Bramble Blooms II Background

I've been working on the second in a series Bramble Blooms quilt (BBII), beginning with the background. The first prompt is to make a different style centerpiece, focusing on a pieced look rather than applique, and to choose one of the pieced elements of our first Bramble Blooms quilt (BBI). The suggestion was corner blocks from the first quilt's border.

Unfortunately, I only have one of those left (and some other random bits) due to the fact that I created them from a vintage skirt and all those particular bits have been used up. But the idea in making them was to string-piece them from the skirt, so I borrowed that idea and began string-piecing my centerpiece.

I did use a one-inch strip of red fabric from the skirt as the center string in each 6.5-inch string-pieced block. The rest of the strings were scavenged from light value scraps in the stash. Pieced on phone book pages, per my usual M.O. I ended up with this. I'd have liked to maybe have it one row longer (hence rectangular vs. square), but that seemed to throw off the overall design. So this is what it is, and I'm okay with it for now.

I could perhaps add a top and bottom border to push it toward rectangular. I have a couple of random pieces left from BBII that I tossed up on the design wall to better visualize the possibility (not pictured). But I think I'll wait and see what the next prompt brings, in case there may be a different/better use for those remaining pieces. I can decide then.

Are you working on a second Bramble Blooms quilt?  

~Paulette

Thought I Might be Done

But wait, there's more.

I'm talking about my Bramble Blooms quilt, although you may have thought I meant something else, such as the status of my blogging these days (to be honest, I’ve wondered that as well).

After a couple-month hiatus, I have been working on the Bramble Blooms quilt once again.  I had put it aside in the beginning of the year while I did other things.  Among them, scanning some very old photographs, which led to an interesting connection on Ancestry and a happy little genealogical bunny trail.  Then moved on to giving the upstairs bathroom a facelift (fresh paint, new lighting, fixtures, mirror, and decor).  My talented and creative sister-in-law helped immensely with the bathroom redo.  It's always fun to work with her. 

Anyway, here was my Bramble Blooms quilt as of last November.  You may recall I had deconstructed a vintage Seminole skirt to use in the poppies.  The red fabric's faded streaks, due to age and a soaking gone wrong, became features of the petals.

While I waited for the next clue in the QAL, I continued to deconstruct the skirt, removing more rick-rack and cutting out the strips that weren't too badly stained.  You can see those here on the back of the chair.  The ones on the seat went into the discard pile.

The rest I sewed back together in a different striped configuration and then sub-cut those into squares, which then became colorful pinwheels.

Audrey's next clue mentioned borders with more applique and X-blocks in the corners.  I decided to use my pinwheel blocks for the corners.  Close enough to an X, with a little imagination.

Here I was playing with border ideas.  I wanted to use the blue and yellow piece of Seminole patchwork from the skirt, so that's what you see hanging on the design wall, along with some other bits I pulled out of my stash to pick up on that blue color.  Kind of wildly geometric, but I liked where it seemed to be going.

(Trimming frayed threads from the vintage piecing; damage control after soak/wash)

As far as more applique in the borders, I considered birds or butterflies or more flower or leaf elements, but in the end none of them seemed right.  Meanwhile, while cleaning out a scrap bin, I found some pre-cut circles from a former project, which I threw on the design board as more or less placeholders for applique bits.

The more I thought about it, though, simple circles seemed the way to go.  Perhaps if I cut them from solids in colors that mirrored the colors in the pinwheel corners?  And then, to add a bit more interest and subtle detail to the poppy section, I took some of those gray border fabrics, cut more circles, and randomly popped them, wrong side up, in the central part of the quilt.

Here's how that turned out.  At this point, I thought I might be done!  But then there was another clue for the QAL:  Add 4- or 9- or whatever-number-patches as another border.

Really?!  I wasn't sure I wanted to do that.  I thought about just calling it good and letting that be that.  But I got over myself and eventually put up a few red squares on the design wall and let it marinate for a week or so.  Ultimately, I consulted my resident advisor (aka my husband) for his opinion and he said he liked it and to give it a try.  Okay, I thought, worst case scenario, I could take it off if I didn't like it.

So I went and fished the skirt remnants out of the garbage can (no kidding), and made a bunch of red and white squares from that, as well as from the other darker red stash fabric that I had used in the poppies.

I sewed those into four patches, then end to end for borders—and, what do you know, I liked it!

So this is where my Bramble Blooms quilt is now.  It feels interesting and fun and playful.  I'm happy I utilized more of the skirt; it was such a great piece, despite my attempt to clean it that went a bit sideways.  And I’m glad to have pushed on whenever I stalled or thought it was good enough as is, and that I tried something I was perhaps not initially on board with, trusted the process, yada yada.  

You really can learn a lot from a quilt-along! ;)

~Paulette

 

Bramble Blooms QAL Progress

What better way to sneak back into the blog world than joining the Bramble Blooms quilt along at Quilty Folk?  When Audrey announced this improv quilt along, it seemed like a fun opportunity to learn from one of my favorite quilt artists and an applique maestro!

First, make a scrappy background.  Check.  

Then, because I found some leftovers from a recent project in the odds-and-ends and orphans box, I made a second one.  Options, you know.

A fabric pull was suggested, but I decided to forego that step and just flow wherever the piece takes me.  Yes, the old adage, "Failing to plan is planning to fail" did cross my mind.  I guess we'll see, but playing it loose appeals to me at the moment and opens things up for surprises (for better or worse).

The next step was to applique some flowers on the background.  I wasn't sure what I wanted to do as far as flowers, but inspiration struck one day as I started deconstructing a very old skirt.  

This lively looking, folksy skirt once belonged to an older friend (now passed) of my sister.  I'm thinking it was from the 1960s or so, and handmade.  During a closet clean-out a couple months ago, Sis was going to donate it, but I diverted it from the thrift store (I mean, look at that piecework!).  Unfortunately, in my zeal to soak out some stains in the skirt, a dark strip of navy blue bled quite badly.  Well, there was no rescuing it from that so I started taking it apart to salvage the rickrack for craft projects and with the thought of maybe making some quilted hearts (or something) from some of the piecework that was less impacted by bleeding.

As I cut off the skirt's waistband, I noticed all this interesting fading and color shifting in that area, which reminded me of poppy petals.  Poppies!  Maybe I could applique poppies on my Bramble Blooms project! 

And so I did.  I perused the internet for images that could be translated to fabric poppies.  Ultimately, I settled on a coloring page image for its simplicity of form and then freehand cut some paper templates based on that.

Doesn't that old red fabric lend an interesting dimension?

I hand appliqued the stems and the flower bud, keeping in some of the wrinkles in the fabric of the bud as a nod to the gathered skirt it came from. 

Then I fused and zigzagged the leaves and the flower petals. 

A fun view of the back showing the combination of techniques.

What's next in the QAL is a mystery.  I'm excited!

~Paulette