citrus season, a finish

"citrus season" is a finish! 

well, it still needs a few threads buried (there were a whole lot) and a wash, but that'll happen shortly when we get home.

ever since i started this quilt, i've wanted to photograph it with my own mini citrus orchard at home. but here we are with it all finished up and a lovely lemon orchard about 20 minutes from our rental in malibu. i think it worked out nicely.

d5 and i were going inland one last time before we leave and i brought along two quilts to photograph in the beautiful farm settings just down the coast and around the mountains.

we had a lot of wind, which makes shooting so hard. but the spot was nice. i've passed this orchard several times in the last 6 weeks and knew i wanted to bring this quilt here when it was done. the lemons were ripe and the blossoms just starting.

d5 said it smelled like our backyard at home when we got in among the trees. my sniffer isn't as keen as hers, but i did get a whiff of the blossoms periodically and there's no better scent in the world. there were ripe lemons scattered on the ground everywhere, which made cheerful pops of color in person (less visible in the photos). d5 told me to get them in the pictures and i did try.

this quilt is a healthy 60"x72" size, which can be quite hard to hold up, especially for two gals sized 5'5'' and 5'3". add in the wind and shifting sun for a challenge. i think they turned out nicely. 

lemon tree very pretty

and the lemon flower is sweet

but the fruit of the poor lemon

is impossible to eat

well, that's what honey and sugar are for. i love that old peter, paul, and mary song! it goes deep into my childhood. but i never bought into the idea that love was like a lemon. and my grandson loves to eat lemons, so i guess not everyone agrees about the fruit's impossibility, either.

here's a closer look at the echo quilting i did on all the major seams to form an on-point (diamond) grid pattern. i really like the big stitch effect of using thick, chunky auriful 12wt thread on these giant star quilts. it adds a little texture and depth to an otherwise simple quilt.

this quilt rings more orange than lemon, but we took what we could get and i love it.

this was a fun mini adventure for us two. i think d5 is always going to remember our quilt shoots together. she's not always eager or excited, but she does get into it and has some great ideas for me sometimes. 

because of the side of the orchard i parked on, we had to hop this steep dirt ditch to get to the trees. nimble rock climber that she is, d5 had no problems. i was ... less nimble, but i made it. getting back across was harder! oh, the things we do for our quilt photos.

details

size: 60" x 72"

fabrics: kona and moda solids for the top, stash prints for the backing

pattern: stella grande, my design, with piano key border

machine quilting: echo quilting of seams in grid pattern in auriful 12wt, 2021

binding: moda bella solids in clementine

*click links to see details up close

wiltshire rows, a finish

 

when i was a child growing up on the southwestern outskirts of houston, tx, we would pass cotton fields on the way to church. i loved watching the effect of the rows whizzing by as we passed in the car. later, in high school in the nashville, tn, area, the fields were most often tobacco or corn, but the effect was the same. 

since we've been staying in so cal, we see massive fields of all types whenever we go inland up the coast. witlshire rows, one of the quilts i brought here with me to finish, has always made me think of rows of crops, so i knew i wanted to take some finish photos with it in some of these farm fields. i wanted to use the strawberry fields the most, but those have recently been picked.

as i've passed the various fields on my inland shopping excursions, i looked for some with the correct row orientation for my desired shots. most didn't line up with what i wanted - no one consulted me when planting their fields, haha.

this patch of kale has the santa monica mountains behind it and was an acceptable pick. but d5 didn't want to step very far in, which would have looked better. the plants were up to her knees and she didn't want to wade through too many.

the day we shot the photos was the first sunny day in a week, but it was also windy! i always forget to factor that in. we got a lot of body-hugging or crumpled, whipping quilt shots. she was not in the photo shoot mood yet (i sprung it on her) and we moved on quickly. because we had some errands to run beforei had to drop her off at a church activity.

but as i was driving along the dirt road bordering the highway to get back on, i saw this leafy patch of greens and decided to try once more. i thought maybe the shorter plants would be easier to hold the quilt in and the rows would show up more. and it worked!

we've passed these fields a lot and i could never tell what the crop was. not even my farmboy husband recognized it from the road. but as soon as we got out of the car, the intense scent told us exactly what it was - celery!

this is more the type of shot i had been imaging with the rows showing up around the quilt. the mountains in the background are more distant/less visible, but it's pretty good.

there's my little quilt holder.

this field was muddy-ish between the rows and she was not happy with me about this spot at all. thanks, baby! you did a great job and your shoes are fine. promise.

i took a turn holding the quilt at the edge of the celery with the mountains in the background, but the wind was too whippy at this point. i like this detail crop where you can see the backside of the quilt at the corner.

whiltshire rows is not my favorite liberty + chambray quilt make. the colorways for this one didn't blend as well as my other quilts from the series. there is one print in particular that i really don't like at all with the rest of them and wish i hadn't put it in. oh, well. i'm actually quite pleased with how nice it looks here in the fields, among the rows. it's making me feel better about the finished product.

d3 likes it and is so happy to know it's hers, that she doesn't have to steal it from me now. i put it in her easter basket to gift it to her. we were making-do with beach buckets and bags and things since i didn't bring the easter baskets from home with me. when she found the quilt at the bottom of her "basket" bag, she asked if it was just for filling or if i was giving it to her, haha. yes, babe, it's yours.

details

fabrics: liberty "wiltshire" in various colorways and moda crossweave in "chambray"

backing: liberty "wiltshire" in (d), single piece in navy and pink colorway

pattern: own design, 2.5" strips and squares in alternating row configuration

binding: blue herringbone flannel

quilting: handquilted echo quilting in chambray pieces with auriful 12wt in 2021

*i didn't take any more detail shots to add to this post. if you're interested in seeing the various details, click on the links above for close-ups of the different parts.

signature style and a naughty needle

i've been thinking about handquilting signatures/styles. everyone who handquilts seems to have their own unique stitch style, much like a handwriting style. i find this fascinating and intriguing. why do we all differ so much? 

i'm trying to get this liberty courthouse steps quilt's handquilting completed before i go home later this week so i can have it ready for binding. so, i've been spending time pushing and pulling the needle and thread a lot. i took a few photos along the way and even made a short video i posted to instagram demonstrating how my stitching goes. i've learned from other quilters when they share their method and i like watching them do their stitch thing, so i shared mine. 

one of my favorite parts of handquilting is when i'm burying the thread and it goes "pop!" as it snaps through the fabric, as it's about to do above. i find that so satisfying. when a fabric doesn't pop, i'm always unsure if it's worked and have to double check myself. so the pop isn't all visceral pleasure, it also tells me something.

a closeup of my stitching as it appears on tana lawn. the white thread blends a little more here than on the chambray where it really stands out. you can faintly see the hera marker line i score into the fabric to mark my stitching path.

my stitches are pretty small and fairly close together. i've seen other quilters who use these marvelous big stitches with big spaces in between and wonder how they got them that way. joz is a great example of big stitches. here are a few facts about my stitching that likely affect the appearance:

• i don't use a hoop or frame
• i use thin, short needles with a small eye, typically the tulip quilting betweens in the orange box
• i use aurifil 12wt thread
• so far, i only quilt straight lines
• i quilt away from myself, as opposed to left or right
• i tend to rock my needle up and down as i move it through the quilt sandwich
• i rarely use a thimble
• my left hand goes under the quilt and grips it from beneath while i quilt with my right hand
• i pin baste quilts i'm going to handquilt
• i use "warm and natural"100% cotton batting (which i buy on the bolt)

this theo piece is the one i filmed myself stitching. i'm not high tech at all, i just had my daughter stand behind me and hold my phone between my face and my hands to record while i was stitching. admittedly, it was a little awkward! and it affected my stitching slightly. the stitches are a bit further apart than usual. but i did pretty well considering having that thing in my face.

when i started having trouble threading the needle (after a while fluff begins to catch in the eye), i decided it was time to change it out. i grabbed a new bohin quilting needle i recently purchased in a bundle with a new needle threader. i loved how tiny it was. 

but when i tried threading it with the threader, i could not get that thread through! i had replaced my former pretty threaders (also here) with a new plastic red one, which seemed like it would be a little more sturdy than the tin ones that eventually break. 

well, the threader didn't break but the needle bent terribly! i was shocked. i've only ever had machine needles do anything like this. never a hand needle.

 i decided to tug one more time and the darn thing snapped!

i safely disposed of it in the kitchen garbage and searched out another tulip needle. back to business with my trusty standards.

wish me luck getting my stitching done before i leave.

citrus and overcast

sometimes i glance at my notions and supplies and think, "what a lovely still life." ordinary, everyday objects can have beauty to them to, whether it's their form or colors, or what they represent. this small gathering of bits to aid my binding and thread burying makes me smile.

so does the back of this quilt. at the moment, i'm in a prints mood, so as much as i like the front, it's the back i prefer and have been reveling in. i fully plan to make some sort of companion quilt for "citrus season" out of the prints i used for the backing. a stella grande with the star from the prints and the solids on the back? i think something more intricate where the fabrics mix more is where i'm headed.

i have a few more companion quilts (here and here)for other projects already in the works that i need to finish, but i'm certainly thinking about where to go with these fabrics.

overcast today, not as sunny as photo looks

once i got going on this binding, i made myself stick to it. yes, there were a few internet breaks, but not too many. i put my current audible listen on - mel robbin's let them (it's thought-provoking, interesting, and entertaining), which helped me stay at the task to the end.

i am low-key regretting my thread choice for this binding. i sew almost exclusively with neutral threads. it simplifies my quilt life a lot. matching threads are great and all, but they take more time and more supplies when using this technique. quite often i piece in white no matter what colors i'm putting together. i rarely find it shows or shows enough to be an issue. however, i so think this is a time when i 

might have some pesky, less-than-perfect stitches showing in the binding on occasion. i did look through my threads for one that might be a better fit with the deep orange binding or at least the backing colors. i had nothing so just went with the standard white i had on hand, aurifil 2021. oh, well. it's probably nothing a good wash and some crinkly won't hide.

i finally got it done! i have an idea where to shoot the finish photos and then i'll share the full finish (even though you've basically seen it all by now; this one is well documented lately).

blogging side note - i've been researching software and such. shannon fraser mentioned she uses prequilt for making quilt mockups (and she has a discount code). that's intriguing, but i'm more a sketchbook pen-and-paper planner, still. but i made a mental note if it's something i could use later.

 i got a little smart and asked my IG friend jennifer of penelope handmade what programs she used to make her graphics for her cutting and piecing instructions in her blog tutorials. she said she uses adobe illustrator (for mockups) or indesign (for graphics). i'll have to look into both of those.

when i was chatting with her and i typed out the word "graphics" i suddenly had a flashback to all the school projects i edited for d2 when she was working on her degree in technical writing, minor in graphic design. holy cow, i felt like smacking my forehead. she's the exact person i should be talking to for all this stuff! too bad she's at language school in tokyo at the moment or i'd put her to work. she could polish this site up in no time and do a number on my jumbled tutorials and patterns i've written for this blog. she literally majored in how to clearly and concisely convey instructional information. maybe we'll start a little pattern design business together someday where i do the designs and she makes them readable and presentable. (i'm only dreaming, of course.)

disaster averted

i sat down to work on handbinding "citrus season" this morning and got a nasty shock - there was no needle on my thread. clearly, the thread had snapped and the needle fallen off. uh, oh. big uh, oh!

i quickly thought back over when i last knew the needle was there and where it might have gone. when i was last stitching on it in the car, i had some thread problems and for a second i thought maybe it had broken again as i was finishing up and i'd simply put the needle away. but, no, that wasn't it. so where could the needle be? where should i look?

thinking back, i remembered that when we got home in the evening, i spread the quilt out in an open space in my bedroom to get a look at how much binding was complete. i attempted this a couple of times because my girls (18 & 13) were in a silly sister mood and were bumbling all over my small bedroom, shrieking with laughter, as i tried to spread the quilt out. then i'd folded it up and put it away.

i have a habit of always tucking the needle into the binding or wherever i'm stitching so it doesn't get lost. usually with the binding i also cover it up with a few binding clips so it stays put and so the sharp end is covered, to avoid getting poked. obviously, i hadn't covered it with the clips. as for tucking it in, either i failed to do that this time or it came loose when i was flapping the quilt around and the girls were banging in to me. (in future, i will always cover with clips.)

well, i was in a right panic to know where that needle had gone! i could think of all kinds of bad scenarios with one of us sitting or stepping on it, embedding it fully and deeply in a body part. i had flashbacks to my childhood when my mom would lose her sewing needles or pins in our deep shag carpet all.the.time and we'd end up with one in our foot. (the story of my baby sister getting a needle in her shoe - yikes!) this is one reason i'm always extra cautious with my pins and needles. in 15 years, i've never lost one like this before. my husband always seems to be the one who picks up any missed sharp objects in his feet (like broken glass), so i was especially worried about him. 

i went to the bedroom to begin the search where i'd stored the folded quilt, then got down on my hands and knees and began sweeping the carpet with my hands and eyes for the needle. fortunately, i found it rather quickly without even poking myself. i was sooooo relieved! i was already on my knees and, i kid you not, i just sat there and prayed out loud in gratitude for finding that needle.

this could have been a quilting horror story - blood, a trip to the doctors, who knows what. but thanks to a benevolent providence, i guess it's just a home ec moment and a reason to make the PSA to all of us to remember to securely tuck in your needles when you're not stitching.

needle found (thank you, Lord!), i got on with my handbinding work. my husband happened to be surfing out in front of our house, so i got a show with my view. see those two specks out in the water? that's him and another fellow trying to catch waves. i know heather ross's malibu fabrics have cute kids in swimsuits surfing, but the only surfers i've seen here yet are adults in full black wetsuits. that water is cold! 

we've had another spell of cold-ish days and overcast skies. i'm ready for a little sun again. on the cold days it's hard to get myself out of my cozy clothes and into something else. i'm starting to look like an old sea salt.

speaking of "citrus season," i've recently discovered a new citrus love. having a small orchard of my own citrus at home, i hardly ever buy citrus. but i kept seeing these weird, wrinkly, knobby sumo citrus at the grocery store. i finally broke down and bought some. they're originally from japan, but these are grown here. 

they're amazing! easy to peel, nice size, sweet, and delicious. i haven't had a bad one yet and i'm eating them every day now. 

tangled threads

i've been living the slow stitch life, working away at the binding on "citrus season," but none too quickly. it could have been done in a day or two, if i hadn't kept taking internet breaks to tool around quilt blogs (still gathering info there) and check in on instagram.

last night we were heading into LA and i knew with the traffic we'd be in the car well over an hour, maybe two. since i wasn't driving, i brought along my handwork. i ran into some snags right off the bat! 

somehow, when i made my securing knot at the end, everything got tangled up. i worked on it for a minute, but i still had a little tiny knot in one side of the thread once i got the major tangles teased out. it seemed like it was tiny enough that it wouldn't hold me back. i didn't want to waste the thread or start over with the whole threading the needle and securing process, so i proceeded to try using the thread as is.

mistake.

i barely got it secured to the quilt before more problems arose involving worse tangles and i had to just scrap the whole thing anyway. when am i gonna learn an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure? just fix problems up front when they occur. that would have saved me time if it didn't save me thread.

a stitch in time saves nine.

or a fix in time saves nine (minutes)?

 

palm trees and red lights, bumper-to-bumper

LA traffic is no joke! any time we have to go anywhere inland we are in for a slow crawl. doesn't matter the time of day. this trip wasn't too bad, actually. it wasn't always stop-and-go and there were occasionally spaces between cars. it was still over an hour, so i had plenty of time for more stitching despite losing some with the snarled, snagged threads.

further down the road, as i was tying off my thread length, i didn't leave enough room for myself. silly me. i always try to eek out as much of the thread as i can and sometimes that comes back to bite me. my thread snapped as i was trying to tie it off. i was then left with two little tails that needed to be tied together, which is not the most secure way to do things. and it was so fiddly! took me a couple of minutes of licking threads, squinting, and trying to get them to knot together.

traffic was looking better on our side than across the barricade by then. anytime we go anywhere, i usually add 30 minutes to the estimated travel time to give myself wiggle room. this time we didn't have any spare time(because traffic was bad when my husband returned home from surfing to get me). however, the maps app estimated our arrival time pretty accurately this trip, which was really lucky.

we made it on time and had a lovely evening with the two girls at the los angeles temple, followed by persian food for dinner.

i got maybe another quarter of the stitching done on the road. should be able to finish it up soon.

side note: here's another thought i've had about my blogging/quilting interface, an idea echoed in a comment juliann made to me about blogging because i quilt vs. quilting because i blog - i'm trying to document my quilt process in this space. to me, that means i capture and share small moments like this to talk about. taking photos to share along the way that i wouldn't take just for myself personally is different to me than making things for content. i saw this thread situation that occurred organically as a chance to share one of the small things that goes into quilting, to show that it's not all smooth sailing, that i make mistakes and have troubles, too. then i found myself taking photos of tangled or broken threads and traffic. this has to do with wanting to examine and share part of the process rather than focus solely on the finished project. (if you're a professional who needs to make for content, that's fine! i'm talking about my goals as a hobbyist who doens't want to get too lost in this space.)

thanks to those of you who have engaged the blog talk with me. it's nice to know i'm not alone in my musings.

blogging because i quilt

 we've had a busy time since easter when our college kids came to visit/stay, followed by surgery for our son, followed by our oldest daughter and her children coming for a visit. they left yesterday and i was ready for a quiet day at home with nothing but the waves and some stitching.

i've been handbinding "citrus season" (about 1/4 done) and want to complete it before i make a trip home next week. but when i got it out, my seester called and we talked for over an hour. then i started reading quilt stuff online and haven't touched the quilt. and i'm feeling okay with that.

i'm in an unusual space for blogging at the moment. i'm a hobby quilter who likes recording my quilt happenings on this blog. i'm not an industry person or professional. but i'd like to spiff the space up, give it a new look simply because i want my space refreshed. however, all the stuff i'm finding for bloggers is geared toward the professionals, toward monetizing and seo (search engine optimization - directing traffic to you), none of which is what i'm looking for.

i have some threads to bury

back in the day, there were lots of hobby quilters blogging and we shared a lot about not just quilting but about blogging, too. i took a class from elsie larson at a beautiful mess on blog design, which taught me a lot about how to customize my blog by adding fonts and creating certain types of photo for banners, buttons, and links. but that was 12 years ago! all the tech is outdated. i don't remember how i did any of that stuff anyway. i think i used adobe photoshop elements to create my banner, but i'm just not sure. ugh. and i don't know who's sharing that kind of info these days. if i figure anything out, i'll let y'all know.

something else i've been thinking about as i pursue blogging a bit more - i am more aware lately of the difference between blogging because i quilt and quilting because i blog. i don't want to fall into the trap of quilting because i need/want to create content for the blog. this space should be authentically about what's happening in my quilt life and not dictating it. that's always been the balancing act as a quilt blogger.

blog nostalgia

uncharacteristically, i did not bring books along for reading for our beach stay. so for the times i want to read a little rather than stitch and listen, i have started rereading old blog posts. i've begun with jolene klassen's blue elephant stitches blog, going back to the very beginning of the archives. it's been really fun and full of nostalgia for the golden age of blogging in the early 2010's.

my quilting has always been connected to social media. when i first began quilt blogging in 2011, i had been quilting for about 4 months and was already keeping a private family blog. when the fabric and sewing projects started taking over the family blog, i knew it was time to start a quilt blog. so i don't know quilting without the interactive online element. for a few years it was blogging. i loved those blogging days! the blogging about my sewing and interacting with other quilters online were just as much a part of the fun as the quilting itself was. when most of my friends stopped blogging and moved on to instagram, i reluctantly added that platform to the mix, believing i would mostly continue blogging. but the convenience and quickness of instagram won out over time. in reverse order there i had to break off a family personal account (and then a cooking account) to keep my page topic streamlined and so my family could see family posts without all the sewing mixed in.

over the past year or so, i've returned to blogging more and more. there are still some blogs going! jolene is one of the few bigger blogs i once followed that's still active. i'm slowly finding a new collection of small blogs, too, that are still at it. i periodically visit the blogs of commenters to see what others are up to, but i'm not a regular blog reader. i don't put nearly the time into it i once did. it seems to me those of us blogging now are of a certain age and stage in life. it's not the young moms or those in the busy middle stage, it's those of us with older kids or empty nests who have more time for blogging.

to supplement my musings, i'll include photos of the two quilts i purchased from jolene. this first one is a nine patch and snowball star quilt.

in the past year, jolene has published two quilt books, which i also brought with me to read, but while perusing them,i had the urge to look at her old posts, too. i've gotten over a 3rd the way through so far. when i finish with BES, i think i'll go reread some of the other old blogs i loved back in the day. sadly, many of them have been taken down and aren't even available any more. plenty of them have been inactive for years but some, at least, are still there.

a word about this quilt (that i think of as a rainbow star quilt rather than a snowball quilt) - why would a quilter buy someone else's quilt? well, for one thing, i love jolene's work. it's very special to me to have one of her quilts. the reason i bought this one in particular is kinda funny. in nov 2023 i was looking around the family room and realized i didn't have but one or two quilts out. i like to rotate the quilts seasonally with my throw pillows and turns out once i put the fall quilts away, i didn't have any winter-y ones to put out. we were in a very busy family life season so i decided to buy a winter quilt or two. i was disappointed to find that everyone had pretty much sold off their chritamas quilts already. this one seemed neutral enough to stay out in any season, so i bought it. jolene made this quilt at the same time she made a lot of the quilts in her first book and i love seeing many of the same vintage fabrics she used in the book quilts in this quilt.

 

so this was going to be more about jolene's blog and my thoughts on blogging, but i feel like i have to talk about these quilts, too. in a minute!

one thing i have really enjoyed about rereading jolene's old posts is seeing how her style has evolved and changed a little. she's a fabric nerd as much as i am, so she talks about the individual prints and new-at-the-time fabric lines. it's so fun to hear them mentioned again and remember the excitement of when i knew what was coming out and waited anxiously for all the releases. that frenzy also spurred on a whole lot of over-purchasing, which i'm glad has slowed down for me. 

reading her thoughts on the current state of the blogging world (at the time) is interesting, too. it reflects a lot of what i was feeling - the wanting to be involved a lot and to keep up with all the exciting new ideas and developments, but needing to tend to a family and real life as well. admittedly, it was a lot. jolene unintentionally teases the reader by saying she's been thinking a whole lot about things she'd like to say but she's either lost interest, doesn't have the time, or doesn't feel like she can express the ideas adequately. i'm always like, "no! you do a much better job than you think expressing your ideas and they are so relatable. please! tell me what you were going to say!" haha. reading her posts has also clarified for me the topics and types of posts i like to read.

one idea jolene expresses a few times is that she doesn't love every single quilt she makes. she says she probably loves one out of ten, likes the rest well enough, and doesn't like one on occasion. i found this so refreshing! jolene sells most of her quilts, which i've never done, but it's interesting to hear her feelings about how some of her ideas and experiments work out or don't, and that's okay. we don't have to be in love with every single quilt we make.

personally, i think that even if i don't love each of my makes, it's highly likely that someone else in my family will or someone down the line will.

 

here's a quilt i do really love. i bought this kaleidoscope quilt from jolene in 2019. it was a birthday present to myself. i'd had my eyes on her quilts for a while with the intention of purchasing one when this came up. i really admire kaleidoscope quilts a lot but have felt they are still a bit out of my skill set, so i loved the pattern of this. i also really liked the colors and many of the fabrics in this one. the thing that sealed the deal and made this a must-have quilt was the back.

jolene used this vintage holly hobbie sheet for the backing. the reason this sold me on the quilt is that i had these exact same sheets as a little girl. mine disappeared long ago, but here was the identical one on a pretty quilt. i snatched it right up. it feels like having a piece of my childhood again. priceless.

so that's some jumbled thoughts on blogging and me fan-girling on jolene's great quilts, books, and blog. when i've gotten all the way through the BES archives, i think i'll go reread rachel's stitched in color and maybe rita's red pepper quilts. the other blog i regularly reread? my own! not all of it all the time, but some of it periodically. that's true blog nostaglia.

anyone have any favorite old blogs they still love? or wish were still going?

outtakes of the lake

there is a hillside across the road from our beach house that has yellow blooms coming out (see below). i've admired it at as the lowering sun lights it up every evening before sunset. because of the red hill and yellow flowers, i thought it would make a nice setting for a finish photo for "fall paint lake." one evening, i got my husband to go out and shoot some pictures with me.

this was the setting i had in mind:

i wanted to stand there somewhere near the bush, holding the quilt up.

i ran across the road and stood where i was thinking and my husband took a shot or two. then he said i needed to move further north (left) because the light wasn't really on my spot anymore. the problem with that is there's a lot of road objects just to the left of where i was standing.

he said, "just climb up on that concrete barrier so you can catch the light." it was a little narrow, but i managed to stand on it, and he started shooting.

when i came down, he said, "i got the barricade and everything in the shot." that's when i realized he hasn't assisted me with quilt shoots before, hasn't really seen "quilts in the wild" pictures, and wasn't thinking anywhere along the same lines as i was when it came to the photos.

the few closer looking shots in this series are photos i cropped in on after he took them.

while i was standing on top of the pylon, i was playfully wobbling around, balancing on one foot, and he took a picture. ironically, this is the one photo he zoomed further in on and you can't even see i'm balancing on a ledge 3 feet off the ground, haha. 

it's ok. we tried.

we lost the light at this point and decided to try again another day. maybe. we'll see if we do or not. there always seems to be something going on at that time of day, usually dinner.

so these may or may not end up being my finish shots for "fall paint lake."

this quilt has a lot of cute novelty prints in it. i used a lot more heather ross than i have previously used in non-scrap quilts. it also has that orange-ish red strawberry print and the golden dylan m animal print. if it didn't have these touches, i'd probably rename it something to do with our beach house living. 

the binding is a cadet blue print from the top. it has strings of lights on it that read as random dots on the binding. i'm happy with it.

the backing is two large pieces: a cute grey check from "orchard" by april rosenthal for moda and the luna moth print from heather ross's 20th anniversary collection for windham fabrics. the grey is a great low-volume neutral i use a lot. the luna moths are just pretty and fun. i've used them a few places, as well. i'm not much of a purple fan, but this is a pretty print.

i was able to work both selvages into the backing, one of my personal favorite touches. i got to thinking the other day that for non-fabric nerds this might seem strange. people who aren't into quilting designers and fabrics might wonder why i didn't cut that part off, why i left all the print in. but i love it. i am a big fabric nerd and i do like having the lovely selvages sewn into the quilt so i can forever see them moving forward.

i'm guessing this is the finish post for this quilt. it's not likely we'll get around to shooting it again. it actually makes for a fun story even if it didn't turn out the way i wanted. he'll be a better trained quilt husband next time.