Great stash digging results!

Pearl Pereira is offering a free mystery block of the month - mostly piecing and some applique - just introduced last week.  Mysteries are hard to commit to, and even harder to plan for...the not knowing of what you're going to get makes the fabric selection that much more tricky.  Pearl's fabric choices showed red, 2 blues, 2 pinks, 2 greens.   I decided that I'd participate only if I could find all of the pieces in my stash - after much digging, I got together a wonderful grouping of fabric, and even better, it included some pieces that I had just about given up hope of ever using.  Instead of red I have a predominately peach floral, and the two pinks are peach.

Here's a mock up of the first block on my design flannel, I had a little grin on my face when I stepped back to see that with the fabrics chosen, I could be on my way to a very nice quilt.  Beside it I put the second background and the remaining fabric swatches.  I did have to order a little more of the bright green, and a little more of the second background - but, bonus!  I caught the last day of a sale at the web store.

Anna's Garden

Here are the first three blocks of Anna's Garden, pattern by Lori Smith.   These are 7" blocks, and the background is a dark navy.  Working on these blocks are like working on little applique snacks - just enough challenge to make it interesting, and enough leeway in the design to not worry too much about placement and fine details.  I am happy with the colours, but I do find myself wavering.

After the first two blocks, I brought out some large pieces of mostly civil war era repros.  I almost changed my mind right then and there. Something about those shades and tones that just make me feel like I could crawl right into the pile of fabric! 

But, the style I'm working on now is just fine...nothing wrong with it...just do I want to do the whole quilt like this?  It only takes a few charm packs to make up a quilt like this.. hmmmm.  My goal is to do two to three of these a month; lets hope that in April I'm not showing a whole different set of colours and fabrics!

Stash organization really does help!

I have had a great - fantastic - past couple of days in the studio, resulting in some great decisions on applique and pieced projects that I will keep me busy for at least a year or two! 

A few months ago, I cleaned up my stash.  I don't have a large stash, but I do have enough to keep me inspired, and fabrics that can act as starters for a project.  While organizing, I was astounded at how many yellows and browns I had...about 6 yards of each.  I also discovered a large amount of red and green scraps civil ware repro types  (some large as fqs), that was about 5 yards total.  And enough 30s repro, some cut into 2" squares, to consider a lap sized quilt...didn't realize I collected those!  The strangest discovery was the brights, by sorting them by colour and putting them into bags, I had enough of those to start a quilt.  Brights are not really my thing, and these must have been hatching in the dark.  I also have several smaller "sets" of fabric that will work well into minis and small wallhangings that I used to enjoy doing so much.

So now I have all these baskets and bags of "collections" and colours.  I felt I had to make sure I used them - and I have!  The pink and blues already have been given to the Celebration sampler; the Riveria line of fabrics from Connecting Threads were perfect for the Floribunda project.  The leftover Glace scraps from my neice's quilt is enough to do the Sue Garman machine applique.

There were three quilts I wanted to kit up for myself  - and the last couple of days the ideas kept flowing as I moved fabric and patterns from pile to pile. The red and green scraps that were destined for a sampler by Lori Smith, ended up back in the basket, to maybe turn into a 4 block applique from the A Baltimore Album book.  But that's a simmering idea. The yellow and brown, with white and odd bits of green, will make that sampler into a  lively quilt.   I discovered that the 30s repro could work really well in the Anna's Garden applique pattern by Lori Smith - I even found yards of a navy background to use.  The brights and a few batiks I have can wait for some kind of inspiration.  

I can hardly believe that I made up all these projects from my little stash.  I really have no reason to shop.  I am still doing some purchased blocks of the month, and will continue to do so, as they provide an opportunity to make a quilt from a pattern that is not readily available, or use fabrics in a way that is too hard for me to organize, or are just plain interesting!  So kits mights still be on the shopping list, but nothing else.  Is there a quilter's oath I can swear....that I promise to use the kits I made up, make no swaps to make new kits, to not even consider yet another I have to have it? Hmmm...

Commitment issues....

I have been obsessed with applique patterns and fabrics.  I haven't been able to make many firm decisions, and my fabric choices go around and around in my head - dancing with different partner patterns.  I used to have many pieced projects on the go, now it seems I'm much more concerned with applique projects.  I also have a problem making a firm decision - is this really how I want to use this pattern or fabric??

I have made so many full and partly finished applique blocks over the past few weeks (and years!)   In the past couple of weeks in particular I have spent hours playing with my stash, reviewing patterns, internet browsing, and colouring quilts on EQ.  Yesterday I finally smacked myself on the head and said, this is not a life changing decision!  just go with something!  you have enough sense to know that you're being overly particular and that really nothing is wrong with anything that you've tried so far - its like an itch that can't be scratched :)  The point is to enjoy the sewing of applique, challenge myself a bit, and maybe at the end have a finished top that I can say, I made that with my own two hands :)

So, I made decisions....any bets if any of these quilt plans will result in that actual quilt?  I think so - I'm done with playing, for now.... I also seem to need a lot of variety - I am not the type of quilter to start one thing and finish it (well, how many of us are like that?) 

After giving up ever being happy with fabric choices for Baltimore n Bali by the Rabbit Factory, and making or prepping blocks one and two, way too many times, I've started another pattern by the Rabbit Factory called Celebration Sampler.  This seems to suit my collection of blues and pinks that I thought would be an applique quilt - the Celebration Sampler will give me a bit of everything, the blocks in this quilt are just pieced, or a combo of piecing and applique, or all applique.

Then comes blocks from Sue Garman's quilt Hugs and Kisses, a b.o.m. from the Quilt Show.  I'll be doing "just kisses", the crossed leaves patterns, by machine applique (applique pieces prepped with edges turned and starched).  I enjoy machine applique, and if I did everything I wanted to by hand, well then I'd have a real problem.  I'm using scraps of Glace fabric leftover from another quilt.

I'm going to continue to follow the Floribunda b.o.m., as I very much like my fabric choices here, and her style of drawing, so similar to Piece O Cake designs.

And, I'm still debating about one more hand applique project that will either be blocks from A Baltimore Album, by Marsha Radtke, or and old favourite of mine that never got started, Anna's Garden by Lori Smith.

So, it looks like I've ended up with a small amount of hand applique in the Celebration Sampler, a monthly hand applique block from Floribunda, machine applique every-other-month from Hugs and Kisses; and one other hand applique to be announced.  That's pretty good decisions, now how about that commitment?

Floribunda

There is a great new applique block of the month being offered by One Piece at a Time quilts - here is her blog link - take a look! I thought about this b.o.m. for a while, then remembered I had put away a collection of fabrics from Connecting Threads called Riveria - I so much liked this line of fabrics that I bought it, but couldn't decide when and how to cut it up :)  This applique pattern I think will work well for the Riveria Fabrics.  I've used needleturn applique for this block.

"Garden at Dusk"

I did get the borders put on the quilt I'm calling Garden at Dusk.  I love playing with border options on Electric Quilt.  The original quilt,  My Secret Garden, from the book Gathered from the Garden by Cindy Lammon, had a plain border...but I wanted more!  This quilt will be going to my college age neice - I just kept thinking about her while making it.