Easing into Scrappy - Part 2

Yesterday I described my current stash and scrap system (such as it is).  I expect it will not change all that much, but I am devising some ways of actually seeing what I have and some ideas for how to move forward.  If you didn't read it, catch that post here.

I had received some wonderful 2.5 inch squares from several members of my Sunshine On-line Quilt Guild (thank you, thank you going out to Beth, Joann and Cathy L!).  Those will be my starting point.  I know I can work with these and find some sustainable ways to work with this size leftovers from my work.

 

just some of the squares next to my sewing machine

I don’t want to make her blush, but I have found Cynthia Brunz’ website Quilting is More Fun Than Housework to be so inspirational for how to use scraps/yardage and have the quilts come out looking beautifully pulled together.  I recently went to her page for the Scrap-a-Palooza Quilt Gallery where she shows the step-by-step progress of some scrap projects and found the Zig-Zag Quilt (May 2014).  Please follow the links above to her site if you are looking for some great ideas.

Since I wasn’t sure if I had enough squares to make Cynthia’s Zig-Zags right off the bat, I switched over to this pattern that has smaller centers:

 

Pattern called Field Day

It is from the book "Seemingly Scrappy" by Rebecca Silbaugh:

I will go back and make Cynthia’s pattern after I have cut all of my own leftover binding pieces and created a special place for 2.5 inch squares.  Then I know I’ll have enough and the colorful squares will look wonderful in her design!

And this is the work in progress while I was auditioning for the big squares:

 

the blue in the background wasn't right and the yellow was too washed out

but the black with multi-color was just right!

I still have to rearrange some blocks to distribute the logs that were slightly lighter (I used everything from my stash after all) – but, I’m in love with it!  And they look way better after quilting...

Linking up to Oh Scrap!  on Sunday.  Check out what ideas others are coming up with for using their scraps (see the button on my sidebar).

Sunday Sewing

I have made a crib-size quilt before from Eleanor Burns' Quick Trip Around the World book and it turned out well (see this link for that one):

So this time I decided to go for the lap size.    This is my progress so far on my Sewing on Sunday:

I didn't realize my colors were similar to the book cover's until I posted this photo!

These aren't really Quilt in a "Day"s for me - LOL.  I call them my Quilt in a "Week"s!

Soccer Weekend for Me

No, I didn’t play soccer!  That would be like exercising … and we know I shy away from that.

I played with lots of soccer fabric and came out with two cute tops.  Yesterday’s was inspired by an on-line friend’s lotto blocks using the Bow Tie design.  I hadn’t made any Bow Ties in a long time, so I made up this fast top:

 

I call this one "Sportin' Ties"

And I found out that if you twist the bow ties 45^◦ you get a soccer ball shape, but you could get there a lot quicker if you made giant snowballs and squares, so I didn’t do that – maybe next time!

And then I looked through a few books to see what I had marked but never made and found Frolicin’ Frogs from this book:

It was s-o-o-o-o easy to make with strip sets.  Mine is called Soccer Frolic, of course.

It is raining here today – and that’s a good thing.  We really needed the rain as the ponds are low again and the grass is dry.  I had put out a different brand of bird seed that included cracked corn and guess who I attracted:

 

follow up the trunk of the palm to see how tall that left guy is

I guess that with Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners over, it is safe to come out of the woods – Lol.

And the soon-to-be Monarchs have munched away on my milkweed.  I had bought them five new plants last year, so they didn’t get anymore this year, but what was there seemed sufficient.  These are now in cocoons …

 

before

almost done eating

And this, my friends:

count the number of hops you see!

is a Squirrel Path!  You can see where the little critters hop from one plant bed to the other.  I put birdseed on the ground in the bed in the foreground and also in the birdfeeder (where the post is barely visible in the background), and they help themselves to both.  Oh well, they’re entertainment for my dog!

New Guild Meeting

A new *guild* is starting up in my area, so I went last month to see what it was all about.  They have elected to be more of a chat and learn group then a guild, and that works for me right now.  Sometimes guilds can get bogged down with rules and cliques.  This month the guild (that I’ll start calling a Bee) was featuring gadgets – as in bring in your favorite gadget – and Show and Tells.

I took in a specialty ruler – the Lazy Angle – by Joan Hawley from Lazy Girl Designs.  I had made this quilt for a teen girl using one of the featured star block designs and fabric leftovers.

and I am in the process of making another star block design for a Quilt of Valor.

I have the book that has a bazillion blocks:

and I plan to make lots more of the various stars from it since they are quick and easy and will add a little interest to my mostly geometric children’s quilts.

One of the Show and Tells from the meeting was this modern quilt – an original pattern by a Bee member named Ellen. 

Modern quilts are a hot item now in the quilting community and Ellen’s quilt was juried into the Paducah Quilt Show this past April - a great honor!  Congratulations, Ellen.  I can't see me jumping on the Modern movement, since I'm more of a Traditional person, but I liked the colors in this one.  To learn more about the AQS shows, check out this link:  http://aqsshows.com/

But, speaking of current fashions, here’s what’s happening in the neighborhood:

Yep, spiders are popping up everywhere - they must be "in" this year!  The one above is a big one, but don't worry - that is an adult that it is wrapping up - no children were harmed in setting up this spider - LOL!  And this is a little one hanging from a tree:

And we even have purple ones with eyes that glow!

Spooky!!

Sunday’s Sewing

So, the local quilt shop had a sale – 30% off if you bought the end of the bolt.  And if you were lucky enough to find good stuff, what’s a girl to do?  Well, I found a few bolt-ends and then the book jumped into my bag – that’s my story and I’m sticking to it!

These are the 4-patches I’ve had around for a long time and this book will help turn them into something:

This was what I had shown previously to be my work in progress:

And, this is what the 9-patches morphed into:

It is very loosely based on this modern quilt design from Elizabeth Hartman:

http://www.ohfransson.com/oh_fransson/2010/02/ninepatch-lattice-quilt.html

I was bored with the first photo and liked the asymmetrical look of the modern quilt.  Someday, I’m going to move into modern …  first I have to use up a lot of stored fabric!

Oh, and this is the bunny I saw on my walk:

We don’t see as many of these as I would expect.  He was in a side yard, just munching away.  Cute little devil … unless it’s your garden, of course!

Math or Quilting?

When was the last time you spent time wondering about the Pythagorean Theorem? 

a)     High School?

b)     College?

c)     Never in this lifetime?!!

Well, I accidentally read a pretty good book last week.  Our library is expanding and the new construction has caused some disruptions inside the building, including rearrangement of shelving units.  When I thought I was continuing to browse in the fiction section, I actually had moved into non-fiction and I picked up a book about Sir Isaac Newton and the Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge.

Newton was the genius physicist and mathematician in the 1600s that we all remember from the apple falling from the tree and gravity discovery story.  The book discusses other noted discoverers of the time (before the work “scientist” was invented) and the advancement of modern science.   

The book had some intriguing illustrations describing the mathematicians’ search for patterns and eternal truths:

Do you see math or a quilt pattern in this page from the book?  I instantly saw the sawtooth border and the square-in-a-square pattern.  I guess it all depends on your perspective.  And they told us in school that we would use math in our futures … whoever thought they would be right?  Of course, these illustrations were intended to prove that pesky Pythagorean Theorem, but who cares?

Isaac Newton was also fascinated by the rainbow colors that are seen when light passes through a prism.  Well, I think it’s remarkable that I have something in common with Sir Newton - I love rainbow colors in quilts - LOL!

But now, onto what’s in the works here at Chez Olde Quilting Studio.  I finished up sewing the rows together of the Nautical top using the Warm Wishes pattern.

And I loaded up the frame to finally quilt the top that I used the Lazy Angle Ruler to make.  I found a cute orange swirl fabric for the backing and it’s ready to be whipped up tomorrow.

 That’s it for now.  I’m going upstairs to get a little more done.

After the Holidays

Like many of you, this is the time to assess your stash and finally clean up that sewing room … ahem … that is if you have enough time in between playing with your new toys!

I got a wonderful new book and ruler for Christmas from Lazy Girl Designs:

And these are the blocks that I made from them on Christmas Eve – nope, couldn’t wait to start on these and I opened those presents first!

I had to wait until Christmas Day for the other presents, but it was worth the wait … I had another book, a new pattern for a kids’ quilt and new fabric to fondle and dream about making something special.

And I also gave myself the gift of printing my blog.  I used the website Blog2Print and was very happy with the results.  It was much more economical with the holiday discounts (that I expect they will run periodically).  Since I used to use Webshots (that was taken over by Smilebox or their affiliate) and my photo albums aren’t out there anymore, I wanted to preserve my previous blog entries and these little books did the trick for me.  The glossy pages are nice-looking and it’s fun to be able to reread old posts occasionally.

There are other companies that do this same work, but here is the link to the one I used:

http://blog2print.sharedbook.com/blogworld/printmyblog/index.html

And then it was REALLY on with the cleaning.  I took some UFOs, some fabric collections and some patterns and made kits for myself.  I cleared off the tabletops (well, mostly) and went ruthlessly through my dresser drawers of fabrics.  I took the ½ yard cuts that I told myself I would use “someday, if only I had the right things to go with them” and boxed them up to send to a few ladies at a senior citizens’ center in NY/NJ area that had lost all of their quilting supplies in Hurricane Sandy.  I added a few notions that I had duplicates of and mailed them off, too.  These ladies make charity quilts, bless their hearts, and I couldn’t see this fabric sitting around being unproductive when they could be putting it to such good use.

Then, just for fun, I took the only jellyroll that I had (yes, you could say I uncovered it - LOL) and had a Jelly Roll Race with myself.  It was just as quick as they say and I like how the colors of the jelly roll blend together.  I will add side borders to make it a little wider and then I’m done with another child-size top for Wrap-a-Smile.

Detail of "boy" fabrics

On to 2013 ------ I'll be ready!

Quilting Progress and a Book

I had finally shamed myself into getting the pile of tops onto the quilt frame … and I have made great progress.  These are the three tops that are fully quilted, including their borders – now they just await bindings:

 And this is the back of the fourth one that has been quilted on the frame, but needs quilting in the borders (I do that on my tabletop machine).

I stopped for awhile because I want to mull over whether to change thread color.  Because the top fabrics have a lot of black in them, I quilted the center squares with black thread and it looks just fine.  But the top and bottom borders are rainbow stripes with no black and I don’t know how black thread would look on that … I’m thinking about what to do!

I did get some exercise walking up to the library even though the sky looked threatening.  The osprey sitting in the lower-left on this tree branch had sense enough to stop flying, but I went anyway.  I made it there and back before the downpour, thank you very much!

So, I’ve been reading a book called “The Age of Homespun” that has some interesting stories (although it is quite tedious reading – sort of like a college textbook!).

One thing I learned was that the history of textiles was often able to be followed using wills and probate records that included inventories of the deceased’s possessions.  In some of those documents, e.g., letters, inventories and probate documents, quilted petticoats were called simply “quilts”.  Wouldn’t that be confusing if you were looking for a bedcover?!  These quilted petticoats usually had some kind of simple crosshatching over most of the surface with more decorative designs on the borders.  One woman even quilted a full-masted ship in sail along with mermaids on hers!  This is one example from the Old Sturbridge Museum’s collections:

Tomorrow’s tasks include finishing a few more quilts, maybe get to those bindings and get those bug jar appliqués in the mail.  Just more fun ….

Book Sale and Orchid Update

I TOLD you not to let me know when the Friends of the Library book sale was going to be held!!  You know perfectly well that I am incapable of passing up a quilt book …

Yes, you could say I bought this:

Or you could say that I bought two works of fiction and this third book was free!   Well, it’s true - and free always works for me … who could pass it up?

I have had these partially sewn blocks sitting around for way too long and one of the designs in this book might just jumpstart some creativity.  One can only hope!

And now I’d like to show you how well my orchid is doing:

From this in Feb (just budding out)

To this in March

Closeup

Aren’t they gorgeous?!  I’m so happy that my orchid appears to be happy!