more works in progress

Before I continue, thank you to all the people who left comments in my Sunday post about binding quilt – it seems we all use more or less the same method!

My year will not continue in this vein. Right now, many Australians are on their summer break. Schools are having their summer holidays/vacation. Nearly everything I am involved with is in recess until later in January. That means I have plenty of time to play in my sewing room if I feel so inclined.

Since my post last Wednesday about works in progress, these are the projects that have had some attention:

THE FOUR PATCH QUILT

I only had to finish sewing down the binding on this quilt. However, I had a lot of trouble with the fourth corner, even more than usual, so I had to unpick the binding and carefully sew it back on again. The fourth corner is now the best corner of the lot! I referred to my issues with mitred corners in my post on Sunday; this is a skill I really want to master this year, sooner rather than later. Here’s a photo of the finished quilt (not my work remember; I only added the binding -- I wouldn’t mind laying claim to it though! It’s a great pattern beautifully constructed; if a little too large for me to hold up for the photograph!).

TRIANGLE BRIGHTS AND FLOWERS

The only task left on this quilt was to hand-stitch the binding down. I completed this by the bright, fluoresent light of my sewing room around one o’clock one morning! This is another beautiful quilt (not made by me) but, again, too big for me to hold the width while being photographed!

 

K’s PROJECT

This was the project I showed in my post on Sunday. I was quite surprise and pleased to find that I could quilt almost the whole block in one continuous line – joy! It may not look like it but, with the exception of the two grey lines which were quilted in a different colour, this was how it was done. Quilting gloves and the extension table for my sewing machine made the job easier too!

Despite my joy at completing this project, I’ve decided that quilting in the ditch and dragging a twin-size bed topper through my wide-necked machine are not my favourite parts of the process!

QAYG

Between bouts of quilting, to alleviate the stiffness in my shoulders and neck, I tried to work on the QAYG blocks. I found and cut some batting and backing. I learnt, very quickly, that pre-cutting QAYG backs the finished size is a recipe for disaster! Of course, this makes sense given that we always make our backing larger than our quilt top before quilting and trim away the excess afterwards! So, after carefully cutting several backings to 9.5”, it took only two strips to realise that wasn’t going to work. Fortunately, I have a lot of fabric so making new backings, 10.5” this time, wasn’t a problem. I will save the 9.5” squares (they’re all the same fabric) for another project.

I made a mess of the first block made on the 10.5” backing by not using strips that were long enough! We live and learn and now I know two ways not to do it! Plus I have one orphan block for another project! I watched several videos about QAYG (hurrah for YouTube) and thought I could see my way forward with this project.

Today, I am feeling unexpectedly lethargic (despite a full night’s sleep) so have been pottering on this project. Unfortunately, it means I’ve learnt yet another way not to make it work! The pre-existing blocks are made in a particular way, with a 9.5” front and back and a piece of 9” wadding centred between! I started with a 10.5” back and made all my strips the same (diagonal) length as the ever-shrinking back (it’s being quilted remember) but the wadding moved and ended up less than a quarter of an inch from the edge of the front and back in some places and nearly an inch away from the edge in others! I thought securing it with pins while I sewed on the strips was enough but apparently not enough to stop it from shifting! Thank goodness for seam rippers! Any hints you can give would be greatly appreciated since it’s another three weeks before I see my teacher again!

CRUMBED CHURN DASH

To complete each churn dash block, I need four ‘side’ units and four ‘corner’ units. I am making the corner units with HST (as expected) but I’m making the ‘side’ units from one strip and two squares – it’s a little bit different and helps remind me that these are scrappy blocks after all! I was very excited to see the first Churn Dash block come together – this is my first ever churn dash block and I’m very pleased!

So far, I have made two complete blocks and have eight extra ‘corner’ units completed.

Other than that, I have also cleaned my machine – I try to remember to do it regularly, especially after working with batting: that always seems to make additional lint!

I’m not sure that there will be a “works in progress” post next week – I will be away for three and a half days: tomorrow, WM and I are joining several other couples from church for a long weekend away at Sanctuary Point on the south coast.

I’m linking this post with WIP Wednesday over at Freshly Pieced blog (hosted by Lee) when it goes live later today.

What about you?
What have you been working on this week?

slow stitching on a wet Sunday afternoon

WM is not well so what could be a better way of spending a wet Sunday afternoon than curled up in front of the television watching the final two-part episode of “A Touch of Frost” (a British detective series) while sewing down the binding on a quilt?

The quilt was donated to our quilting group by my quilting teacher in 2013 in response to the terrible bush-fires that occurred in September of that year in which 200 homes were lost and a further 200 were damaged. This donated quilt was only at the basting stage and no amount of effort by me at the time it was given would have gotten it done in time. I asked my teacher if she’d like it back but she said that once given, it was given (or something to that effect).

In my last post, I explained that my week had been spent working on other people’s projects.  Quilting this fairly small quilt (48” x 62”) took me three days – I haven’t quilted anything for more than a year and I found my muscles tensed up a lot; each quilting session was shorter than the previous one! Anyway, I finished the quilting late on Saturday night; thank goodness for excellent lighting in the sewing room. I was so exhilarated by finishing that I even attached the binding which went on extremely easily and quickly compared to the previous two quilts! I found a video on YouTube which instructs the quilter to stop a quarter of an inch from the corner, which I have always known, then turn the quilt clockwise 90 degrees and sew off the edge of the quilt. Those extra three stitches have made turning corners so much easier than my previous method, which was to backstitch when I got the quarter of an inch mark!

What was even more exciting for me was that the corners mitred on the back so easily! I am absolutely stoked with the results I got this time. The only thing I don’t like is that the binding is not as “padded” as I prefer because I trimmed the backing and batting to the same size as the top (as instructed on this video) – my previous teacher had me trim a quarter of an inch out from the quilt top which gave that little bit of extra padding to the bound edge.

For my next binding, I will try this new method of doing the corners (which logically shouldn’t make the slightest bit of difference!) with the extra quarter of an inch batting under the binding! I might find I need to cut my binding at 2.75”, or even 3”, to compensate for that extra padding but I won’t know until I try.

Did I mention that I’m just so happy that the binding looks almost as good on the back as it does on the front? ;-)

How do you do your bindings?
By hand or by machine?
With a 2.5” binding strip?
What about the corners?

 

I’m linking this post with Slow Sunday Stitching over at Kathy’s quilts.

works in progress

Everything I have been working on this week is not originally my project. However, they all need to be completed for the Airing in April so I had to get them done, sooner rather than later. Most of my own projects are at the basting stage and I need to make a trip to my LQS to use the big table there for that process so now was as good a time as any to work on other people’s projects!

Here’s what I've been working on (or plan to work on) this week:

1. four patch quilt – to be bound and labelled
2. triangle brights and flowers – to be bound and labelled
3. pink brights and gingham – backing required
4. K’s project – quilt, bind and label (binding supplied)
5. QAYG string blocks – 14 more blocks needed

At our community quilting group, when projects go to the long-arm quilter, there must be a top and a backing. When projects come back from the quilters (who volunteer their time to help us), the project is usually given back to the original maker to bind. Sometimes the original creator is not there – either they are a member who is absent that day or the quilt top was donated.

Projects #1 and #2 came back from the quilter but the original makers were not there so I ended up with the quilts to bind and label.

For some reason, the member who donated project #3 did not provide a backing so I was asked to make one.

Project #4 was donated to our group by my quilting teacher – the quilt sandwich is made so the trickiest part is done for me!

I have already made a quilt from the donated QAYG string blocks (project #5) but I still have 28 x 9” blocks left. That’s not enough to make a quilt in the size required in our group so I will have to make some more blocks which shouldn't be too much of a hardship given the number of scraps around here!

So, how has my week gone so far?

MONDAY

I didn't do any cutting or sewing: the heat/humidity has stopped me sleeping well and I was too tired to use my rotary cutter and sewing machine safely! Instead, I auditioned fabrics for bindings for projects #1 and #2, both 280” around.

 

Then I read a novel in a day! It was The Dancing Master by Julie Klassen – historical, romantic (Christian) fiction. Ms Klassen has been described as a ‘modern day Jane Austen’ – I’m not so sure but it was a light, enjoyable read.

TUESDAY

I auditioned fabric for the backing of project #3 then put the fabric in the washing machine (on the  ‘easy iron’ setting) because it was stiff and very creased. It’s the same pink fabric in the photo above.

I cut the binding strips, joined them and made binding for both quilts. I then made labels for both quilts from leftover triangle scraps (note to self: write the label after attaching it to the quilt – or write smaller!).

I had to watch a video on binding, because I haven’t bound a quilt for over a year and couldn't remember how to start! Thank goodness for YouTube and all the generous video makers! Eventually, I attached the binding and label to project #1 and began the task of hand-stitching the binding down – I got a little more than halfway (the quilt is 280” around) before it was time for bed!

What looks like a brown and white check is actually tiny white stars on a brown background; which I didn’t notice until I’d already cut the binding strips. It doesn't look like a good choice with that blue backing; but the quilt was mostly browns – here’s a hint (see the checked fabric in the block?:

WEDNESDAY

I started writing this post before I got on with attaching the binding and label to project #2, then I watched another video on mitred corners because mine just weren’t working! They are fine on the front but the back is terrible! I attached the label to the quilt then started sewing on the binding. I got to the second corner and realised there was a hole in the fabric, eight on the fold line of the binding. I had to undo twenty inches so I could remove the hole – it was close to a join in the binding strip – and rejoin the strip. I was about to start sewing again when I realised I was attaching the binding to the back of the quilt! *sigh* 

If it were my quilt, I might have been tempted to keep going but it isn’t and I couldn’t take the risk of bad corners on the front of someone else’s quilt so I spent more than thirty minutes un-sewing the rest of the binding! :-(

Things improved somewhat; I got the binding on eventually. It’s not perfect but it really is the lest I can do. After pressing the binding (I can’t remember ever doing that before but I think I must have – my teacher is very big on pressing) I moved onto project #3.

Piecing a backing involves a bit of maths and, for me at least, the rough drawing of diagrams. Eventually I had it sorted and went to find some strips to join my pieces together – I can’t help myself; it has become my signature to have a panel or some sashing on the back of my quilts. This isn’t mine but I did it anyway. I cut the pieces for the sashing and for the backing. There was some more reverse sewing after I sewed the right side of one piece to the wrong side of another piece but, all in all, with the help of lots of pins, I got the backing finished.

What looks like an off-what fabric is actually a very pale pink. It has some lovely details on the fabric which, of course, can only be viewed close up.

Because I have so many other projects to quilt in the near future, and because I think J. would like this quilt in this year’s Airing, I am not going to attempt to quilt it myself. I will pass the backing and the flimsy on to our coordinator, who will in turn, pass it on to one of the long-arm quilters. If I feel so inclined, I may even make the binding to go with the quilt. I’m thinking I’ll make it out of the same fabric as the back – I have some binding left from project #2 and lots of that fabric left. I’ll think on it – it may be too much having the same binding as backing fabric.

THE REST OF THE WEEK

So, here it is, Wednesday evening, which still leaves me two full days to work on the other two projects and to get the binding done on projects #1 and #2. I’m linking this post with WiP Wednesday over at Lee’s blog, Freshly Pieced.

What about you? Are you crafting this week or is something else occupying your time?

scrappy and very happy

It’s a new year in the Rainbow Scrap Challenge on SoScrappy blog. This linky party started in 2012. I was late joining in back then – being a newbie quilter I didn’t have many scraps but later in the year I found I had acquired enough to get started. I was a regular participant in 2013 but I didn’t join in much last year (twice, I think). This year I’m ready and raring to go! All those hours in November spent pressing, cutting, sorting and storing scraps has set me up to sew, sew, sew.

Yesterday was my first sewing day for 2015 and the first time I’d sat at my sewing machine for over three weeks. I had plans to make two 4.5” crumb blocks for RSC but, you know how it is, I was having so much fun and I had so many blue crumbs and other scraps that I ended up with twenty-two 4.5” blocks!

I have plans for these crumb blocks to become the centre of modified 12” Churn Dash blocks. You’ll have to come back later this month to see my modifications! ;-)

At the rate I’m going, I’ll have enough blocks finished by the end of the month to create another top/flimsy.

Flimsies becoming quilts has to be my focus over the next couple of months. January is summer break in Australia so most of my activities are in recess; therefore I will be at home most days throughout the month. Our quilting group has the "Airing of the Quilts” in April and I have promised six quilts, only two of which are completely finished so I’d better get cracking. The biggest setback for me is not having anywhere to baste the quilts – I’m too out of condition to crawl around on the floor (I always end up pinning to the carpet anyway!) and we have a good timber dining table. I don’t think my normally easy-going WM will be happy if I start sticking pins into it! I want to buy a trestle table but in the meantime I have to take my layers to my LQS and baste on the big table in the classroom – when there are no classes on! During January they are conducting one day workshops so I will have to work around them.

During December, I had been pondering how to see exactly what projects I have in progress and where I’m up to with each one. I have all of them listed on my Errands app but that doesn’t show me where each project is up to (and I can’t see all of them at once because there are too many to fit on the screen)!

The answer was simple – an Excel spreadsheet!

So far I have only created one for my sewing projects – Ravelry looks after my knitting projects for me.

I have recreated part of my spreadsheet here (in case you’re curious). Windows Writer didn’t cut and paste effectively!

Project	cut pieces	piece blocks	square blocks	cut sashing	join rows	cut borders	attach borders	top finished	cut backing	piece backing	back finished
Country Houses	done	done	done	done	done	WiP	WiP	WiP	WiP	WiP	WiP
Canary on a Pinwheel	WiP	WiP
Scrappy Hearts	done	done
Violet & Friends	done	done	done	done	done	n/a	n/a	done	done	done	done
Sampler Quilt	WiP	WiP

The other columns are shown here but none of the five projects shown has reached this stage yet!

baste

quilt

make label

make binding

attach binding

attach label

hand-stitch binding

Show-n-Tell

There are, of course, more projects than the five shown here. Only projects in progress are on this spreadsheet; I have also created a worksheet for projects to come!

Anyway, what you can’t see on this spreadsheet is project-in-progress #15;  that’s the “very happy” part of this post. It’s scrappy and it makes me very happy!

The top of Jacob’s Ladder Goes Barn Raising is finished; and without much reverse-sewing – the worst was 48” where I joined the wrong sides of the rows!

But wait! there’s more! (Did you have television commercials/advertising with that phrase?)

The backing is also done – and look! Five Jacob’s Ladder blocks put together correctly! I don’t usually use a solid for backing but this is the only coordinating fabric I had in a quantity large enough to make a backing.

Woo-hoo! I’m a happy patch-worker! I linked this project-in-progress with Sharon’s Let’s Book It challenge in November and am adding it, belatedly, to the December link-up on Vroomans Quilts. I’m hoping it will appear again at the end of January in a more advanced state!

Both the front and the back of Jacob’s Ladder Goes Barn Raising were finished by 12 December but my original photos, taken on my iPad, looked fine on that device but on my PC they looked terrible so I withdrew the post (my apologies to those who had the post come up in their reader and then couldn’t find it). I had to fold it and put it away when DD and grandsons arrived so new photos weren’t taken until today. Thanks once again, WM [never too hot to snap!].

Are you joining the Rainbow Scrap Challenge or the Let’s Book It challenge this month?

2015

Yes, it's another view from our deck; this time looking south. The header of my blog is a tiny part of the view to the west.

I wish you peace and joy; and all the crafting time you desire!

Christmas in Australia snapshots

Posted from Blogger app where I have no control of photo size or location!

Up at 6am to a cry of "Santa didn't come!" -- his Santa sack wasn't at the end of the bed but in the lounge room near the Christmas tree.

  

Raiding of Santa sacks, playing with toys and posing for photos followed by a breakfast of bacon and eggs cooked on the barbecue.

Presents -- the first time the boys have had a tree at home with presents underneath it. Mummy was almost as excited as the boys!

Off to Ma and Pa's place for more presents (no photos) and Christmas lunch. So much food!

Watermelon -- yum! 

But I'm not letting go of the scooter Santa brought me.

I hope you had (or are having) a lovely Christmas Day. 

God bless you.

Christmas: home and away

Warning: lots of words, no pictures!

As Christmas approaches, my sewing time has diminished to next to nothing. The reason for that is this:

Yesterday (Tuesday), I got some knitting and some reading (three quilting magazines) done as I travelled for nearly ten hours by train to Coffs Harbour where I was met by DD who took me home to her place. I arrived after the boys were in bed so they had a lovely surprise when they awoke this morning. Around mid-morning, the four of us left for my home. Unfortunately, SIL was not able to join us due to work commitments; which is why I had to make the trip; 591 km – 370 miles is a long trip for one adult with two active toddlers! We arrived home at 7:45pm, just over nine hours after we left Woolgoolga.

Tomorrow evening, my mother arrives by bus and train from her home town of Bingara – a ten-hour trip. I am sure she will be very tired and very hungry (she never eats or drinks on the trip; Dad would be so cross if he knew) but pleased to see her great-grandsons.

On Friday, apart from entertaining my guests, I have an appointment for a  haircut and have to take Mum shopping for some personal items. I also need to do the last of my grocery shopping and cook the turkey for Christmas lunch (we have it cold – it’s summer here).

On Saturday, my uncle (my father’s brother), my aunt, my brother, DSIL and four-year-old niece, will join mum, DD, the Grandboys, WM and I to celebrate Christmas. Saturday evening we will spend in front of the television watching the Carols in the Domain.

On Sunday, after church, we will join WM’s extended family at the retirement village where his mother lives. It is next to a school and there is a large fenced sports oval for the little ones to run around in (and not escape). Some members of the family will bring gazebos for some shade. Lunch is basically a bring-your-own-meat for the barbecue and a standardised pot-luck (in the sense that the women tend to bring the same thing every year – I always being a cheesecake for dessert; apparently if I didn’t, I would be told to go home and make one!). It will either be served in the “rec room” which MIL has booked for the day or on the oval. All very Australian, isn’t it?

My niece will arrive on Monday to take Mum home and DD, the Grandboys and I will spend a quiet 

day before making the return trip to Woolgoolga on Tuesday. WW will follow by train on Christmas Eve (after work). It will be a long day for him: he gets up at 5:45am and the train arrives in Coffs Harbour at midnight! At least he can sleep on the train.

We will stay in Coffs Harbour that night but join DD and the family early on Christmas morning. Christmas lunch will be held at SIL’s parents place, which is nearby. J&A, SIL’s parents, are kindly giving us the use a car while we’re in Woolgoolga, so we will have some freedom to come and go as we please.

We plan to spend the Friday and the Saturday with DD and family and, hopefully, some of that time will be spent on the beach (10 minutes from DD’s home). On Sunday we will catch the train home so that WM can return to work on Monday!

Then, with Christmas behind me, and most other commitments on a summer hiatus, I plan to sew and sew and sew and sew! There will also be more ironing, cutting, sorting and storing of scraps since I am nowhere near done and I’m obviously not going to get much done in the next ten days!

How about you?
Will your Christmas be as hectic as mine?
Or do you plan on a quiet celebration?

Jacob’s Ladder goes Barn Raising

I had already begun to write this post when I found a link on Sharon’s blog, Vrooman Quilts, about the Scraptastic Tuesday party going on over at She Can Quilt blog. If there’s anything I do know, It’s scraps; so joining in sounded like fun. When you've finished reading here, why not take a few minutes to pop over and see what other people are doing with their scraps?

Over the weekend, I cut and stored all the orange scraps shown in my last post. I pressed the contents of three of those shopping bags screaming at me from under the ironing table.

For now, they are in two trays, waiting to be cut and stored.

  

Before class on Monday, I decided to sew some small scrap triangles together – my container of triangular off-cuts (from flying geese, braids and string blocks) was getting quite full.

I’m thinking I’ll make some blocks called “Cotton Reels” but don’t hold me to that!

picture from http://blog.shopmartingale.com/quilting-sewing/quiz-how-many-quilt-block-designs-have-you-made/

I began to put together the four-patches to make what I thought was the Jacob’s Ladder block in class on Monday. Traditionally, the Jacob’s Ladder block is a nine patch, consisting of five four-patch units and four HST units.

http://www.quiltivate.com/quilting_block/15-jacob-s-ladder

In Scrap Quilt Sensations, Katherine Guerrier uses a four patch block to make a Jacob’s Ladder quilt.

I didn’t think to take the book to class and my teacher and I ended up having a long discussion about how the block went together. In the end, my block is a four-patch but not the one Katherine Guerrier uses!

 

Now, I had several choices:

1. unpick the sixteen blocks I had done and make them up correctly according to Katherine Guerrier’s diagram – no way!
2. add units to my four-patches to make a traditional nine-patch JL block – maybe!
3. go with a different layout using the four-patches I had made – yes!

When ‘mistakes’ happen, what happens next comes down to two things: is the resulting quilt of an attractive design, and is my time being used wisely?

Option 3 was not only the easiest but also satisfied both my criteria. When making quilts for donation, quick and easy but effective is often a good route to take given that I spend a lot of time in preparing scraps for use in the first place. The less time I fiddle around with unpicking and re-making, the more time I have to make other items.

In lieu of a fixed design wall and tired of crawling around the floor, I decided to be inventive! I still have the flannel-backed tablecloth that used to be my design wall (hanging in front of a wardrobe/closet) at our previous house. The rivets WM had attached to insert shower curtain rings are coming adrift and it’s fast outliving its usefulness as a hanging system. But those shower curtain rings gave me an idea – my design ‘cloth’ now hangs from our bathroom shower rail. The bathroom is used infrequently by WM and I so it seemed like a great idea and WM approved (at least as a stop-gap measure)!

See how the second, third and fourth rivets are pulling away from the doubled-over-for-additional- strength fabric?

Here is my design wall in use: with the ‘barn raising’ layout of my Jacob’s Ladder quilt; possibly not traditionally but it works!

I'm letting it sit for a while before I start putting the blocks together. In the meantime, I’m using leftover four-patches and HST units to make a panel to widen the the backing fabric.

What do you do when you make a “mistake”?

• Turn it into a ‘design feature’?
• Throw it in the naughty corner?
• Toss it?
• Or resolve it in some other way?

scrappy Saturday

Scraps, as most readers would know, are the core of my quilting. I belong to a community quilting group that makes quilts for donation. We, in turn, have fabric donated to us. Very rarely do we get commercial pre-cuts; sometimes the donations consists of yardage, half-metres, quarter-metres, fat quarters or fat-eighths but most of the time (at least as far as I’m concerned) it is off-cuts, fabric with pieces cut out (for appliqué or English paper piecing) or bits of projects long abandoned.

A few weeks ago, a friend in my quilting class gave me two bags of fabric – she is downsizing and needed to pass on some of her stash plus some saved ‘bits’. I store pieces of fabric larger than a fat eighth in drawers by colour; here is my friend's donated fabric after I finished sorting it.

As I arrived at a class a few weeks ago, the owner of my LQS handed me some four-patch units she had been working with and no longer liked. She then handed me the rest of the fabric she was using. Obviously it’s not enough for a whole quilt and I don’t have much Japanese print fabric so I might pass this along.

I like the challenge of making quilts from scraps and enjoy looking at patterns and interpreting them as scrap quilts. While working on my Jacob’s Ladder quilt, I realised that just turning or moving the blocks about would result in a different quilt. Very exciting – a new project on the horizon…

I have finished all the units  for my Jacob’s Ladder quilt – 100 four-patches and 100 HST 4.5” squares. Here they are, pinned in groups of ten (saves counting).

What I need now is a design wall so I can start putting the quilt together – I think WM is going to make one as my Christmas present. I certainly have asked directly (I have found that dropping hints is not effective).

For more than two weeks in November I spent every moment in my sewing room ironing, cutting, sorting and storing scraps. I worked my way through purple, blue, red, pink, teal and green. In the middle of the third week, I got a bit antsy. I just wanted to sew, sew, sew and sew! That's mostly how all the units for Jacob’s Ladder were finished: it went from being a ‘leader and ender’ project to being my main project!

I have found a new leader and ender project -- my container of 3" squares is filling rapidly and I have an idea which involves four-patches and HST but not set as for "Jacob's Ladder" quilts.

I still have to sort through and cut a tray of orange scraps and a tray of yellow scraps (both already ironed). The bases of these trays are about 11” x 8” and are about 2.5”  deep so it’s probably not as bad as this photo suggests – I am working with scraps after all!

 

In addition, I have all these bags of scraps that are not ironed. These contain black and white scraps, grey scraps, floral scraps, bright scraps, brown scraps and light-neutral scraps. *sigh*  This is just what I need screaming at me from under the ironing board! I need to find a tub to put all these bags in and hide them away – at least temporarily!)

At least when it’s all done, I will be much more organised and able to sew rather than search for fabrics, iron them and cut them! I am cutting scraps according to my scrap storage system which is both generic (square of all sizes from 2” to 5” in half-inch increments, triangles, strings and crumbs) and designed with specific projects in mind, like Solana Beach (free on Craftsy) and Make It Do (purchased from Craftsy). 

My Dutch Cap Hexie project continues slowly. I have removed some of the papers from the finished units and am spending ‘television time’ basting more hexagons. The last time I showed you this I had only seventeen units done;  now I have twice that. It takes me about an hour to add the seven diamonds to each triad of hexagons. At the community quilting group meetings, someone always remarks that I am still working on this project so I’ve taken to calling it my “100 year project”! I estimate that I will need 104 of these units to make a quilt of the size we donate so I’m going to be working on it for a while yet! Then I will need some half-hexies and some diamonds to make it square. I intended for the triad of hexies to point towards the top of the quilt but I can see that it might be easier to make rows rather than diagonals – I will have to think on it further.

I’ve barely done anything on the Rainbow Scrap Challenge this year because I  haven't been organised. Next year, I’ll be able to take the appropriate container of crumbs from the shelf and get sewing! What's more, I know exactly what block I’m going to make for the whole year!  Yahoo! I’m looking forward to that!

Meanwhile, my Relaxing Robin project, Canary on a Pinwheel, remains untouched. Why? Because I have to cut fabric for the flying geese units and I am over cutting for the moment!

What do you do with your scraps?
Use them?
Store them?
Give them away?
Toss them?

37 years ago

And now we're more in love than ever – thank you, WM, you light up my life!

Let’s Book It!

Way back in the dim past that was the beginning of this year, I decided that Sharon’s Let’s Book It linky party was a great idea. Sharon blogs at Vroomans Quilts, and was encouraging us to make something from all those quilting books, magazines and PDF files accumulating on our shelves and in our computer – you know, the ones we’ve bought or been given that we’ve never actually used except to admire the quilts.

“Great idea” said I, to myself. “But I’ve never made a quilt from any of my quilting books because I’ve never made a quilt from a pattern”. But Sharon’s idea went further – we were encouraged, if we so desired, to use a pattern for inspiration, as a springboard to another quilt.

I have admired this quilt in Quilts for Kids by Elaine Hammond ever since I saw the book on sale in the book store. Of course, it was the limited palette and the bold bright colours that got my attention; not the actual design of the quilt.

 
Then I saw the same design in Scrap Quilt Sensation by Katherine Guerrier.

It’s an old, tried and true pattern – Jacob’s Ladder, made of four-patches and large half-square triangles. Katherine’s scrappy quilt may not be as striking as Elaine’s design but it does make use of something I have in abundance – scraps!

My friend, Deb, who blogs at A Simple Life Quilts, finished a Jacob’s Ladder quilt in October last year. Hers is made in Thimbleberry fabrics and is modern and fresh from the use of white to make the ‘ladder’ stand out. I love the way the choice of fabrics and treatments make the same pattern look so different!

Several months ago, I decided to make four patches from 2.5” squares as my ‘leader and ender’ project. I did the math back then regarding how many I would need to make the quilt the size required by my quilting group (48”-54” x 60”-70”) and worked out that I need ninety-something. It was just as easy to make 100, then I’d have more than enough. Some could always go on the back where I generally have a panel of some kind to widen the backing fabric.

In this post, I showed you that I had 60 four-patches completed; I now have the 100 blocks completed; and have moved on to making the half-square triangles from 5" squares. Trimming them down to 4.5" squares is the most time consuming part of the experience!

All I have done was match a dark fabric with a lighter fabric (which may well be a mid-toned fabric) and sew them in pairs, then I’d join the pairs together to make four-patches or sew the squares diagonally to make two HST. Making blocks this way is so easy; I’m really making two quilts at any time without taking my focus from the one that is my ‘main’ project. 

If you’re not into scrappy quilts, Jenny Doan of the Missouri Star Quilting Company has a video on YouTube for making a Jacob’s Ladder quilt the easy way using pre-cuts but you could use yardage instead.

Are you playing along with Let’s Book It? It’s not too late to join in the fun – this is my first link-up ; nothing like coming in at the end of the year! (LOL) Sharon intends to continue with this next year (yay); there are a few more books on my shelf and patterns in my PDF library that need my attention and I’ve even been cutting pieces in anticipation!

Relaxing Robin progress

Dawn hasn’t had a linky party for the Relaxing Robin this month – probably because she and I are the only ones doing it! You can still join in at any time; the details are on the tab at the top of my blog.

My 'progress' on this project has been slow. October was a non-sewing month for me and most of time in my sewing room this month has been taking up by ironing, cutting, sorting and storing scraps (which I am nowhere near finished)! The little time I’ve had to sew, mostly in class, has been focused on my braid quilt which has been causing me no end of problems (and will get it’s own post when the top is finally done)!

I really wanted to work on my Canary on a Pinwheel quilt, which is my Relaxing Robin project; but I had no idea where I was going with it. I like to work my way through a project without too much of a plan but with only two nine inch blocks and twelve four inch blocks, the goal of making a 48” x 64” quilt was quite daunting!

For instance: I knew I wanted to make flying geese units to try out the no-waste method (Jennifer Houlden on YouTube; Patchwork Pieces pdf file here) but how big and how many did I need?

I have been inspired to try an asymmetrical quilt since I saw this book last November.

I got really inspired when I found a pdf file on quiltinggallery.com for Gypsy Breeze quilt by Phyllis Dodds. This works because of the limited palette and (I’m assuming) the use of one fabric range.

It was time to draw up a rough plan. I did one on graph paper, then I duplicated it in Microsoft Paint so that I could try out tones/colours. I don’t know why Paint decided to change many of my lines to red when I tried to colour a block but that's okay – its just a guide!

You can see how Phyllis Dodd’s’ “Gypsy Breeze” influenced my plan. I, too, intend to use a limited colour palette of clear blue, red, yellow and green – no muddy colours here. The fabrics will mostly be tone-on-tone or semi-solids – I think the idea is busy enough without fussy patterns getting in the way! I’m not sure what my background fabric (shown here in pink) will be; I have to use something that is on hand so I will make the blocks, probably more than I need, first then find a background fabric that works.

And now, dear friends, it’s time to cut and sew some flying geese blocks!
See you with another post on Friday.