Border Disputes

 So apparently in 2017 I was under the impression that the border was ready to sew onto my version of Bonnie Hunter's 2015-6 mystery quilt, Allietare. But obviously that didn't happen. 😅

I had SO much indecision about the border for this quilt. I know I bought 3 or 4 different fabric combinations for it. A couple of them were even in my Allietare project drawer!

When I finally pulled the project out again, it seemed to me that these Kaffe fabrics were ready to go. The fussy cutting was done and I just had to sew them on.

The two side borders with the flowers went on fine, but when I started work on the top and bottom I remembered why I stopped. The grain of that fabric was very slanted and I was determined to fussy cut it aligned with the print. Which was no where near aligned with the grain. So when I was done the top and bottom strips were actually curved.

But you know, I was already halfway so I thought, %&$# it, and sewed it on anyway. And actually, it seems pretty flat now.

Those waves you see in the photo are just where the fabric got caught on the carpet. Hopefully.

Nothing a long arm couldn't quilt out, right?

Anyway, I am so impressed with Bonnie's design on this quilt. It looks so complicated, and I'm rather amazed I pulled it off! I'm pretty sure if I saw the final quilt before I started it I never would have attempted it. But the instructions break it down into very simple steps, and it's kind of magic how it comes together. It's funny that the hold up all these years has been these last strips of fabric around the edge. In any case, I'm very glad to have another top done!

"Keep calm and carry on" would probably work as a title for this post as well. 😂

Cheddar Broken Dishes Top

When I first picked up these cheddar and indigo broken dishes blocks last autumn, my intention was just to organize the project rather than actually finish it. I had things in several stages at once, with many many plastic baggies of HSTs and broken dishes units. And as you can see, my project storage system wasn't 100% foolproof. 😂

So I just wanted to make sure everything was accounted for and get things to a more consistent state of completion. But, the blocks went together so easily that I decided to keep going and get it done.

The original historic quilt that inspired this pattern had a few irregular blocks with some pink, light blue, and cranberry fabrics thrown in. To me that was a big part of the initial appeal of the quilt, so I threw in some non-conforming broken dishes here and there. 

This is a queen-sized quilt, and to keep it manageable I laid it out in quadrants once again. To get an even distribution of fabrics and values, I "deal" out the blocks so there are no duplicate fabrics in each quadrant. I also work from the lightest to the darkest to keep the values balanced.

I did the same thing with my scrappy neutral sashings. This quilt is 7 x 7 blocks, so the quadrants are not equal size. I started with the smallest quadrant and worked up to the largest, reasoning that the largest would also give me the most flexibility to make sure I didn't have the same fabric beside itself anywhere. It worked. 😄

I finished the border very simply with a neutral strip of fabric. I don't think the original has any border, but I have an indigo and white pinstripe fabric for the binding, and I want to float it out beyond the blocks.

The original also has a few cranberry blocks, but in the end I decided one was enough. You can see my fussy cutting compulsion got the upper hand a little there.

And that's another top done! Only four and a half years after the quilt was featured on the cover of the October 2016 issue of American Patchwork and Quilting. Don't ask me when it will be quilted though. 😂 I'm still hoping a long arm will eventually come my way.

Technicolor Turkey Together at Last!

So the world turned upside down since my last post. There's nothing more I want to say about that, lol. But, I have managed to do some sewing now and then, and I have a few projects to get caught up over the next few posts.

I have an Ikea wardrobe with wide shallow drawers that holds my current works in progress. It's proven to be an excellent system. Even several years later everything is in one place with all my notes and plans, and it's been fairly easy to pick up and sew again.

One quadrant of Techicolor Turkey was already sewn together. I had made a very nice colour sketch of my planned layout for the rest, which saved my life on this so I highly recommend it. 😂

I made the blocks as part of the Rainbow Scrap Challenge in 2017. The blocks are Bonnie Hunter's Talking Turkey design with my own pieced sashing.

When I put the quilt on hold, the border plan was for something mostly neutral with a few pops of color. But I didn't love it. While I was sewing it together I debated several different ideas, maybe multicolour strings or piano keys. Eventually I decided that an all neutral border would let the blocks shine. I carried the sashing out into the border, with some neutral strips sewn in between. This allowed me to sew on the border before I sewed the four quadrants together. If I can avoid a long seam I will!

At first I thought I would alternate light and darker neutrals around the border, but as I laid it out I liked it better with all the dark strips on the outer edge. I think a multicolour scrappy binding will be the right finish for this.

In any case it was really nice to get something done for the first time in a long time. I finally have a dedicated sewing area, which is making all the difference. It is easy to just leave the project there and work on it for a few minutes when I have time.

Apologies for the recycled photos from Instagram. If you follow me there, @lakeviewmonica, you will see things a lot sooner, lol. These days I am mostly on mobile and don't fire up the computer that much. I had to scroll back to August 2020 to find these pictures, so that must have been when I finished the top. 😅

I hope everyone is hanging in there! I'm going to queue up a few more posts over the next couple days. You know, while the computer is running and before I go back to emojis and likes on mobile. Happy stitching everyone!

Good Fortune Progress

A little late, but happy Lunar New Year/Spring Festival everyone! It feels appropriate to have progress to share on Bonnie Hunter's 2019 mystery quilt, Good Fortune.

All the blocks are done! 🎉🎉🎉

Assembly has started! 🎉🎉🎉

I'm just laying out 9 blocks at a time, and trying for an equal distribution of dark and light values in each section. The orange blocks with the skinny inserts will be in the centre of the quilt, and the string blocks are going around the corners. It's already a very active quilt, so I decided a symmetrical layout would be best.

This is the point where you find out how accurate your sewing was last year. 😂 Fortunately, I tend to sew scant, so it's easy to trim the block or tighten up a seam if necessary. And fortunately, that hasn't been too often.

So far, so good! 🎉🎉🎉

Overthinking

My original plan with Bonnie Hunter's Good Fortune mystery, when it started last year, was pretty much to follow the pattern. Except for the dark background, I used about the same colours as Bonnie in the same places as Bonnie. I did plan from the beginning to make it larger, and hoped to use one of my old Asian fabric panels in the centre, since Bonnie's inspiration was her trip to China last year two years ago. 😂

Eventually I accepted that my very western fabrics didn't play well with the panel, so that idea is on hold and I went with the Mariner's Compass I showed last time instead.

While I was playing around with the layout of the quilt, I had the bright idea of blending the edge of the blocks out into a scrappy brown border. Partly because just following the pattern started to chafe, and partly because some how when the clues came out, I cut way too many brown squares.

I really have no idea how that happened. It is over 3 inches/8 cm high!

Anyway, I made quite a few of these...

...instead of these...

...with the goal of doing something like this.

Fast forward one year, and I am now regretting it. It would be a lot faster and easier to just make all the blocks the same. And it would give me more flexibility in the final layout, I expect. And most of all, the tricky border is not really going to be better. The quilt was already good.

But, today I accepted that it would be more complicated to unpick all those units, than to just keep going. So the tricky border lives.

I do have to say that I am loving all those browns. They really give so much life to the colour scheme.

It's all a balancing act, isn't it? I've been looking at quilts with fresh eyes this past couple of months, and I think one thing I've been guilty of in the past was overthinking and making my projects too complicated. And then they stall. Reading the first AHIQ post for 2020 (which is thoughtful and beautifully written, btw), I laughed to see that the definition of modern utility quilt now includes an emphasis on a finished quilt. I am sure that is one of Ann's contributions to the dialogue. 😉 Totally right too, and I'm hoping to channel some of that energy this year.

Of course, you don't have to look very far back in my feed to see this crazy idea. But obviously it will be EPIC and I still plan to do it.

But I am also hoping to maintain this new perspective, and try to keep my projects from getting overly fussy and involved. The question is if the extra detail adds value to the finished quilt. If it does, then great, but if it doesn't, move along.