Still Alive and Kicking and Quilting up a Storm!

Before I left the south, I put together some kits so that I could finish a bunch of baby quilts when I got back  north!  I have managed to complete seven tops in 14 days so I think that is rather impressive.  They are a bit repetitive but I enjoy all the scrapiness,  This one is my standard baby quilt of 40 inches square and had.  Easy to make as the striped secctions are made up of 2 in wide stripa which frinish to the same size as thosse 5 inch squares.  It is basically an "I Spy" kind of quilt.

This is one of my enhanced "potato chip" quilts where I substitute and 4 1/2 x 4 1/2 in white square for the middle of the block instead of the 2 1/2 wide pieces.  I really like this block a lot!!  This is a pretty good sized quilt and will finish to about 50 x 72 when I add borders (after I machine quilt it).

This is one of 2 quilt tops I have made for the local neonatal unit and is 24 x 40.  

Two more of the baby quilts.

A stack and whack quilt in purples that is all finished but it hasn't gone to anyone yet.  Daughter is supposed to find a friend who is into purple as it is very purple!

This was made from "orphan" blocks from two different quilts made quite some time ago.  I have surrounded them withh wonky long cabin blocks made from the tons of brown scraps I have.  I gave a way a whole bunch at quilt club as well as a bag of  orphan blocks that I couldn't stand looking at again.    They were quickly pick up off the free table!  I don't think I am going to donate this oe as I like it and it is fairly good sized.  We shall see.

 

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!

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!

 

Catching Up!

 

I decided to do some dyeing this past week while my husband was away.  I was anxious to try a new technique I saw on FB.  It seemed it would be less work than some of the other techniques I use in Ice dyeing.  

The technique is to apply the dye directly to the fabric, sprinkle some soda ash on top and then cover with the with the ice.  The tshirts were first soaked in soda ash solution for several hours and then dried before applying the dyes.

Hint -- it was probably not less work and I am not sure I am crazy about the results but it was worth a try.  There was so  much dye used that the rinse out was a super pain!!  Bloggerf is not behaving and keeps losing my pictures and making all my text get underlined and changing colors!

This was an attempt and vertical stripes but not very successful.

This was probably the one I liked the best of the bunch!

A slightly more successful stripey one.

Not too bad but still not there!

This and the next top were both finished from the same flowered fabric and I have a lot more but will use to back one of the quilts.The third picture is the fabric I used,

These are more of the wonky log cabin blocks and I am seriously getting sick of the blue strips I have!!  I decided to use some of them to make a large tote bag which is pictured below.  Because I don't have a great cutting surface here, it was touchy but I got it done and it is practical.  I will probably quilt the bag if I do another one,  I certainly have enough of these blocks!

Back to doing a quilt as you go quilt.  I am further along now and used a medium blue for the sashing and the binding.  The back is really pretty cute but find this a little too bright even for me.  As I mentioned before, I am sick of these blue strips and still have a large bag filled with them!

A Break in the Quilt Show -- More Stack and Whacks

I am continuing to find uses for all those stack and whack blocks I made before heading north.  As of today, I only have one more batch untouched and the fabric to cut up some more but that may have to wait for a while.  Quilt show pictures will continue tomorrow as I still have quite a few and there were so many wonderful quilts,

I have enough of this fabric to make a least two more stack and whacks and trying to decide whether I will or just use of the fabric as backing! 

This was my original thought about how I would arrange these octagon stack and whacks but the finished size of each block was only about 4 1/2 inches so needed another plan.

I decided to go with blocks on point with sashing between to give it more width.  I will still need borders though,

Unfortunately, I had all the sashing cut and the top assembled before I discovered this pretty awful error on the right hand side,  A lot of ripping out seams and I got it straightened out today,

All fixed and corners done using the quarter square triangles that I had cut too small for the sides -- my error from a couple of days ago and finally used the faulty triangles.  it definitely will need borders though to make it a decent width and that has been a conundrum,

At first I thoght i would go with the bright pink next to the green and then more white.  It didn't work for me so decided to use a very narrow (1/2 in) wide pink, then a 1 in bright yellow and then will probably do white.  I cut the fabric but don't add borders until I have done the quilting of the middle

Finishing Up Some Tops

Finally got the inside of this quilt sewn together.  I will be adding a couple of borders after I do the quilting.  As I no longer have any batting here, it will wait until I head south.  I am pretty pleased with the result.  I found that I really didn't like surrounding the blocks with anything other than white but compromsed on the border.

I actually tried a configuration with half square triangles like I have done previously but again, didn't likee the colored fabrics abutting the "posies".  So I tried this configuration which was okay but didn't increase the overall size of the quilt anymore than surrounding each of the blocks with white sashing which is what I finally decided to do.

Here you can see all 64 blocks completed and basically how I decided to go with for a solution as I really like the individual blocks.

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All the blocks properly sashed.  Like the other quilt, I will first put a white border and then probably some green and maybe a dark purple.  It is currently 38 x 48.

 

I have a ton of 4 1/2  in x 2 1/2 strips cut.  There will probably be several more of these neonatal quilts done before I can use them all up!!  I don't have nearly enough of the 6 1/2 strips cut so that will be next.  

I still have some more blocks to deal with as well  - more stack and whacks.

Back to Stack and Whacks!

I brought a bunch of unmade blocks back from the south figuring I would work on them here -- actually two good sized boxes full!  I have l looked everywhere but can't find a picture of the fabric from which these blocks came.  My first though was to alternate these three color borders along with a couple of other fabrics I had.  These borders are all from my hand dyes,

I didn't like how the above looked so decided I would just border with the light  purple and green and make all the blocks in the middle white.  I had 30 blocks altogether so the arrangement will be 5 x 6 and each block finishes at 8 inches.  I haven't decided what borders to add and won't finish the whole thing until I get back to the beach where my big roll of batting lives!

They aren't sewn together yet but this is how the center will look.  I will be adding probably 3 borders but will have to do some auditioning first.  I will cut the pieces and put them with the top.  I have found for me, it is much better to add the borders after I have quilted the top.

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I still had a piece of fabric large enough for 4 repeats so I cut these blocks much smaller -- 2 1/2 in instead of  4 1/4.  I now have 64 of these to sew up and then more decisions about how to use them!  I like the smaller blocks better and I have loads of the light purple and light green fabric left.  I am thinking of arranging them with half square triangles.  We shall see!

In the meantime, have finally gotten all my quilts and garments ready for our quilt show this coming weekend,  There will be lots of pictures after that!!!

 

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Definitions and a Short Guide to What Works Best for Kaleidoscopic Quilt Blocks

 Stack and Whack

This is a technique first introduced by Bethany Reynolds probably 25 years ago more or less.  It is a short-cut method of creating kaleidoscopic blocks by cutting and stacking fabrics after you have determined what the repeat is by looking along the selvedge of the fabric. The key to a successful quilt block is choosing fabrics that match the variation of the technique that you are using and whether you want to make a bold statement or something more subtle and calming.   Overall, the best fabrics have a repeat that is between 12 and 36 inches with a design that quite varied but with significant areas of color.  The smaller the print, the smaller you will want to cut your squares or triangles to get the best effect.  I generally cut my strips between 2 1/2 inches to 4 1/2 inches.  I let the length of the repeat and the size of the elements be my guide.  For instance, with a 12 inch repeat I would probably cut strips 2 3/4 for a smaller print (4 strips which would use 11 inches of the repeat).  I do this as I want to make sure I get full strips and sometimes my ripped edges are a litle uneven.  For a 24 inch repeat,  I might make the strips 4 1/2 inches uilizing 22 1/2 in of the repeat.  I would use a larger width strips when constructing hexagons or octagons as you lose width with he points.  I very rarely use large strips for the 4 patch variation.

One of my very early stack and whack quilts.  Tdhis uses 60 degree diamonds.

Another very early quilt and also  60 degree triangles.

I think this was my very first stack and whack using the technique from Bethany's book and using half square triangles.

One Block Wonder

This is a sub-category of the above where you only use the original fabric wihout adding any corners or sashing.  The most popular form,of this is using hexagons (6 - 60 degree triangles).  and arranging them in a pleasant design using the predominant colors in the block to guide you.  I have seen 4 patch variations. A newer version of this quilt uses panel fabric (you need 7 repeats) where you reserve one repeat for the middle of the quilt.  I think that the most successful ones of this type have used a fabric that has significant areas of different colors and maybe a  large print with quite a bit of background or large areas of color variations. 

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This would be a good fabric for just about any variation but I chose to do a One Block Wonder,

This was one iteration of trying out a setting.

This is an example of a one block wonder using a panel.  I got this fabric on the sale rack at Walmarts and it was only $1.99/yd.  I have found some of the best fabrics for these kaleidoscopic quilts are found in the sale racks  I am especially drawn to flower prints myself. 

Posie Block

This is also a more recent version of the stack and whack and uses 4 squares to complete the blocks.  It is he simplest to construct and the most versatile as you can arrange the squares in four different configurations finding the one that is most pleasing to your eye.

A fairly recent posie quilt.  These were the leftovers from a larger quilt.  I also make potholders with blocks that don't make it into a quilt.

The picture below is the original quilt.  You might notice this is a little different.  I didn't have enough for 6 repeats so I did 3 repeats and combined them in blocks.  Looks a lot different than this one!

This shows the versatility of the 4 patch posie.  The "sister" blocks are sitting next to each other and look quite different!

I wish I had more pictures of the beginning fabric to show with these examples.  

Here is a piece of fabric for the above posie blocks.