AT LAST: Pineapple Crazy

Yahoo…It happened.  I did it!  I am THRILLED.  Pineapple Crazy is a done quilt!!

In all of my life I never dreamed I’d be able to do a quilt like this.  NEVER.

When I first started this quilt I was all excited.  Then I finished one block and it took 50 minutes per block if I was hustling along….I lost my momentum.  Then I decided that I actually liked paper piecing after I learned a few things along the way.  I made a list of some of the “how to” blog posts I wrote while making the quilt.  I had lots of questions asked about organization, printing paper and the like.  Here they are for anyone who would like to go back and read them.

How to print papers
How I Organized
Ask Jo Questions
More on Organizing

Wow.  I have blogged about this quilt SO MANY TIMES.  I had to dig to find those posts.

I remember WAY back when I was making Bonnie Hunter’s Crab Apple quilt I was complaining about paper piecing.  Just for reference sake:  That was in 2010 and this was the piece I was paper piecing.  Read about that here.

That tree trunk.  Bahahahaha!!  As the old Virigina Slim Cigerette ad said, “I’ve come a LONG way baby”.  I’m so glad I went on, challenged myself with harder paper piecing and moved past that stage in my life.  Now I actually like to be challenged in my quilting.

The bulk of my blocks were done here on this machine.  It was 2015.  We had just moved to this house.  The sewing room wasn’t finished.  I had this small spot to sew.  I didn’t have my stash easily available.  It was sew on these or nothing.  For two months I worked super hard to try to do 12 blocks a week.  Sometimes I made it plus some….other weeks I didn’t.

I worked hard to finish the machine quilting on the quilt on Sunday night and finished it up over the course of Monday morning, Monday night and then Tuesday morning again.

Then Tuesday night…BINDING!  Yes, I machine bind.

There she is…Oh my!

Hubby came home late from farming Tuesday night.  He knows I’ve been working on this quilt for forever (really only since the book came out in 2012).  I showed him the quilt and he said his usual, “cool”.  Then as I was folding it up he said, “Where are you sending that one off to?” (meaning I was giving it away).  I snapped my head around so fast I almost gave myself whip lash.  Then he busted out laughing and laughing.  He was only teasing me!!  That guy!!

I did all of the block myself except for a six or so that Kayla made.  We were hosting the retreat when Bonnie Hunter came in 2015.  She wanted to try her hand at paper piecing.  She made some from the scrap that were there.  Those scraps were darker.  I debated for a long time…use them, don’t use them?  Most of my other blocks are all brights.

Then I decided to add a little black here and there.

Then it blends in and looks okay.

I did change up the pattern a bit.

The quilt is made up of inner blocks and then has different block at the border.  The pattern suggested this….See the red at the edges?

I made one block like that and then had a different idea.  This…

I ended up using my idea….Here’s how it looks in the quilt.

I am SUPER glad I did it my way.  I feel like the border blocks mimic the inner blocks a little more.  It gives is a lighter feel I think too.

As for the corners, I opted to not do Bonnie’s block for the too.  I decided a string block appealed to me more.

The backing is this.  It was a Hobby Lobby fabric I fell in love with.

I took the time to piece it together nicely so the seam isn’t super obvious.

I’m still in shock that I did it.  This is the first challenging paper piece project I’ve ever done.  Well…I don’t think that is a fair statement.  When I did those tree trunks for Crab Apples, that was the level I was at and it was a challenge.

Thread was a white on top…gray on the back.  I did a simple meander.  I wanted the piecing to be the focus.  It took me a long time to figure that out…but it was the right decision for me in the end.

Every quilt needs a Ruby picture…Carver happened to be here too so it’s a Carver/Ruby picture.

This was the best picture those two would take together this day!!

P.S.
If you’re following along with me, with the completion of this quilt, there is only ONE quilt left for me to make until I’ll have made EVERY quilt in Bonnie Hunter’s book String Fling!  I have that quilt under way so watch the blog, over the next month I hope to have it finished!  If you think I’m excited now, I’ll be even more excited then!!