Perfection

I've been struggling in my quilting with perfection.  Not that perfection is a problem, but my desire for it has been holding me back, making me afraid to try something lest I screw it up.  To illustrate: I have four projects sitting in my living room that are half-quilted.  (Okay, so part of that is that I have a lot of loose ends to weave in before I move on, and it's been HOT.)  But I keep second-guessing myself on how I want to quilt something or if I can execute what I imagine.  I'm making a resolution to go ahead and just finish some things.  If I botch it, I have my handy seam ripper and I will learn something from the process.

All that said, this (found here) is exactly how I want to finish quilting my zig-zag quilt - yes, the same one I've been waffling about since, oh, March?

Catching Up

As my sister helpfully reminded me last night, "you're now 3 weeks behind on your blog!!"  Mea culpa.  I'm here to try to remedy this.

It has (finally) been beautifully sunny out here, so my sewing time has been taken up by walks and a wee bit of spring cleaning recently.  And a couple of my projects are destined for other people, so they're not ready for sharing yet.  But I'm not holding out on everything - I have a couple experiments in quilting to share.

First up: Two completed pillow tops, which match the orange and blue lap quilt that is half-quilted and intended for the living room.  The quilting on the nine-patch seemed obvious - dense, straight-line quilting emphasizing the nine-patch block.  

I love the way the grid looks on the back - I'm almost disappointed that this part will be hidden!  Now that it's quilted, I need to figure out how to finish the cover - and decide whether I'm brave enough to tackle a zipper.  Can we do it?

And my spring zig-zags at last.  I straight-line quilted in the ditch along the diagonals in dark purple, and I love the way it turned out.  I debated adding a second line of quilting echoing the zig-zags in the middle of the rows, but I think I'll leave well enough alone on this one.  One of the reasons I never finish things is that I'm afraid it won't turn out perfect.  And you know what?  This isn't perfect, and it won't be, but it will be done, and cheery, and look wonderful on the spot I have picked out for it on my wall.  Or so I have to keep telling myself...

And now I'm back to my machine, hoping to have some finished table runners to share sometime soon.

Indecision

Well, not much quilting this week.  We've been preoccupied all week with tracking the near-shutdown of the federal government, which would have left me with a lot of free time to quilt.  However, I'm now on my weekend, and making it my goal to catch up with my sister.

In fact, I'm skipping ahead a bit - she finished one called the "Spinning Star," while I'm working on the "Twirling Star" simply because I had a clearer vision of the fabric choices for it.  That is, for two of the fabrics.

Option 1

Option 2

Option 3

I'm stuck on choosing the right medium pink.  The first option is bright, vivid pink - perhaps too bright.  The second might not have enough contrast.  The third has a wide stripe that could mean a subtle variation in the points that would emphasize the twirling of the block.  It's actually a reclaimed pillowcase that I'm also contemplating using as a backing for my zigzag wall hanging quit:

The purple will be the binding - I'm going for a very narrow 1/4" binding.  I'm not sure how I feel about the stripes with the zigzags, but then again, it'll be against the wall and nobody will see it anyway!  

Now if I could just stop dithering and get something finished....

Happy Spring, Part 2

With the temperature passing 60 degrees, it is pretty clearly spring this week.  And my zig-zag top is mostly done!  I'm debating whether to add another row of yellow at the bottom.  Binding will be in the dark purple to frame it nicely.  Now to find a backing fabric...

Happy Spring!

Well, it's been a while since I've been here!  I've been wicked busy, but actually not too much quilting until yesterday.  We've had a friend staying with us and it's finally been sunny enough that (most) of our snow is gone, so we've been out and about, enjoying the balmy fifty-degree weather.

I've also been working on wedding invitations - we printed them ourselves, Eric cut each of them, and I am hand-stamping the decorations:

These are cards requesting fabric for our wedding quilt.
Each is now stamped with "A REQUEST."  Whew!

Yesterday morning I did get some time to just sew and made progress on several projects.  I also figured out how to catch when my bobbin tension goes haywire, hopefully before it makes the back of the piece all loopy.  It's been driving me crazy for months.

My Spring Zig-Zags I started last time it snowed - I guess in protest and anticipation.  I was inspired by this quilt and used the HST tutorial from p. s. i quilt.

Mine is made with 4-inch finished blocks and will finish as a wall-hanging.  I did sketch it out and color it in pencil to make sure I had my dimensions right, then cut out my big squares and threw them up on the design wall.  I played with the layout until I liked the way the colors worked, then started sewing them into HST blocks.

This shows the progress about halfway through the piecing.
Wow, that second yellow shows up brighter in the photo!

Now my challenge is getting the points to kindof sortof match up when I sew those together - I'm getting better at it, but I'm also getting pickier, which has meant some seam ripping.  I'm also debating adding more yellow on the bottom, although I'm not sure I like my available options.  (By the way, this top is 100% stash except for the two yellows!)

Starting to join the rows and match points.  Yellows at bottom are auditioning to be included.

The other accomplishment from yesterday were pillow-case tops for my living room, to go with the throw quilt that is mid-quilting.  They were both planned as I went, with just the basic ideas of nine-patch and rail fences and using up the 1-inch borders I had left over.  I'm really happy with how they have turned out, although I think next time I do pillows, I'll start with a bigger basic block!  The one on the left will have the brown flowers as a border as well - that's next on the to-sew list!

I think that's sufficient cheeriness to celebrate this beautiful spring day!  I hope yours is as sunny and warm!