A New Neo-natal Quilt Pattern!

 

If you have seen my recent posts, you have seen a few baby quilts thar I have made alternating a plain white block with a 5 in child themed blockl

I saw this alternative on Pinterest and immediately knew it was perfect for the tons and tons of 5 in squares I have and the bags of two inch strips. So from now on, this will be my design of choice.  I just have to figure the best way to quilt it.  The blocks finish to 4 1/2 inches so nine of them make a quilt that ends up being 40 x 40  Bingo!  9 x 4 1/2 equals 39 1/2 plus the 1/2 inch that doesn't get folded on the outside!

I just sewed long strips of 2 in strips with the white strips on the outside -- full width of the fabric.  Then I cut them into 5 x 5 inch squares.  Easy, easy design and i am very thankful for the Pinterest inspiration.

This was a spectacular sunset the other night.  I didn't get to my usual place to take sunset photos but instead looked back from my 3rd floor porch.  The depth of color was incrdible and i don't think the picture even captures it.  I will use the juxtaposition of the colors as the inspiration for my RAFA challenge quilt.  We got three paint chips kind of randomly and mine were pink, lavender and a slate blue.  My foreground I will steal from another of my pictures.

I also did a challenge quilt for my guild down here which i am not posting until it is officially unveiled in mid January.  It had to be a least 50 percent red, white and blue and have 250 somewhere on it, either written or the number of pieces or fabrics.  Mine is very subtly potitical .

Found More of the Charity Quilts +

 

These were all neonatial quilts.  This one was haxagons and probably for a girl!

Just a lot of 2 1/2 inch squares leftover from some project.  I would usually do a "potato chip quilt" rather an all the lissle squares although I did do them as four patches..

These. next twp used up more four patches and 5 inch squares.  It is called the "chandelier" pattern.

Still using up the octogons fromd 30 years ago.  The bag is actually getting smaller!

Another one using some scrap strips from some other project.  All of these quilts measure 40 x 49 inches.

This is all those hourglass squares sewn together.  It still needs a border, basting, quilting and binding and will measure about 40 x 60 when done..

Really Neaat Way to Make Hour Glass Blocks!

This is a really simple technique to make the hourglass block.  I sw it posted on Facebook I think posted by "Teresa Down Under".  I had never seen this technique before and saves time as you don't have to do any marking.  I chose to use random scrap squares -- 5 inch ones of course.  You could be more controlled if you wanted to be.

You make two four patches and then place then one on top of another with the dark blocks pinned over the light blocks.

You then sew all the way around the outside -- 1/4 inch of course.

You then just slice from corner to corner and voila -- you have four hourglass blocks!

These were really random and I think I will add more blue, green and purple.  I really like this technique and will look for some patterns that use hourglass blocks...

No,I Haven't Died! Just Been Busy Making Charity Quilts

 

This one is now all finished and ready to give away. ! It is really a simple block but not obvious from looking at the quilt!  It is basically two half rectangles with a middle that is a square with two half square triangles on either side!  You really need a design wall to put it together though to make sure everything is aligned right.

This is one of two neonatal quilts that is basically an I Spy made with 5 inch squares.  I have tons of these all cut out from children's fabric!

This is another of my "posey" quilts which ended up to be pretty big!

I am still using up triangles from the purple quilt I made close to 30 years ago!!  I pile if sinally beginning to look smaller and there may be only one more quilt from the batch!

Another "posey" quilt.  Haven't finidhed quilting either of these posey quilts but do have the batting and backs cut out.  I hate basting more than any other job especially with these big quilts.  The smaller ones are much easier but still no fun!

I finally finished this one and gave it away!

I know there are several others that I have pictures of somewhere and will try to post as I find them!

A New Variation -- I Wonder Whether I Created This Particular Variation...

I found this block and a bag full of strips to made more of this block so decided to keep going.  It was obvious that I did this a long time ago as I never would put such closely matched fabric together.  I cut a bunch of squares from one of the strips of fabric and soon realized that I had cut them wrong and it did take me some time to work out how to correctly cut them, but only after several mistakes!!

I sewed up a bunch of the fabrics that make up each of the four squares that make up this larger square.  I stuck them up on my design wall and decided I didn't like them at all and figured there must be a better way!

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Here are the two squares cut from the same strip and you put these on top of one another and make a diagonal cut. You then get wthe proper squares to make up the block.  As I mentioned, it took me a while to get this right!

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   This is the arrangement that I came up with, using the blocks individually.  I am going to reorganize them again before I sew them together but I like this a lot better than the origianl. block.

I think I have discovered a much quicker way of making a common block too.  It is really fast to sew long strips of fabric together, cut them into squares and then cut them diagonally to make a block that looks like a square with strips around its.  I only need one seam instead of 8 seams per block.  I don't know wheether anyone has come  up with this variation before but I wanted to document it and will embark on making a quilt that shows this arrangment better next!  

This is the single block.

This is the final top except for some borders.  I had a few extra blocks so they will become potholders as well as some 16 patches I made with the leftovers when cutting the strips!

It's Been Forever Since I Posted but I Have Been Busy With Donation Quilts!

 

This is just a 10 in square of the fabric that I used for the next two tops.  I thought it would be okay for a "stack and whack" but was a bit disappointed when I got the two done.  The repeat on this fabric was 24 inches so I had a lot of blocks!

This is one of the two quitt tops I made.  It actually looks better in person but still a bit like Halloween with all the orange! 

This is the second one where I spaced the blocks a bit further apart.  I will probably put a small border but I don't add borders until I am quilting these days!

The next three are baby qults made with already constructed four-patches and some of my 5 in squares that I had to cut down to 4 1/2 inches.

This was also four-patches but Ihad to create most of these as t had no four-patches that had three darks or three lights together.

I have been trying to find uses for all those orphan blocks I  have accumulated and this was created from blocks from 3 different quilts.  I think I had to make a few more of those outside blocks to fill in the space.

This is another of the bagel quilts made from purple pieces I had on hand.  I probably have made four or five quilts from these leftover purple triangles.  The original quilt they were cut for was finished 25 years ago!!

 

Still Making "Comfort" Quilts for Charity With All My Already Cut Strips and Pieces!!

 

This is my latest Quilt As You Go quilt using more of those brown 2 inch strips and a bunch of "frankenbatting". Each block is 10 inches square.  I have since bound it with a medium brown fabric which finished it off nicely.  The quilt is 60 inches by 80 inches and will be donated this coming Thursday to my guild up here.  As I don't have batting up here and my guild in the south provides batting for donation quilts, I will again be making a ton of tops and take them south.  I prefer machine quilting on my Juki but it had some serious issues so I took it in for repair and I still haven't gotten it back and I may have to ask them to replace the machine as I am beginning to think they lost it!  

This is one block of a new bunch of stack and whack blocks.  The picture shows the block in its best light!  All the blocks are pretty dark although they all have good patterning so trying to decide how to best present them so 31 sit on my design wall waiting for inspiration.  They are only 4 inches finished.  I have been thinking bags or purses at this point as they needed to be seen closer up than a quilt althogh I have also considered using in a jacket of some sort  We shall see.  I atisll have a bunch of fabric that i haven't made into squares yet.

This was a far more successful choice for making the stack and whack blocks.  It is a fairly small print but amazingly the repeat was 16 inches which is rare for a small  print. 

Here are the 70 blocks that I constructed.

This is the latest one I am constructing using triangles leftover from a quilt I made almost 30 uears ago.  This is about the 4th quilt I have made from these triangles.  I am going to make this quilt to be full bed sized.  The center of each "bagel" will be yellow and i haven't decided whether  to use anything but the plain bege in the center of the "stars".  Ufrotunately, the bag of purples doesn't seem to be getting any smaller!