Right place at the right time...

Right place at the right time.

My visits to my family in Colorado are usually done in the summer months because there are no school events and schedules to work around.

This past Christmas I realized that it had been several years (maybe 14 years) that I hadn't been home for the holidays. My Heartbeat must have recognized the longing in me eyes and he made it happen!

...We baked...  on Christmas Eve....

 
...A lot of treats!!

We also visited with my mom and dad. My Sweetling shared photos of the summer trip she and my Heartbeat took to Europe.  My Dad, diagnosed with alzheimer's several years ago, listened attentively for over an hour, until the very last picture.  

If our whole Colorado trip consisted of just that single afternoon, it would have been worth it. 

Sharing memories and making memories with my parents ❤️.

Christmas Day was hosted by my nephew and his fiance.  It was a perfect Christmas gathering with lots of good food, good company and lots of love!

Abuelita (my mom) almost got her fill of Meadow (my grand niece) cuddles. 

front to back, my daughter, my son, one of my nephews

and no holds barred  in the White Elephant gift game. 

even Grandpo (my dad) was stealing the gift of kitchen utensils that he very much wanted.

Oh, and to top it off, a Bronco's game! Which reminds me, I gave my grandnephew (he's in the blue sweater in the baking pictures above) a Bronco quilt with a fleece backing.  I was very pleased when he joyfully hugged it to himself when he saw it. There's nothing more honest than a child's expression. ❤️

In the days that followed Christmas we looked through boxes of photos.

this is me, now and then! 😄

And my mom and dad when they first met in the early '50's I believe.

 

..... So, why am I taking about Christmas in April?

One day during that visit I was helping prepare a meal with my brother Jaime.  I was telling him all about the quilt guild I've joined.  And how as soon as I got home I was going to have to get busy making a quilt for a guild challenge.

He teasingly said, "make it an oversized queen and you can give it to me when you're done with it!"

Honestly, it sounded like a good idea to me, so I agreed that would be the plan.  

Until I got home and found out that there was a size limit. For the challenge the quilt couldn't be any bigger than a 160" perimeter..... A 40" square is NOT going to make an oversized queen quilt!!

I know I could back out of making the bigger quilt. But now I love the story 🤣. I made "Ostentatious" for the challenge. And Jaime's black and white plus one color became a project to work on during downtime at the Mountain quiltfest retreat.

I decided the easiest way to go about it would be as a Disappearing 9-patch. There are plenty of tutorials already for "disappearing 9-patch", so I'm not going to write another. I am merely documenting my steps for my own benefit and future use.

Black and White fabric cut 6.5"square

White fabric cut 6.5" x 5" rectangle

Turquoise cut 5" square (to give 2" finished in the final block.)

making that cut was scary! Lol.

 

The giant block became 4 smaller blocks.

Rearrange the smaller blocks using the turquoise as corner stones.

I had to use my bed for a design board.

11 x 13 grid.

The bed was too small, I had to majorly overlap to get it all to fit. 

I finally settled in this placement. With something like 150 blocks and 13 different prints, you'd think it would be easy to lay it out without same fabrics touching... But it wasn't... I finally came to a point where I just had say "enough! Time to sew!"

 There was only enough time to sew three rows together at Pigeon Forge. I numbered the rows, stacked them up and brought them home.

At home, sewing the rows was easily done in a day.  But as I started attaching one row to the next, I was stopped dead in my tracks over two things.

  1.  I don't have a quilting plan.

2.  I have to make a decision - border or no border.... 

Answers are not appearing.

I just don't know!! What I do know is that I'm going to need practice, otherwise I will be picking out a lot of quilting until it's perfect (enough to satisfy me)

So.....

I made a "mock" quilt to practice on.  It will be a 40" x 50" finished baby girl quilt.

I couldn't resist piecing the back.

It's sandwiched and ready to quilt!

I am very new to this free-motion quilting thing. The long-arming and free-motion video tutorials make it look so easy to fill in a space with "whatever you feel like!"

When I watch, I'm thinking, "ok! I can do that! K, now tell me what I feel like!" 😂

I have a few books with quilting motifs in them... Nothing fits or seems to be "what I feel like." 

I couldn't sleep one night. So I tried sketching out some ideas. **Warning! The following images are not pretty!! If you have a sensitivity to awkward and ungraceful, I shut your eyes now and exit this blog update! You can not unsee once the damage is done. I'm sorry.

 

Just a few attempts to fill in a 6" square. I suppose they are not horrible as ideas, but they just aren't going to work for the black and white quilt.

Of course, I scoured Pinterest looking for the perfect stitching pattern. One pin sent me to the blog Sampaguita Quilts and I finally found the inspiration I needed!!

(I was running out of sketch paper and I already used the back. Don't mind the text 😋)

What I like... There's no direction on this motif. So it won't make the quilt have an obvious top or bottom. It's a continuous line and I can start stitching in any spot I desire.

It has an all over look, but I can contain it in the 6" square. And the best part... It's very much free motion, I can stretch a leaf here or a petal there, add one, minus one... Whatever!! and it won't look wrong 😁.

Now, hopefully I can get it to translate well into the quilts.... I'll keep you updated!!

I tell you, this has been quite the learning experience!! I'm determined to complete these quilts.  My brother sure is lucky to have been there in the right place at the right time!!!