Connecting to Creativity

Well, that month went by in a screaming hurry! I ended up spending most all of August with my daughter in Oklahoma. Waiting for her to have her baby and then helping out afterward. So thankful to have the time and opportunity to make it all work out.

The sweet new grandbaby

Meet Miss. Gracelyn May! We just love her so very much. She's a little sweetie and definitely kept us all hopping for the first couple weeks. You know how some babies just take a little more time getting adjusted to the real world. Gotta get the mom and dad trained up properly! The picture below is with Ellie, another one of our {four} granddaughters. She was sooo fascinated with her new little cousin. We loved having her help too!

Lots of love from her older cousin!

Finally made it back home to my tired and grumpy husband. It's the longest I've been away for all of our married life, but he was totally on board with what I thought was needed. He actually survived fairly well and the house wasn't too terrible. Our youngest daughter had kept tabs on that. {If I could add heart emojis here, I would!} Still, I had mountains of laundry to do and some things that needed set to rights. Still do actually, but one thing at a time!

Probably won't be using the scrappy circles after all

I didn't get hardly any quilting done during the month of August {tiniest bit of hand quilting}, so you can only imagine my longing to dive right back into quilting. After a quick perusal of the quilting WIP's list, I decided what was needed most was something completely carefree. 

Working on the centerpiece

On impulse, I grabbed a bag of orphan blocks, bits and bobs that I had grouped together a couple months ago. The entire bag was thrown together based on color compatibility and not much else. Basically, I just started throwing things on the wall, moving things around until there was some good energy.

Top and bottom border sewn on, working on the sides

Then I started figuring out how to sew it together! First the middle improv. strips went together. Lots of partial piecing and trimming up in order for it to lay flat. Had to introduce one similar-look light tan fabric and then later, a couple darker prints in the border, but otherwise, this entire quilt top is strictly made out of orphaned parts and pieces!

This is the completed background centerpiece minus a 
thin piece of purple I'm gonna add up on the right corner

After the middle part of the quilt was sewn together, then I made an executive decision to trim it to straight. I waffled about that for all of ten minutes or so and then finally flipped the top over and bit the bullet. Why flip it over? Mostly so I didn't have to worry about what was being cut off! ha! Just couldn't face trying to sew the outside borders onto the quilt if I had to do too much easing and coaxing. 

Adding the applique bits that look interesting

Now I'm in a frenzy {a very slow, methodical frenzy} to add leftover applique bits and pieces to the center of the quilt. The whole process has felt amazing. I can't really adequately explain what this has meant to me! Very free spirited and fun just because of the loose, open ended determination for the outcome. It feels like it has woke up my sleeping creativity in just the right sort of way. Not sure what it's supposed to be or do or even end up looking like, but I'm totally okay with that. How about that? We're all good over here in this corner of the quilt world after all!  Maybe by next week I'll have my head above water enough to finally go check out all the blogs I've been neglecting....

Closing Down 2022

Well, 2022 is going out with a whimper. I got sick the week before Christmas, barely pulled it together in time to enjoy a few good days with family and then, bam. Relapsed and now, probably bronchitis. Uggh. In my defense, it was super, super cold here for those weeks and I probably overdid things for the holiday.

All finished!

Anyway, real quick post here. These are my last finishes of the year! Moody 9-Patch which was started clear back in November of 2020. You can check out the antique inspiration on that post if you like.

Looking cozy

I worried and worried about how to hand quilt the large sashing pieces, but in the end, did something super simple. You can obviously see it better on the brown tone on tone fabric than on the floral.

Maybe not the best hand quilting?
But it's done, all done....

The entire quilt was machine quilted in-the-ditch between all the blocks and then the hand quilting followed after.

This one has a very rich, warm look to it

It was a great this particular quilt laying across my lap during these cold winter months! I'm thinking it's close enough to the original inspiration to make me feel happy and yet, not so carbon copy as to be boring.

Our adorable granddaughters

Here's a quick pic of a pile of puppies kiddos we found by our tree on Christmas Eve this year! Such a joy to have grandkids. Wouldn't trade it for the world!

Vintage T is a true blue finish!

And here is the very last finish of the year. If I hadn't machine quilted this late in November or early in December {I so forget the details now}, it would have never happened. I got my machine back and wanted to test out the dual feed thingamabob right away. Works perfectly, thank goodness!

A slightly older look

I ended up putting the binding on in little pushes of effort while sitting around being a couch potato. Still am doing that in fact. Just trying to get better every day.

Machine quilting for the win!

This isn't my fave quilt ever, but I'm very pleased with the way I was able to use up some of the oldy moldy orange fabrics languishing in the stash totes. Playing with these colors was hard. The look and feel of the quilt is definitely not as joyful as some others that I have done though the years!

Loving this soft looking finish

The backing was a mishmash of anything that was big enough to throw together and make into the proper size! I haven't had to buy backing now for almost two years with the last two fabric donations from my family. That is coming to a screeching halt though as the found pieces are getting smaller and smaller. 

Calling this one'Revised'

One other thing that I've been very slowly working on {everything has to be couch work these days while I huff and puff and/or cough}, is the #AHIQColor Palette challenge. I'll share more of the inspiration details over at the AHIQ blog some other day. For now, this has been a lifesaver having it mostly prepped and ready for hand stitching. Happy New Years to all!

It Feels Good To Be Making Progress On Something

I actually managed to get quite a bit done in spite of the fact that we had a busy, busy Easter weekend! I went ahead and added a very small coping border between the main part of A-Tisket-A-Tasket and the red hst border. 

A-Tisket-A-Tasket getting a border or two

I'm pretty sure there will only be one more border, of much larger red and gold hst units. It's all cut out and ready for sewing, just need to find the time. Super happy with how it's turning out though. That lighter yellow/gold just made everything shine! So weird because I had dismissed the idea earlier thinking that color would fade into the bottom part of the baskets too much and totally ruin the look. 

It's the whole kit and kaboodle. 61" square

I also managed to keep working on Country Stars. It was sooo tempting to put it up for a good long sleep, but I was not too sure that it might never see the light of day again once that happened. And I do want to get it finished up and gifted sometime this year!

It doesn't look like much, but it makes the quilt look better

I took the larger leaves in the middle of the applique and cut into them again. This time making into flowers with a red bud. It's all so much better now. Then I went ahead with the little stacks of berries, mixing up the colors. Red didn't look right and neither did pink, so I combined the two. It's still not a fabulous top, but overall I'm satisfied. Especially after all the applique was finished up {I thought} and on a whim, decided to sew the darker brown cross circle over the center compass block. 

It's applique and that's important sometimes, to
some people...

It just finished it off in a way that I can quit stressing about now. And I'm sure our friend will love all the little details eventually. It's really not easy to work on a quilt where the connection was never really there in the first place. But I did it. Got all the hand work done and dusted. Now I just need to take a deep breath and find time here this coming summer to get it sandwiched and pinned, ready for quilting!

Getting ready to hand sew the binding

Got all the hand quilting finished up on the AHIQ Hourglass quilt. Would have been done sooner, but the backing fabric was a heavier, tighter weave than I normally work with, something my aunt gave me awhile back. I love all the freebies, but occasionally it's nice to use something that wants to work better with a needle!

Almost ready for the hoop!

Next quilt in the hoop is the HaHa quilt. So crazy, it's been almost four years since this has been a completed quilt top! This one has been such a very long time getting in the hoop. It took over two years to even make quilt top stage. Some quilt tops are just plodders I guess. I don't know what to say except that I've just had very mixed feelings about this quilt from the beginning.

I really do like these words on the quilt

Love it and I well, worry about it. It's been too solid fabric-ish, too white, too many disparate elements, too much, too much. And I had zero ideas about how to hand quilt it until a couple months ago.

The ric-rac borders around the blocks are still a fave too

When I suddenly thought about stitching scallops over the center part. Huh. Maybe that will be the thing to make sort of 'make sense'. I went with the cardboard, make-it-yourself template since the plastic template sheets are so expensive these days. Didn't want to ruin a whole sheet experimenting. Anyway... It's not gonna be perfect and you're gonna see where I adjust, adjust, adjust the design. 

Home-made template for the win

Which might actually make me like it better. There's just something about it not being absolutely perfect that sorta calms me down and puts a smile on my face. Onward ho!

These girls.....

And here's a recent picture of our granddaughters. We had an enormous amount of fun getting to spend Easter weekend with them. I mean, we are The Easters, so it's always been a special holiday.*wink  Loving how chunky little Ellie is getting and how chill she was with us even though it's been months since we've got to squeeze on her. Like my father-in-law always said, if we'd have known how much fun grandkids were, we would have been sure to have them first.....