One Little Decision at a Time

Lets take a meander through the latest applique work going on around here. For whatever reason, that's what has seemed the most interesting of late. Plus, there are a couple projects that really, really need the attention so they can move on to final quilt top stage!

Positive  Vibes getting the attention

The main project that has been getting my complete and almost total attention is the Positive Thinking one. It's not a super long term project as it's just barely a year old. The clamshell borders ended up being easier than I expected once in the groove of hand sewing.  We won't get into the initial angst and nerves of getting started, but I will say machine sewing two-three stiches at the join of each clamshell helped me out tremendously. Just don't go looking for perfection! The borders lengths were not cut 'exact' as I was quite, quite sure that my measurements would be all over the place, and well.... I was right about that. 

The right side applique templates

That means that I will have to either cut all the clamshells off at the ends of the borders or potentially add a narrow border around the centerpiece of the quilt. Right now my brain just freezes up at the math, but I might try and get that worked up so I can at least make an informed decision. If I do add in the narrow border, it will probably be a cream fabric so as to look like it's part of the centerpiece.

The left side applique templates

What I always did know, is that there needed to be some flower applique to the side of the words. Don't you know those open spaces were meant for applique all long? The shape of the flowers have always been an iris shape in the imaginings of my mind, so that part was easy. Sometimes I grab fabric and start cutting, other times I use the leftover pieces in the applique orphan totes for auditioning and other times, I jump in with the free-style drawn paper shapes that I love to play with.

Auditioning all the wrong fabrics

Most generally, that saves me from ruining lots of pieces of good fabric. Not this time though.*sigh  I worked on the colors and prints of these flowers for almost 2 hours! Then I put it all up and went downstairs for the evening, telling my husband that all my creativity had apparently left me for good. It was all looking and feeling very much like MUSH!

More of those wrong fabrics

The next day I tossed all the lousy looking colors/prints and deliberately went searching for things that might 'pop' more. It was very annoying because in the end, I had to raid a couple marinating project totes for the better colors. Makes me very twitchy when I think those fabric stacks might be losing a very important fabric.

Finally getting it right!

But all for the greater good, right? And my final version here is much, much better than the previous attempts. No doubt about that at all. After cutting, I realized that the floral vase fabric had never been soaked for possible fabric bleeds, so those parts are currently resting in hot water and Dawn dish soap, sure enough, bleeding out a little bit of red/pink dye!

And even more right....

All in all, this quilt is pulling together and projecting a lovely positive vibe. Finally. Those old tired blues are gonna be the death of me though. I just don't know what to do with them to properly wake them up! For the past couple years I've been raiding the stash totes and earnestly trying to deal with some of the older colors that have fallen into utter disfavor. This is my second endeavor with similar looking blues taking over the med-dark blue stash tote. Maybe I'm just biased, but this version of blues, purples, orange, and hot pinks looks a whole lot better to me than the previous attempt! And bonus. I'm using up some older oranges with the blues. That's definitely helping to keep the lid stay on those totes a little bit better--always the real goal.*wink  It's not like I enjoy playing with odd color palettes or anything strange like that...

All starting to come together!

So yeah. There's that. Making good progress here! Also in the works is this other tangent of mine. I'm making pear blocks. Uh huh. There are part of the next border for Big Basket #4, another one of those impulse projects started late last year. I wanted to make a quilt that seems a little bit disconnected with itself, but somehow achieves a common vibe. All the while using up mostly older, less interesting fabrics as a whole. I was really wishing that my green fabrics had more value change-ups than what I'm achieving, but honestly, this is the best that I can do without buying new. Not happening for this particular quilt!

Three sizes of pears for different sized blocks

Okay, prep work accomplished, moving on to something else. I'm not in a huge hurry to get them hand stitched down yet, so I turned my attention to Crazy Daisy. It is one that has received almost zero attention since the original mad dash to get it sorted out and prepped for stitching. I'm thinking that if I can just get five blocks stitched a week?  Can I, can I? There will be more to stitch over the bottom of the flower later, just haven't made up my mind completely about those particular colors. Regardless, I'm tired of it haunting me and making me feel like a slacker! One block down, 24 to go!

A start. That's gotta be worth something!

I also started a brand new project. Ha! I bet you're not even a little bit surprised either! No pattern, just a picture to give me inspiration. One of the things that I did in the weeks immediately after our daughters wedding was to go through each and every simmering fabric stack--all of the dreamy project ideas. During those perusals, it occurred to me that I have an awful lot of good fabric tucked away and 'off limits'. Mostly. Unless there's a desperation search or something! 

Obviously gonna need a trim

So.. I determined that at least a couple of these needed to be initiated soon so as to get the good, yummy fabrics re-circulating back through the stash totes. Where they are currently VERY needed! lol  I spent quite a bit of time here and there trying to match fabric stacks with ideas that seemed logical based on gathered fabric. One stack got completely thrown back into the totes and another two were combined into one. You know how it goes!

Once these {grandma fans?} blocks are cut out, then all the prints, minus the white ones, can be cut loose. I am moving along on the cut-out of these 80 blocks quite slowly, in fits and starts as there's no real rush or intense desire to get right smack in the middle of it. This gold block was the mock-up to see if? how? the construction is going to work out. I'm thinking that I will machine sew the fan tips in an arc, then sew it onto the quarter circle, then, I will hand applique it all to the correct sized background block. At which point it will have to be trimmed down to that block size because I can never do curved piecing without some give and take in the stitching effort! All in good time. It will be great to have these parts ready for machine stitching whenever the handwork gets a bit tedious.

All for me!

And maybe there'll be another one or two similar quilt projects waiting in the wings soon. I do have a LOT of marinating fabric that needs addressed soon or dumped back into the totes for current use. In other news, I celebrated my 51st birthday with a brand new roll of Hobbs batting! Very exciting as I was running much too low for making it through the lean winter months. All of our children went together for the purchase and made this momma extremely happy. Not a boring gift at all no matter what they might think....

Off On a Tangent

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

Off on a Tangent

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

A happy quilt...

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

Hand quilting along the triangles....

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

And hand quilting in the border....

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

Good way to take care of those leftover bits!

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

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

The Use Your Words Improv. Quilt

I had grand plans to have this particular quilt top all sewn up, or at very least, the basic outline. Oh no, These letters take much, much longer than you would think. They aren't difficult, but wowsers do they burn up the time!

A rough layout

But maybe that's just me. I do seem to have a love/hate relationship with them. They are so simple and logical to figure out. Really, it's like a puzzle! Which is all very interesting. Until it just isn't fun any more. And that's when the tedium sets in.*ughh.....

Using a quote by Saul Bass

I was very disciplined this afternoon {knowing this was my window to make real forward progress}, not even leaving the upstairs quilting area for another cold drink when the first disappeared. Our air conditioner has been switched off and the afternoon heat was making me positively drip! There was a pre-determined stopping point in mind and finally.... finally... we got there.

Trying to make them all 5" tall

All along, I was trying to incorporate this part of a quote by Saul Bass 'I just want to make beautiful things even if nobody cares'. If I was going to make a quilt about 'using your words' as the base inspiration for making a quilt, well then, it had to be relevant to my world at the moment. Honestly, I'm not the least bit interested in making anything political, sappy or even too terribly introspective right at the moment. Quilting is my happy place and there it shall stay.*wink  {And please don't comment about anything political because I promise you, I will not respond!}

Although I've had a rough idea of where and how these words were going to play in the entire scheme of things, I wasn't sure just how many words would be needed to fill the front of the quilt--if this part of the quote would be enough? So I made a few extra words of my own, which will probably end up on the back of the quilt. There might even be more words, because I just can't resist. See? There is a strong push/pull in sewing more of these words that makes me laugh. Love 'em, hate 'em!

Joining the letters to make blocks of the words

I can tell there needs to be other colors added into the border, perhaps in a piecing effort. Things have gotten a bit stagnant with all this gold and brown, but those two fabrics were what seemed to work best making the words clearly stand out. Plus, I had lots of that gold fabric leftover from an older quilt top and yeah... those wheels. They sort of limited my color choices. Oh well! I can't imagine this quilt without them and it's always a thrill to use up orphan blocks!

Auditioning border colors

Overall, this quilt feels like a 'squirrel' sort of quilt. Definitely taking me off in a direction that I didn't see coming. Regardless, it has been a great challenge, making me think, instigating a decided push to get into the 'Word Play' book and start figuring it out! {Loving my applique style, I may be the very last quilter on earth who has.} 

I had forgotten how much I enjoy these style of quilts--the ones where you start with a specific element, add in a ringer {how bout using up those orphan blocks?} and then see what in the world you end up with. Still lots left to do with getting those word rows filled in with more of that gold fabric, sewing rows together and then working toward a set border plan. In the meantime, I have been hand quilting up a storm in the evenings! Never a dull minute.

Linking up with Anne and Kaja for AHIQ25, and also with Linda and Julie for sew, stitch, snap, SHARE!  Thanks ladies, for taking the time to host the linkups. As always, it's some of the best motivation to keep projects rolling forward!

On My Design Wall

I have been thoroughly enjoying my time in the quilt room this week. Obviously I have a bit of a thing for pink and gold right now, but that's just the way tend to things happen around here! This week saw me finally diving into trying to make pieced letters.

What's on my design wall

The capital 'I' was super easy and so that was a good start. From there it got a little mind boggling at times, but eventually there was a rhythm going that felt easy and good. I had forgotten until diving into these playful letters, that years ago, I put pieced wording on the back of one of my younger brothers graduation quilt. It was laborious work, cutting every piece of the letter just so. Tonya's free form method {Word Play Quilts by Tonya Ricucci} is so much more fun! Sometimes I follow her general guidelines and sometimes I don't, but it's definitely keeping me entertained. For instance, I made the 'M' accidentally by cutting and sewing the angles wrong on the 'W'. Oh well. It will work just fine in another word. There are certainly going to be plenty of words before I get done!

Add caption

I also got a good start on the hst medallion quilt. It was a bit tricky making sure the measurements were right for the first black row, but after getting that settled, the rest should just be a matter of repeats. I decided to use the Easy Angle method {Diane's tutorial is my go-to} for increased accuracy and well, less trimming. I hate the trimming part of the traditional hst method! And as this quilt will continue to build around rows of hst's, accuracy is key for ending up with a square quilt, right?

Right.... Hah.  I ran into trouble immediately because that increased accuracy only occurs when cutting and sewing is happening in a precision sort of way. Ugghh... Too many distractions happening around me and so my hst rows were a little bit too long. Consistently too long, but still. Not good. And then it occurred to me that those black strips would be placed between every single row of hst's! Serendipity, or a very smart quilter. Hmm... Me thinks the black rows had a different sort of function than just good aesthetics. 

So I did what I would normally do and just fudged on the seam allowance here and there. {*Confessing my sins here...} Just a smidge extra sewn into the seam in about three spots on every row. With that, the row of hst's shrunk to the proper length, easily allowing the corner squares to fit properly. Can you even tell when you look at the top picture? I can't! From here on out, every corner square at the end of both the black rows and the hst rows, will have to be the exact same size. That means I can play around {and fudge with the hst's wherever I need to} as long as the black rows and corner squares remain a constant. *whew!

Are you shaking your head at me and wondering why I don't just sharpen up my cutting and piecing skills? This is an old make-do sort of quilt that I'm interpreting. On closer examination, the hst's don't even represent the same way from side to side of the quilt or even a complete row around the quilt--the only constant is that the dark part of the hst is pointing upwards throughout. I couldn't believe it when I started taking a closer look. So fascinating! And because there are so many rows and rows of hst's, it's not at all obvious to the casual viewer. Woohoo! This means I can fudge with impunity and yes, great glee!

Another couple blocks for the Solids Challenge quilt

I have also found time to do some applique work. These blocks have been practically begging for some attention all year. After this there are only three left, and as always, they have been ridiculously easy to do. And fun. I love the stark, simple beauty of them! Why I have drug my feet for so long on these is a mystery. Having several new applique projects waiting in the wings finally compelled me to get going on finishing these blocks, but really, the reasons for why I continually dawdle around on certain projects, then speed right through others? Motivation and Mojo. Crazy stuff....

Linking up with Sew, stitch, snap, share....

Working On the Foundation of a Quilt

I had finally dug out my backup sewing machine late last week and was making a bit of progress on re-familiarizing myself with the way it operates. Then I got one of those phone calls that turns everything upside down and inside out. Yeah, hello and goodbye to the weekend plans of completely immersing myself in quilting room!

Trying to see what I have to work with!

Oh well. That's just the way things go occasionally. I did manage to pick the loose thread and lint off of the four quilts I entered into a quilt show about an hour from here. That's the same show my fire quilt ended up at two years ago--a kinda intimidating show for me honestly, but they seem friendly and the quilts are definitely displayed very well. I decided it was time to quit being a coward, maybe stretch my wings a little bit once again. Always interesting illuminating to see our quilts hanging alongside other peoples efforts right?

So many options!

So yesterday saw me back in the quilting room and for some reason I was ready to play with the words on a quilt idea suggested over at Anne's. I'm running a little late with this challenge but have been thinking about it a lot. It needs to be something that has meaning to me and also be a bit challenging or I'm gonna run out of steam fast. That's just how I roll.

Since I do a lot of applique work around here, it feels like a good time to dive into my 'Word Play Quilts' book by Tonya Ricucci. It's been gathering dust for a long time now. First I had to rough out the basic foundation and idea of the quilt, which I quickly did by grabbing the leftover rising sun blocks. Love, love, love using up the orphan blocks! And no, it wasn't a totally impulsive decision. Like I said, I've been pondering different avenues for this particular idea for weeks now!

Then I played around with how to set them together and finally decided on a simple every-other sort of block in complementary colors. Since the intent is to ultimately add words onto the quilt, I knew there needed to be calmer areas in addition to the attention grabbing rising sun blocks.

The biggest trick was how to design these new blocks in order to have them end up at 17 1/2" square. Oh yeah. Because I had trimmed those big star blocks down to an oddball size thinking it wouldn't matter....  That math almost broke me, but last night finally saw me with some real progress up on the wall. The colors are making me very, very happy and for this moment, I'm thinking, words? Forget about the words! hehe  But no, it'll will be a fun quilt {if and} when it all comes together. Basically I need to decide if the quilt will be medallion style with words surrounding the 9 centerpiece blocks or if they will be rows of words breaking up each 3-block row, or even if it will just be a big puzzle. There are lots of ideas being considered, but nothing will be set in stone until the words start getting finished. At that point they will be auditioned with the rest of the pieces and well, you get the idea. That's when the real fun starts!

Because quilts are meant to be used....

Had to laugh as I wandered through my sons bedroom to get to the quilt room over in the corner. Apparently he threw off the blanket when he came in late last night {from a long weekend in Oregon with his older brother} and just curled up in his favorite quilt, never even attempting to get between the sheets. Gotta love these kids who grow up living with quilts. They sure do know how to use them!