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!

Giving Up On Perfection

This past week has been a busy, busy week for sandwiching and pinning quilts. First, I sewed together three 'frankenbats' out of leftover strips of batting. All because the roll of batting is getting very skinny and also perhaps in an effort to be frugal? Whatever. I have very mixed emotions about the results.

The Baby Girl Quilt

On the baby girl quilt, I didn't notice the batting shifting at all. All the wonk in this quilt is because there was just too much ease in the long coin strips. It was something I was quite prepared to deal with and after machine quilting 'in the ditch' along every seam, I came back and hand quilted every other coin and just inside the silhouette flower. I'm satisfied with the results. Just the normal 'I'm sure I could do better, but not terrible either'.

Looking at the applique

The narrow coin strips were the leftovers from my Dried Flowers quilt. I really like the way they add just a little bit of texture to an otherwise plain Jane quilt. The flower was originally going to be a dark charcoal color, but at the last second, I switched the fabric out for this {happier} green grunge fabric. It's a little bit more 'St. Patrick's' than I intended to happen, but overall, it feels like such a sweet quilt. Fingers crossed the mama likes it too! The light gray alphabet fabric on the back and the darker gray polka dot binding fabric were all chosen in an effort to make the quilt feel a bit more modern looking. Not sure how successful I was, but my girls both gave the nod of approval.

Patchwork Triangles is finished!

Anymore, I have a habit of sandwiching and pinning two quilts on the same day. If the dining room table is out of the way, that's my cue to take advantage! I chose a quick finish, Patchwork Triangles, which was started in July of 2018. Somewhere around that time these triangles were cut off from the corners of some improv. blocks I was working with. It seemed fun and interesting to see where this small start could take me and I love how different looking this quilt is than the original make. 

Not my best work...

So... that being said, I don't love how terrible my machine quilting ended up turning out. Three major no no's contributed and I take full responsibility. 1. Too many bias cut triangles. 2. Batting not fitted and sewn together quite as snug and tight as it should have been. 3. Quilt sandwich not pinned nearly good enough. 4. I rushed through the machine quilting. Oh, did I say three things? Well, I so dislike machine quilting that I generally make things worse on myself. My bad.

Still happy the colors though!

You probably find this hard to believe, but I did actually get the seam ripper out and unsew almost five different rows before trying again.*ughh  It's a bad job and yes, rather than toss the entire quilt, I just gritted my teeth and finished up. There will be someone who will like {and probably want} the quilt regardless. I'm calling it a comfort quilt and as such will be perfectly adequate. Will try harder next time I promise.

Great fabrics for the back of a quilt....

Maybe some of you wouldn't have posted about such a quilt, but I do always try to show the good, bad and even the ugly around here. There is this one gal whom I have followed for ages now, though I won't tell you who she is. I absolutely adore how she posts pictures of. Every. Single. Miserable. Looking. Quilt block and/or quilt. She ever makes. It's endlessly fascinating and sorta sweet and endearing. Makes me love her ever so much more. You know why? Because she is genuinely human and not afraid to show the world that she loves her craft regardless of her shortcomings.

I'm sure someone will want this one in spite of the imperfections...

So there you go. That's my quilt round-up for the week. I have one more frankenbat left, but that quilt will be hand quilted so I sorta expect it to turn out fabulous. Hand quilting is usually nicely accommodating like that.  I've never had any trouble whatsoever with pieced battings {while hand quilting} except for the areas where the batting is thicker. So my fingers get a little extra bit of a workout. That's about all that seems different except maybe {occasionally} the stitches being a tiny bit shorter looking on the backside of the quilt in those specific places? What about you? Are there certain things that you've pretty much given up on ideal of *perfection* in your journey of quilting too?

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!

Always a 'Next Up' In the Hoop

It's time. These hand pieced bow-tie's are saying they want to be quilted. So what's a girl to do?

Hand Pieced Bow-Ties

These are the only hand pieced blocks that I have made an entire quilt out of so far. I mostly hand piece when {and where} the block seems to be better off for the effort. Like these bow-ties. I just really, really had to have a bow-tie quilt with the original, square looking center. Looking at my work as I pinned the quilt made me realize how desperately lacking my piecing skills are though. Galloping horses, people. Just pretend you're on a galloping horse while you're viewing my quilt!

Looking a little closer

And then because I have gotten into the habit of pinning two quilts in one session, here is String Play, a mostly out of the scrap bin effort. I am aiming to machine quilt this big monster of a quilt and ooooh, I am nervous about that.

String Play

I totally forgot to take a picture of the quilt top before the pins were added, so you can see where I intend to stitch long vertical lines. The goal is to completely stitch the top with organically {ha, ha, all my lines are organic} straight lines. Not sure how closely I'll end up stitching the rows, but these will be my first 'reference' lines.

Almost ready to get started!

Hope my machine is up for this like the repairman said it would be! Crossing my fingers on that. I'm determined to get in the mode of at least trying to machine quilt the occasional quilt top instead of sitting on my chicken-hearted fears and letting the quilt room practically explode with unfinished quilt tops. If you only knew how long I sat and stared at this quilt top imagining how wonderful it would look with hand quilting....

Linking up with Nicky and Leanne for Scraptastic Tuesday! I haven't been sewing anything from the scrap bin lately {except my circles}, but this quilt was an 'all-in' effort from the scrap bin back when I made it. Definitely makes me think it's time and past to dig in and try another. There's nothing quite like seeing an entire quilt top made from scraps! Everything inside me just sort of melts and I'm like a proud momma. See here? Look! This is good stuff!*wink

Another Experiment With Both Machine and Hand Quilting

So here it is, my Happy Geese quilt! It's been through a lot of changes since I first started it almost ten years ago, blocks completely un-stitched and reset etc.. I was also experimenting with a wonky placement of geese, but wasn't quite as successful as it could have been. I'd do a lot better these days that's for sure!

Happy Geese

The applique is all my own idea, dreamed up from somewhere inside my crazy brain and influenced by my {leftover} applique bits and pieces tote. This quilt has a sewn together, chopped off style {something not everyone appreciates}, but it warms my heart once in a great while. I like to call that my Gwen Marston influence.

All quilted and bound

I machine quilted around all the geese, along the edges of the borders and around those quarter triangle patched squares. Then I left the pointy rectangles alone. Which makes for a sort of puffiness in the quilt after I washed it. In fact all the plaid area in the quilt ended up looking puffy. Hmm.. I guess I could go back and hand quilt those areas, but why? This quilt is going to get sooo much use from my kids. I can already see the hand writing on the wall.

The top dogs (er.. birds)

It just has that sort of informal I'm-begging-you-to abuse-and-misuse-me look doesn't it? Like mom won't notice or care if this one has Cheeto stains on it.... My daughter do love to make sure all their friends have a quilt to sleep with whenever they have a sleepover and some quilts are just more fun than others.

Big stitching around all the applique with Perle Cotton. And wowsers did that go fast! But it adds just a little bit 'more' to the quilt. Glad I took the time. There's just something about that Perle Cotton that gives instant texture. Instant yummy texture I might add.*wink

A primitive look....

One of my daughters told me she loves everything about the quilt except for the plaid fabric which she said was hideous to her. And no, she wasn't being snotty, just honest because I put her on the spot and asked her to critique my quilt. Personally I adore the plaid element as it was one of those fabrics that was given to me years ago instead of being dropped off at the Goodwill. In fact, all the background fabric in this quilt were those sorts of fabrics. Gotta love that thrifty little thrill we get from using them up, challenging ourselves to make something good with them! And too, I think the quilt would be boring without the sparky plaid. Isn't it funny how we all have our very different opinions?

Want to see the stitching on the back side?

Here's a picture of the back of the quilt. You can see where I wrestled the quilt around to machine quilt around the geese. First one half of the triangles in a long row, and then the other half. If the quilt would have been any larger I'd have given up after the first try. I hurt my elbow earlier in the year and it was complaining instantly from all that back and forth stuff. You can see the plaid border where there isn't any stitching. Good thing it's not going into a show where the judges would complain about uneven quilting throughout the quilt. lol  It's all good. I used some leftover dark brown binding and found the same fabric to add the length I needed to finish this quilt. It's done, it's done, it's done!!! And I wanna snuggle with it already.....

Try, Try, and Try Again

I must be ill 'cuz I'm trying it again--combining some machine quilting with a little bit of big stitch.  It may just be a go with this quilt too. I'm feeling good vibes in the air and of course, {metaphorically} keeping my fingers and toes crossed.

Working on Happy Geese

All I can say is, I must be in a finish-it-up mood or someone pushed my determination button.....

Lovin' the Hand Quilting

There wasn't a lot left to hand quilt on Vertical Baskets, so I pushed a little and managed to finish up. It's a lovely, rich looking quilt and was a joy to stitch on until the last couple borders. Only then did the repetition start getting a little tedious. huh  More time to ponder the next quilt!

Vertical Baskets all quilted...

It's still a wonder to me that most of my quilts are hand quilted. I may not get anywhere near 10 or 11 stitches to the inch {try 4 or 5?}, but I do persevere and get finishes throughout the year. The results keep pulling me back, time after time, because I absolutely adore the old fashioned, crinkled look!

The first step of the binding

I've thought and thought about ways to finish up faster, but it all involves throwing money at someone else or learning how to machine quilt. The latter is something I've been tentatively working on, but so far I don't really enjoy it. There is nothing about it that calms my soul or gets me excited about the finish. I finally paid for the walking foot class on Craftsy with Jacquie Gering several months ago. The walking foot just seems more me than a free motion foot so I thought 'why not take a look?' She's a great teacher and I really appreciate what she has to teach. Seriously. The problem is all me. True confession? I just can't quite make myself watch all the videos yet. I'm not sure what kind kind of  learner I am, but teaching videos just seem to make me itchy. Or twitchy.

Sometimes I think I'm too resistant to change, but also, loving the results I get right now makes it hard to get excited about new methods. The best way to learn something new is to have a driving need for it. When hand quilting doesn't suit my lifestyle {or style} so very well, then I'll probably have more incentive to learn won't I?

Then and Now

Sometimes the past and present collide, even in quilting. Look at this juxtaposition of quilts hanging on the railing in my quilt room right now. So very interesting! The first is a quilt top made out of scraps and odd bits of fabric I wanted to use up at the time--years and years (and years) ago. The second is a quilt made out of scraps straight out of the scrap bin, sewn together about two years ago.

An old quilt and a new one

The first quilt is still being machine quilted in a very simple and ordinary way so that I can get it moved on down the road and out of the guilt box drawers. The second one was hand quilted {by moi of course} with some gorgeous, addictive Perle Cotton. I spent a lot more time with that lovely than was ever spent with the first one. For one thing, I've learned to not rush things. Details are important.

Machine quilting

But the thing that stopped me in my tracks was the oh-so-obvious learning curve from then until now. Wowsers! You've come a long way baby! {Remember the old Virginia Slims commercials that were so popular? Bad product, good saying.*wink}

Still more quilting to do....

I'm not crazy about spending the time to finish up this older quilt at this particular point in my quilting life. There are other quilts that feel more exciting. But still, it will be passed on to someone who will no doubt appreciate having a comfort quilt. That matters.

Scrap Attack #2 finished!!

This quilt though, (Scrap Attack #2)--it's for me. I love the fact that it's made from my scrap bin. It has all the rest of my orphan border pieces from another quilt too--made into those sweet little trees. Its got character, charm and imperfection, something I adore in the right setting. This quilt might actually have that kind of setting. The first one? Not so much. I also love the graphic look to this quilt. It feels right and good, like I dipped my toes into another genre and actually lived to tell about it. Dare I hope this can be done once again in my quilt room? Only different?

Loving this quilt....

This quilt is also tangible proof that I'm still learning and growing. Oh yes I am. And the fact that I stitched this quilt now, instead of directly after I completed the top, means that the stitching is vastly improved from what could have/would have been. I wasn't even thinking about Perle Cotton when this quilt top was finished up--not even on my horizon! It makes me appreciate the overlap of skills that this quilt benefited from, because of delaying the quilting side of things. Why it isn't happening with the machine quilting side of things though, I can't possibly fathom.*wink

Ah..., the Perle Cotton stitching.....

Maybe because I instinctively think in the language of hand stitching these days? lol  More like the lack of practice, practice, practice. Oh well. I'm still not sure what my 'style' or 'signature' thing is yet in quilting terms, but it's coming along. And how thrilling is that?

Me and Machine Quilting, the Saga Continues...

The Giveaway is open until Saturday for anyone interested in a piece of Hobbs batting! I was thinking... that I probably need to get better at feeding sneak peeks of my quilting progress so that wazaam! I can wow everyone with the awesome finished quilt at the end. Instead, I have this tenancy to dribble out pictures of all my various efforts and angst, boring you for the two years or so it takes me to get to a proper finale.

Getting ready to start quilting

Like the picture above. Does anyone really care that I FINALLY remembered to try using blue painters tape to start my initial quilting grid? Hello? I only read about this for the first time about 4 years ago! And yeah. I do like it--a lot. I'm hoping that if I post of picture of actually using the blue tape on one of my quilts, I'll remember to use it the next time I try machine quilting.

Grip & Stitch discs by Clever Craft Tools

And these discs? Wonderful invention. I heartily recommend them to anyone that hates the thought of wearing gloves to quilt. About two thirds through my initial gridwork, I was thinking about chucking this quilt through the window or giving up for about two years. My shoulders and arms were killing me. I was actually thinking about caving and going to the store for some ratty gardening gloves, ughh... Then the aha moment! You know, where I remembered winning a giveaway earlier in the summer?

Immediately after starting to use these discs, I could feel the difference in my shoulders and arms--no kidding. I know I sound like a late night infomercial, but these are the real deal. I was so pumped, I went ahead and quilted one more time between all my initial stitching lines making the lines about 1 3/4" to 2 1/4" apart instead of the 4-5" I was thinking about settling for. For one mad moment at the end, I almost went for one more stitching line in between what was already done. I said almost. This is a quilt for a college kid after all.*wink One thing I did notice for me though was that the directions said to use the bigger pad with the left hand and the smaller pad for the right hand. I switched right away and felt more 'in control' of my quilting, probably because I'm a novice at all this machine quilting and don't know what I'm doing!

Looking at the stitching

So there you go. All the stitching was done with a variegated 100% cotton YLI thread that I splurged on earlier in the summer just for this quilt. Big mistake. Now I'll never want to use cheap thread again. This quilting hobby just keeps getting more and more complicated all the time doesn't it?

Piecing leftover binding together...

I saved money on the binding though, oh yes I did, which makes me feel positively gleeful! So fitting to use up random bits of leftover binding on this particular quilt don't you think? I didn't even lay it out next to the quilt to see if I liked the scrappy binding look, just plowed ahead with my decision. Hopefully I'll get time to sew it onto the quilt in the next couple days. October is a hopping month for us and the next couple days are sure to be busy!

A Win and Some Progress on the Baby Quilt

Real quick, I just want to say how amazing it was to receive so many comments on my All Grayed Down quilt! Thank you to everyone that commented as it made me realize that other people can see the charm of that quilt too. It's a quilt that I seriously wondered if only 'a mama could love'. lol  It's almost impossible to see our own work through unbiased eyes isn't it?

Wall hanging kit

Yesterday I got this kit in the mail! It was pretty thrilling to get a package all the way from Australia, let me tell you! Kate from Empty Field blog had a little giveaway a few weeks ago and I won this very sweet Prairie Flowers wall hanging kit.  I can't connect to her blog right now, but hopefully she'll be back up soon as I very much enjoy following her blog and viewing her beautiful quilting progress.

I'm definitely making good progress on the baby quilt now. I've spent a lot of time with the walking foot the last couple days trying to make it all come out right.  Some of my lines are a little bit wobbly (esp. where I stitched in the ditch) but I do think I'm improving slightly. Fingers crossed nobody will ever inspect the lines too closely.*wink  One of the things I most love about the modern quilting craze is the grid or straight line quilting and that's what I'm trying to learn first. I know it's very annoying to only see bits and pieces of a quilt, but after this coming weekend I should be able to show a full on picture of the quilt!

Baby quilt progress

Yay for me! I found a nice chunk of fabric for the binding hiding out in my totes. It's a reject piece that was given to me at least six years ago so it's especially fun to finally put it to good use. The very light green color is lovely and it works hard to pull the lightness of the quilt clear out through the borders. I ended up doing some big stitch quilting in the very center of the quilt too--probably too much as my finger is now feeling sore--but I think it adds another special dimension to the quilt.  Okay, time to get off the computer so the binding can get stitched down and this thing will be ready to go on a little journey this weekend!

Lots of Distractions These Days

I'm a little behind on the Pickle Dish progress.  Too many distractions in and outside of the quilt room lately. This time I finished up three (3!!) sets in one sitting, so I'm feeling pretty smug about that even though my goal was to finish up two sets a week through the summer and I somehow skipped a week.  Or two.  Who's counting?

3 more sets of Pickle Dish melons

The machine quilting is all finished up on the #2 in the 9-patch series. Only one little pucker on the front of the quilt and I've already removed the thread I was using from the machine, so... too bad, so sad.  I did end up fixing about eight ugly puckers on the back of the quilt that I couldn't bear to leave in the quilt though.  Next time there will be about three thousand more pins basting my quilt I assure you.

MQ done on #2 in 9-patch series

I'd like to dive in and start hand quilting the sampler blocks, but I just can't do that right now.  The Vintage Reproduction quilt really needs my entire hand quilting time until it's finished.  I'd actually like to have it done in order to put it into the local quilt show the third week in July.  Eek! No pressure. I've only known about the quilt show all year long....

Always a little more hand quilting to do on
the Vintage Reproduction quilt.

Like I said.  Too many distractions right now.  There's just something about having the kids home for the summer that disturbs the normal vibrations in the house.  My schedule is not my own.  I'm assuming that's the reason I find myself wanting to play with strange (for me) combinations of color and fabric and ignore the other projects that I once found so fascinating?

Can't resist playing...

I know it couldn't possibly have anything to do with the fact that my youngest son is constantly asking, making, or cleaning up the mess from making lemonade.*wink