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!

 

Back to the North for Awhile!

On my way back north, I stopped in Pennsylvania at my friend Dianne's and we did a day of dyeing.  We both wanted to have light values and this was the result.  I was pretty happy with it and I am sure I will be able to use  For so long, I have done a lot of dyeing things pretty dark. 

We started with Sun Yellow, Golden Yellow, Tangerine, Grass Green and Neutral Navy with 1 per cent solutions  We then overdyed with Intense Blue, Navy, Turquoise, Mixing Red and Dark Green (all ProChem colors).  The second set was half per cent solutions.  I think the tangerine and Intense Blue might have been a little over the hill as they seemed lighter than usual which was okay!

Altogether, we each ended up with 35 yards of dyed fabric.  We had all different kinds of fabrics -- a couple of my really light ones obviously were not PFD!  That is okay as I have found out that you get really even color with these iffy fabrics!  Each "pot" had 12 yards of fabric in them so we used old empty kitty litter boxes of which I have a bundle!!

I am finally using up the incredible amount of PFD fabrics I  had accumulated over the years but still have some!!
 

Something Scrappy!!

I was asked to give a demo on "Something Scrappy" at our guild meeting this  month so this is the gist of it along with some additional pictures.

I should start off by saying how I define scraps.  They can be leftovers, random scraps picked up at a free table, fabric that I can't stand looking at anymore, fabric that I couldn't pass up because of the price but for which I don't have much use, fabric that was included in a fat quarters pack that I didn't use and of course the "what was I thinking " fabric!

I think there are three important things to make a successful scrap quilt --VALUE (contrast), unifying element which could even be sashing or borders and a few surprises (1, 3 or 5}

  Organizing Scraps

 Solids and Solid Substitutes i I keep these sorted by color  

 Patterned

 Black and White = I consider these separately as patterned black and white really needs a quilt nof its own.  It doesn't play well with others.  I use colors as the accent usually some kind of four patch.

 Cutting Solid and Solid Substitute Scraps

 45 Inches Wide – 2 ½ in strips and 2 in strips. If you have enough, cut 6 2 ½ in strips and use as binding. If you have some that is about 5 inches wide, cut charm squares (5 x 5) Less than 45, just cut strips or charm squares

 Cutting Patterned Scraps If wider than 10 inches, cut “layer cake” squares (10 x 10} Narrower, cut “charm” squares. Cut strips if anything that is left

 Cutting Black and White Personal preference but I cut mine 3 ½ x 6 ½ for two .patterns I usse aloy

 Easy Patterns.

 Potato Chip Quilt - 2 ½ x 4 ½ strips.  First sew two strips together.  Then add contrasting strip to the top and bottom.  Then make two strips by sewing together two of the 2 1/2 x 4 1/2. Sew those two long strips to either side.

This show a variation where there is a light  piece in alternating corners.

 Disappearing 4 patch – 4 charm squares Sew a 4 patch alternating dark and light Make 4 cuts, 2 horizontal and 2 vertical 1 ½ inches from either side of center 

 Delectable Mountains – 2 layer cake squares {10 inch square} Make 2 half square triangles out of one dark and one light 10 in square

. Place 1 half square triangle with the light side on the bottom left and the other half square triangle with the dark side on the lower left Cut top to bottom each 2 3/8 inches apart across half square triangles

Sort each so that the 4th to the right is now first, third is now second, second is not third and 1st is ow 4tt. Sew back together in new configurations

A Little How To for the Many Bags That I have Made

This is one of the simpler bags you can made and I have made it in many sizes.  Below are directions for constructing the bag which you can make the size you want.

1. Assemble the fabric.  You will need enough of 2 fabrics to cut out a front, back, 2 sides and a bottom,  You might want some for additional pockets as well. You will also need some fusible interfacting.  I also cut out two 2 1/2 in x 22 in strips of interfacting and fabric for the handles,  This is pretty consistent for straps no matter the size of the bag.

2.  Decide what size you want the bag. For instance, say one that is 18 in high, 12 inces wide and 4 inches deep.  You would then cut fabric for back and front, then sides and then the bottom,  You need to cut the lining, main fabric and the interfacting the same  size,  I add a alf inch to each dimension so I would cut 19 x 13 inch pieces for the front and back

 19 x  5 inches for the sides and 5 x 13 inch piece for the bottom, 

3. Iron the interfacingt onto the front and back pieces.

4.  Iron the interfacting onto the straps.  Fold the straps in half and fold over the sides so that they are one inch wide  Sew down both sides,  Attach to the main fabric by laying the strap facing the bottom of the bag and sew down.  Fold up so the straps are facing the top and sew around a once inch square.

5.  Place lining fabric on top of the main front and back right sides together making sure straps are not caught along the top.  Sew along the top and then open up,

6.  Do the same for the two side pieces.

7.   Pin the lining/main fabric pieces together so they don't slip, then sew the side pieces to the main pieces leaving a 1/2 inch opening at the bottom,  Pin the bottom on and sew all the way 

to about 1/2 inch from the sides.  Trim all the seams to 1/4 inch.  

8.   On the right side sew about 3/8 of an inch at each seam.  This is so there will be no raw edges in the bag.

At the beginning, you might also decide to add a pocket to the lining or the outside and this should be done at the time you are adding on the straps,

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More Baby Quilts!

I am very happy with how the quilt made using the unusual block turned out.  My version ends up with blocks that are 10 1/2 inches before sewing together.  It is made up of 4 in squares, 4 1/2 squares that I use to make half square triangles, and 5 in squares which I use to made the quarter square triangles.  I will be making more of these as I have lots of squares in ll these sizes.  I showed the basic block in my last blog post,

  

This quilt and the previous one are the same as many others I  have done as I have lots and lots of black and white prints.  The blocks are very simple - made up of 3 in finished 4 patches and 4 3 x 6 finished strips, half dark and half light.  I found out the hard way that you have to be careful to add the strips in exactly the same way each time and I ended up with mirror images in the next batch I was doing!  

This is kind of an "I Spy" which is why I blew it up a bit.  Again, I used many of thpse 5 in charm squares that I  have accunulated.  I try to be really good now about cutting up any leftover backing fabrics into squares.  I do squares with this type of fabric as it generally is highly patterned and not great for strips.  I cut solid substitutes for the most part into strips  This keeps the random scraps to somewhat of a minimum. 

Each of these baby quilts is 40 x 40 are are distributed to the Neo-natal unit at the local hospital,I am also working on some larger quilts which go to various charities,  I contributed 4 quilts to the Hurricane victim out in western North Carolina,  

I have also finished a challege wall hanging for our quilt guild challege -- triangles.  I call my "Somewhat Obtuse" and will post it after it is shown -- it is a secret for now!!

 

Half Rectangle Triangles and a New Block I Am Trying!

This is the finished top (except for borders) I made using the half recctangle triangles.  It currently measures 33 x 55 but will be larger after the borders.

This is the basic block that makes up this patterns.  The only tricky part is getting the triangles going in the right direction when piecing.

I used this technique to make the half square triangles.  The pieces were 5 1/4 in x 2 1/2 in.  It was supposed to yield a 4 1/2 x 2 1/2 rectangle and it some cases it did!!  A lot of cases it didn't...

This is the other technique I used and it didn't yield anywhere near the results I wanted as the tectangles were too tall and too skinny!  So next time I decided to use half rectangle triangles, I will use the handy, dandy rulers I purchased pictured below!

This is the new block I will be playing with.  A friend sent me the Instagram post with this made up and it was quite easy to figure it out (the piece was made up of many blocks).  More on my next post about the proportions you need to make this.  It is a great use of all those different size squares I have stashed away in plastic bags -- 5", 4 1/2", 4/" amd 3 1/2..

"

Still Quilting!! And a Couple of Birds!!

I had a day of sewing off site and managed to put together four tops for charity -- 3 baby quilt tops and 1 larger one.  This one is a bit of an I Spy and is 40 x 40.

I was going to combine the next two for a large quilt and then decided I would just make 2 baby quilts instead.  These tops will need to have some border fabric to make them 40 x 40.

I definitely think this one which is 40 x 80 needs to be a bit wider so probably will add some borders as well.

This is the back of a Quilt as You Go quilt which is 60 x 80 -- bigger than I usually go.  I have a ton of 10 squares as well as all my strip scraps.

I like this one but will make the yellow center smaller the next time'

T.

 This is my latest interest and I haven't managed to conquer it yet!!  This block uses half rectangle triangles which are super tricky to get the right size and I still havent succeeded.  This piece has 36 blocks which you group together to make 9 big blocks.  These are not sewn together yet but when they are, I am afraid a lot of points will be blunted.  Haven't decided whether dI should make 7 more so that it is 4 x 4 and 44 in x 44 in.  I have used 2 different techniques so far to make these triangles the right size.  I finally bought two tools which should help but it is too late to change "horses" on this top!  The blocks were supposed to be 6 x 6 finished but are 5 1/2 x 5 1;2 finished.  I really like the effect of this block whch is easy except for those pesky half rectangle triangles!

It was nice to see something other than mallards in the local water.  Here are two ibis which were with a larger group.

And finally saw some Lesser Scaup down at Carolina Beach Lake.  I used to see lots of different ducks down there and was glad to see some of my old favorites back.