introducing easy addition

I can't remember just how long ago it was, but I saw this quilt...probably via Pinterest...and fell in love.

Then, about a year ago, I was planning to go to a quilt retreat and needed projects, so I went on a search to find some quilts that I could cut out and easily sew at said retreat.  This one started screaming at me.

And so I raided my stash, thinking I wouldn't have much in the approximate colors this gal used - the reason it was screaming at me.

Boy was I surprised to find ALL of this in my stash!

The dark blue for the background wasn't much of a presence, but I remedied that pretty easily with some retail therapy...though it seems I have no photographic proof.

This was Project Number One at retreat.  I was so excited.  These fabrics all look amazing together, but never would have I thought to put them together myself.

After just one partial day of sewing (driving took a few hours and then you gotta unload and unpack everything), I had quite a few blocks!

They look a little matchy-matchy here, but as I made block "kits" at home, I was going through fabrics in a more organized way.  And then I just sewed them in the order they were in the stack.  It gets better eventually, I promise!

Day two saw a LOT more sewing...

And I had all the blocks completed!

Due to lack of design wall space and my brain needing to focus better on getting a good final layout for these, I packed them up and moved on to the next projects.  (If you want a full recap, this blog post from late February 2022 is where to go.)

Anyways, when I got home, I eventually got to the layout.  I don't know when exactly because when I got a new computer and transferred all my photos, they redated themselves to ALL be January 6th.  Very helpful computer.  Very.  (At least it let me have my photos from the old computer, so, you know, little victories.)

This took a while because I was trying SO hard to not have any of the same fabrics touching.  I thought I had it taken care of, but as I was sewing and longarming, I found a few mistakes.  Well, not mistakes truly, but there were a few touchy-touchy matchy-matchy parts.  It doesn't matter.  And if it matters to you, I suggest you don't try to use quilts at my house.

And then I sewed them all together.

Based on the amount of green I see here in this photo, it must have taken me a few months to get to the top construction.  We don't have that much plant life in February up here where I live.

And then, in late December (recent enough that I remember doing this and don't have to rely on technology to have dates saved!), I got it on the longarm.  Quick on the heels of getting the baby quilt done, I thought it best to try to keep up the momentum.

(Also, I knew some of my quilty friends were planning to attend a short-day sew-in and wanted something easy to transport to take with me.  Hand-binding is a good option.)

It went fairly well.  The longarm and I had a few arguments, but I was persistent.  I used the same woodgrain-like motif as the baby quilt, using seams on the quilt to decide where to make the registration-like initial wavy lines.  I would probably do it smaller next time, but this pattern was giving me difficulty to decide how large it was going to end up.

I was pushing myself, wanting to be done before lunch.  And things were going okay...for a late-ish lunch...and then I got to the last roll...

Are you kidding me?

It is literally enough to finish the quilt, but not to hold it onto the leader AND quilt it.

So I took a lunch break and pouted a little.

Then I sewed on some extra fabric (that I removed from the top of the quilt because I loaded it - obviously - a bit too generously up there), reloaded and finished.

Thankfully, the longarm behaved nicely for this last section.  I guess it felt bad for me?  Or maybe it was happy to have a lunch break?

This was one of the few quilts waiting that did not have binding made ahead.  More often than not, I make the binding when I'm making the top - it forces me to set aside the fabric for the binding so it matches at the end and allows me to make sure I don't have a crisis of not matching binding whenever I get to longarming it.  But this one, being super scrappy, I wasn't sure what I'd do for binding.

Thankfully the stash provided a nice chunk of one of the blues that was in the quilt and I used that.

Cut, sewed, ironed, sewed onto the quilt and set aside for the sew-in.

I finished the binding at the sew-in last Monday, but since that happened AFTER my last blog post, you got to wait until now to see the finish!

It has been sunny and not terribly cold here (considering it is January...still cold, though), so yesterday I ran out for a photo.  (And you can see here the dead grass and leaves surrounding the quilt - taken on the same clothesline as the top photo above - for reference to the approximate time of year.)

You can see the quilting a bit where the sun was shining between the large tree trunks and branches.  (No leaves this time of year, but that's okay, too...it lets the sunlight come in windows better when we really want it.)

And a quick flipped up photo so you can see my back really well...

I was shopping for something else at my local quilt shop and came across this in the sale room and bought it.  No hesitation whatsoever.  This was THE fabric for the back of this quilt.  I love it!

I love the whole quilt.

Stats:

Pattern: Easy Addition by Brenda M. Ratliff

Size: 72x72" (I'm pretty sure)

Pieced and quilted by me!

It is currently on the couch and will probably stay there for a bit.

With this binding done at the sew-in, I continued on to quilt #2.  (Remember I took three in an overly ambitious craze...)  I got about one side of that done, but everyone started packing up fairly early, so I might have gotten more done if we'd stayed later.  That's okay.  I had a ton of fun chatting and getting lunch at my favorite local deli.

Yesterday I picked it up again.  (Between work and cat hammocks, I haven't done much quilting lately.)

Toby jumped right in to help...

Such a cute sleepy boy.  He was a little irritated when I had to move the whole thing eventually, but he settled back in pretty soon after.  (Here he looks so sweet, but he is still a bitey, rowdy turd.  That I love more than anything.)

This quilt isn't quite finished binding.  I had to go to a work Christmas party (yes, late, but having a holiday party at the holidays when you work retail is a bit difficult), so it will wait for another day.  Soon probably.  I'd like to get these done and into the rotation...or at least off the list...sooner rather than later.

Toby has also been super snuggly at random lately.  I think it's the cooler weather.  One day last week he claimed my lap and crashed out.  But Finn also wanted to be in my lap and Finn has no personal boundaries.  So he helped himself.

Toby gave him the side-eye.  Finn was happy to have extra warms, so he settled right in.  He can ignore dirty looks.  Whatever.

And so Toby looked at me like this.  You can just see the question on his face.

They stayed this way for a bit, but then Finn, in true derpy cat fashion, saw something move and was off to check that out.  Toby stayed quite a bit longer.

And that is my week.  Plus work.  Plus cat hammocks.  And all the other stuff you do when you're an adult but no one wants to really know about how many times you scooped the litterbox or how many bags of groceries you bought this week, so I'll skip that nonsense.  If you want, you can imagine it.  But probably you have better things to do.

Happy quilting!

Katie

Oh, wait.  The Storygraph app is so awesome, I'm reading faster than I might otherwise because they gave me this pie chart and I want to change it.  Nothing wrong with it, just fun to manipulate data.

Yep, I'm a nerd.