage stamp basket block is shown below--totally made from the scrap bin so don't pay attention to those fabric choices! These slab strings will have to be trimmed to a 9 1/2" square, stay stitched around the outside edge, sewn hst style throughout the middles and then carefully cut apart, then finally be sewn to a central square in which basket handles can be stitched down to. {Probably best to stitch the basket handles prior to sewing on stringy triangles though!} I really had to play with the measurements before I got something that should match up with those pineapple blocks. Totally worth the effort though as these feel like a fun choice.

 I'm really excited to introduce navy and other blues into the mix, but there are lots of nerves yet with this particular plan of attack. I switched gears at the last minute and combined blues with the greens instead of the rose reds I originally intended. And you never know, I could totally end up with two completely separate quilt tops once again. It's happened before around here! Some blocks/colors just don't wanna share quilt space with others no matter how much we plead and cajole...

A practice {improv.} postage stamp basket block

The only other open ended AHIQ project I have is the Vintage Lily quilt. So far the only thing accomplished is the centerpiece, and that's not even totally complete as it needs some kind of framework before joining with rows of blocks. What has happened with this project--is the fact that I've finally made a few decisions about how to move forward. Whew! So much time spent dilly dallying just trying to settle and then of course, trying to stay content with that particular choice!

For this project I have had it in my mind to try and evoke a old timey patchwork look. Something very simple and no frills. There are so many ways to approach that idea that my mind was simply overwhelmed with options. And there I stuttered-stepped and bounced around until eventually I just hit pause for awhile. I didn't come back to it until yesterday when I finally narrowed it down to one of Sujata Shahs free form blocks in a 'square in a square' pattern. I've always loved the idea of including improv. for this particular project and also, I don't want the piecing to be too perfect. This decision at the very least gives me a place to start, which is not always as easy as it seems!

Vintage Lily

So that's that. All three of my {current} AHIQ #28 projects are on the move! In contemplating whether or not to continue with improv. work in the next year, my answer is a resounding YES! I have not been able to join up with every single linkup since the beginning, but it's definitely worked as a gentle prod to keep opening up to and experimenting with different aspects of improvisational piecing and/or design.

It's absolutely slow going for me at times, although thankfully, not nearly as bad as it once was. Not something that comes naturally to me {still have the training wheels on}, so I often have to push against my default position of well..., whatever negativity that my brain is telling me might happen. I still occasionally {mentally} kick and scream at the idea of starting out without any concrete sort of plan or get balky at cutting fabric with abandon and potentially wasting some precious bits of fabric. The horror! Then later on, I always wonder what it is exactly I'm fighting against?

The beauty of continuing on with what my gut tells me is so very necessary, is that the outcome is more and more what I have wanted and needed to see happen in regards to my own personal quilting style. That utility look that comes about from free style piecing is something I wholeheartedly adore. There's a connection to the old style of utility quilts that deeply resonates for me, as it can feel genuine and authentic. You know, it if all turns out exactly the right way. hehe  So thank you Kaja and Ann for the supportive community, year round prompts and encouragement, and also the constant source of inspiration! With or without the AHIQ linkups {of which I'm obviously linking up to this month!}, I can't imagine ever leaving this sort of style firmly behind.

Christmas Dinner 2017

Hope you are all having a marvelous holiday! We have really needed this family time and of course the food.*sigh  Not much needed, but still, greatly appreciated regardless. SO much food that we are all in danger of starting to waddle.....