42.9 Grey Dresden quilt to help work through sad feelings

In the brief couple of weeks at the end of one project (guild show) before ramping back up with the opportunity quilt project, I have been working out my feelings between two different “art quilts”.

The last quilt I posted about the Dresden petals offset ended up being the “sad color quilt”.

It seems strange to be working in color pallets leaning towards grey and neutral, but also cathartic.

Last I posted was an offset Dresden petal with strange circles. I actually took the design a little bit farther before I got stuck.

 

I started making the grey petals to complete the design and settled into the light grey petals for the bottom of the flower. Then, since my other project I was working on just beforehand was a stained glass quilt, I thought about making a “stem” out of the premade bias tape I was using for that.

And can’t some other petals pretend to be leaves since they were pretending to be flower petals,

And then, can’t some other petals pretend to be grass, and be present at the bottom of the quilt. The flower has to have something to sprout from, doesn’t it?

I have glued down the stem as it is, I am not 100% certain I like how thin it is. But perhaps it could represent the thin feelings of the weight of the heavy flower being held up by a thin feeling of support, ready to crumble at any moment, but still holding strong anyway.

During the making of this quilt, I have been spending a lot of time working through some thoughts about how I am as a friend, about how much work I am spending towards others, how much I have been putting off grieving a loss of mine from earlier in the year.

How I have thrown myself into my responsibilities, even when that doesn’t mean “work” for me this year, well this is all in addition to working and driving, and having my normal crazy hours. How much I have done for the quilt guild I am part of, and how much I feel others might be smothered by what I am doing & overdoing, and how much it feels like I have been wanting to take a step or two back, but not being able to, and how lonely it feels to see others not feel so trapped in the feelings of getting too much done.

How I have been selfish, and selfless, how I have used other people, how I have helped other people, how I have sacrificed, how I don’t have a good support if something would go wrong. How unreasonable my expectations are of myself and of others. How much can I be expecting from others if needed. How to ask for help when things are going too awry. How I don’t feel deserving of help even if I do ask. How I haven’t been “really listening” to others.

How disappointed I was in a lot of areas, even thinking back to last year when we missed seeing the “great American eclipse” due to poor weather in our area, despite being directly in the center of the path of totality.

Anyway, in the background, I was working on this quilt, giving it “life” trying to create a pleasing design even when the thoughts I was having wasn’t exactly pleasing. I was listening to someone talk about working though issues at the same time.

Something about that was comforting. I obviously still hold some of the negative feelings I thought while making the quilt, but the act of putting the negative thoughts into the quilt as dark lines, dark themes, grey themes was nice. And then the idea of making a picture of my negative thoughts and putting them behind me, shrinking them down, and giving myself a safe space. It was nice. Pleasing. Kinda “whoo-whoo” but also needed, and reminding me how things were when I was a little kid.

I have sorta stopped working on the quilt now. I made a yellow sunshine that both compliments and contradicts the dark and the grey, and I keep trying to figure out what to do wit it. I have covered it up some with a grey piece, maybe to try to put out my grief from not seeing the eclipse last year (anniversary of it was during the time I was working on this quilt).

I was thinking about “sunflowers” as this is the Sunflower State that I live in now. Maybe I could make the yellow to either represent the sun and the eclipse or the sunflowers.

But not quite sure how to do it.

Someone in a comment accidentally through autocorrect called this the Offender Eye without seeing the yellow piece. Which might be an apt name for this quilt when it is done instead of grey Dresden quilt.

 

I have ideas of a darker pieced border with light grey diamonds around the center of this quilt.

Currently the thing is glued down with washable glue only. I would like to get some of this stitched down. Probably not the droopy yellow sunflower part.

I did glue down the borders on each of my circles with the bias tape and boy, does it make my “circles” look much more smooth.

All the feelings for the last few months have been feeling very BIG, very overwhelming. I know my natural “anxiety state” helps drives some of these big feelings, and anticipation and grief, and a ball of cuddly old feelings. Suddenly felt like the feelings were also overwhelming. And how it would be easier to shut some of this down for the time being, with intent to explore further in the future.

But, suddenly, with the wisdom of the guy I was listening to, the shift focused onto a much brighter quilt suddenly. And then, working on the grey quilt wasn’t quite as important as it was the previous week.

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21.5 Little Time Left

Man, I hope all of you are realizing what little time we have left.  1 week until the big holiday.

Still have 2 presents to buy, but I have most of the rest done, except for wrapping.

And I have not promised anything (*edited* crafty) for christmas to anyone in my family.

Granted I have a giveaway quilt that I started 2 months ago that eventually will go out, but that’s not christmas related. I don’t like the pieced back I made at all right now anyway.

And now there’s little time before a family party this afternoon an hour away.

And since I’m so sick of orange & orange fabric, I thought I’d share & harken back to a UFO I started in February.

I made a weave quilt top center (okay not pieced together, but I have it all laid out ready to piece – blocks are done).

And for a while I put it aside to think about the borders.

And in October I came up with the borders for this quilt.

Well don’t have the corners done, but I want this weaved design for the borders. “Chevron-esqe”

And here is a graphical picture of the block I created.

And I was wondering exactly how to do this.

So half square triangles of blue & red, with yellow 1/2 inch strip in between.

I have part of it figured out, but I need to do some calculating for the other part.

I have no problem with making bias tape for the part that travels over the red. And I have some made.

But the problem is going to be with the bias & the blue portions.

Here’s part of my blocks right now.

I will probably calculate the angle this is hitting & create a blue block that has a yellow stripe naturally in the middle, which is what I should have done first anyway,

but I think things backwards most of the time. Still have to create & recreate scenarios in my head & make the mistakes before settling in.

Anyway this is where I am at.  Well I have been starting more on the Journey Steps quilt too. Needed to remove myself from the orange.

I was reading an article about being ineffective & for sure that’s me. Don’t focus, don’t put things away, don’t stick w/ one project before moving to the next.

But that’s me.  And that was sewing today. & yesterday was shopping and later this week is wrapping & wrapping up shopping.

Good holidays if I don’t make it back in time.

Can’t wait to share progress on my hexagon periodic table quilt – coming soon!

15.9 Hot Design Wall

Here are the “hot flashes” blocks that I have paired up the quarter squares to make a quilt top.

 

I made sure that the center strip fabric was not the same on any finished block.

I really need to come up with a better name than Hot Flashes.  I adopted this name and it doesn’t exactly suit me.  Perhaps Exothermic Reaction blocks.

If only I didn’t have a ton of other projects to work on, I could do more with this one.

But after a while, ouch, it hurts my eyes.

 

 

14.5 Strip Twist Blocks Received Part 1

I am very excited to share with you the first set of blocks I received for the strip twist block swap.

They are exactly what I asked for!

 

I love the variation in these blocks, and yet, there is enough similarity to tie the blocks all in together.  Very bright and bold, very exciting!

My favorite fabric in this is the yellow diamond, but I also love the blue stripe, and one of the reds has little diamonds in it!  Very cool.

All the fabrics are cool, and, best part, none are fabrics I currently have.

Now I can’t wait to see what else I get!

 

How much fun is this!

12.8 Weaves

Last weekend, I was setting up myself at a nice retreat, trying to figure out again how to sew littlefoot pineapple blocks for the guild, then getting excited about a new quilt.

And I came home middle of last week, but have been either sleeping or sewing or going shopping for fishing, such that I have not been posting.

First, the highs of fun and fellowship, and now the lows of real life slap you in the face.

It wasn’t until this morning that I got my pictures downloaded onto my computer from the retreat.

And I have to put them on the guild website, and edit them. – err … reverse order on that.

I have to work on taxes for myself, do more loads of laundry, and start to put together ideas for the next podcast.

On another note:

Getting frustrated at the home sewing front that the things I like and make at home are just not appreciated or even liked.

The ladies at the retreat (AND I) liked this following quilt top (well the blocks anyway), but at home — I guess it’s not liked all that much.

ERRGGG.

I said at the retreat that I really didn’t care if this was liked or not, it was being made, and given away, but …

hmm…

Also, along the same note, that I know there are things that I may see differently than other people, which is okay.  It brings a sense of style to things, a certain aesthetic.

I love seeing how other people like quilts and colors that I don’t see.  I like bringing this unique aesthetic to myself and to others, to make us all think differently.

To weave others’ views and my own into a great quilty tapestry.

 

But when I can’t even gauge at home what will be liked and what will not be liked.  I am getting irked.  And more irked, and more irked.

At one point you have to weave what you want and like with what others want and like, especially if you try and try to make something for someone else, who consistently does not like the end result.

So, it begs the question – do I really know this person?  Am I really that far off base to what the person wants to be able to miss the mark THIS many times??

… Actually this wouldn’t be the first ‘present’ to go unappreciated, unliked to the recipient.

Christmas and other gift giving holidays have been a HUGE source of frustration and anxiety, so much so that gifts are usually NOT exchanged anymore.

….

But still

….

Because if you give something away to someone else and they don’t like it, then it will not get used and pushed away. Then what is the point of doing something for someone to begin with?

And when you ask what IS liked and you get a whole lot of “I don’t know” or you show quilt patterns and you get no response on those patterns, and you have to just guess what will be appreciated … and then it’s unliked …

So I guess this quilt is MINE.  Or maybe I should auction it away or something?  It’s not finished, so I have time to decide what to do for it.

I happen to LOVE this weaved quilt, and think it would make a GREAT (and much needed) addition to the household.

But forcing it upon someone else who has such a strong negative reaction to it?  I don’t know.

Sigh.

11.9 Quilt Back Completed

While procrastinating on the latest podcast (well I worked for like 15 minutes on it today), I finally decided 2 things.

I decided to take some red and blue and yellow fabrics and create THIS quilt for the bed

The quilt is the ‘roman stripe’ quilt with a 6 inch finished red, 1 and a half inch finished dark blue, and a half inch finished yellow stripe.

The quilt block behind is from Quilter Geek Julie’s recent post on pink and black quilts, which I almost considered using (there’s a drawing in here of that one too – not shown).

Which made me cut my (red) fabric(s).  I was trying to go for only one red, but I think I am running out with only one, so I am mixing it up here.  And I am packing up my blue and yellow fabrics to cut during a guild retreat soon.

Which lead me back to looking at my fabrics, and knowing I don’t didn’t have a back for my ribbons and bows quilt, my mind started thinking and planning … which is a scary good thing.

I originally saw a good size of a plain black on black fabric when I was making my Make it Sew project.

Shucks, it was too small … leaving me to put aside.

Today I saw the burgundy fabric for the bed quilt and thought about piecing the back of my bows and fans quilt.

I didn’t take many any pictures, because I started going and thinking.  I had just purchased a fat quarter of a Japanese style fabric last month, so let’s put the back together with scraps of black and color!

But let’s also slice it on one side and reverse the color!  Yeah cool!

The front is so symmetrical, the back didn’t want to be symmetrical too.

Here are the front and back together.

Anyway, I really like this back.  I tend to really like following my hunches.

But because I stole some batting from this quilt for the small kitchen wallhangings, I am slightly short of batting again.  Time to go back to get a little bit more!

I have a lot of projects to take on retreat with me.  Gathering supplies today, it’ll come before I know it!

9.6 Red What is that thing?

I am not planning on doing this all the time, but when I saw two of my blog followers do the foto finish last week and I saw that this week is red, I immediately had an idea for what to fotograph for it.

I love the shadows and texture of this object although I haven’t actually ‘used it’ for it’s purpose.

The blog Cat Patches Foto Finish says something about only having one picture, but this fotographed so unusually, I wanted to share two, although the first is my ‘official entry’.

I DO know what it is, but do you?

I had fun looking at an ordinary object in unordinary ways.

5.3 Slow quilting on National Quilting Day

I know I am a slow quilter.  I had a majority of the top of the fans done at the end of my day on Thursday.

When I took all day to do this and three out of four of them are not sewn down to the background, it makes me really notice how much I get distracted by bad tv shows and good movies playing in the background.

And here is the original photo that I took with poor lighting.

I just uploaded into flicker, edited photo with picnik, hit auto exposure button on Edit tab, then saved the picture.  Makes a world of difference!

Here is an upclose picture of the fan with the bias bar detail.  Only made 28 bias bars, each with Steam a Seam fusible web, that I used for the first time.  It is also my first machine applique project.

Only 3 more fans to sew down and all the bias to sew down.

And for something else:

An image I created with Flame

See you next week or so.