Miscellaneous Projects for the New Year

I decided I wanted to try to make some more comfortable fitted masks and found a template and some elastic ties that were adjustable.  I had some marbled fabric that really wasn't good for much of anything.  With either the ties or the mask pattern came a little baggie full of nose pieces.  Took me a couple before I got into the rhythm but then they only took about 15 minutes each and I ended up making about 25.  Husband and daughter both requested some and I am sending a bunch to my far away daughter as well.  Below is a closeup of one of the masks.

 

I rediscovered a bunch of triangles and blocks for kaleidoscopic quilts for neonatal but I thought they worked better as bigger quilts which will also be donated.  This was the beginning of setting one up.

I discovered this knot block online and thought I would try it out.  After making the first few above, I decided to not make the predominant pieces so scrappy.  Doing it again I would probably use a brighter more striking color as part of the knot instead of the green.  The block is really simple.

This is the fabric for the next stack and whack  While organizing on New Year's Day, I discovered two bags of already made blocks from last summer's sewing.

Much like another quilt I did, I surrounded each 4 1/2 inch block with different colors as i thought it was a bit dull.  Most are my hand dyes with a couple of old sateens (the pinks) thrown in!

Here it is done.  It is about 42 x 60 so will make a nice charity quilt.

Used some more of the kaleidoscocpe triangles to make one of my favorite versions.  I did a large one of these last year which my daughter grabbed  up!  This ended up about 40 x 60 also.

Charity Quilts Finished and on to a New Home

This and the following quilts are all finished and off my hands, donated to a local charity group.  I did manage to hand bind all of them!

 

Using up the Leftovers from the Blueberry Bagel Quilt!

I had one heck of a lot of triangles left after finishing the Blueberry Bagel quilt so spent one evening pinning darks to lights.  Here are the first 24 squares.  I decided to go with a 4 x 6 arrangement.  It ended up that I had made 49 blocks altogether so had one left over.  This is of course just a simple kaleidoscope block.  Squaring them up is a little easier now that I have new smaller square rulers.  It is still a pain.

I decided that these needed at least one border to contain all the light.  This one is a dark green and will have dark green binding as well.  It is about 44 x 58.  I have completed machine quilting this one as well

I surrounded this one with a blue hand dye with some purple turrounded this one with a blue hand dye with some purple tendencies.I spray basted these two plus one other quilt top I had finished and managed to get the machine quilting done on one of the kaleidoscope quilts.

This  is a closeup of the quilting on the green bordered quilt.  I was do the same with the blue bordered one.  I first stitched in the ditch between each square and then free hand quilted in all the light areas first stitching in the ditch free hand outlining the light area.  

QBTS October Meeting and Sweet Charity

I was very late in getting back to my Wilmington quilt guild -- Quilters by the Sea.  The first part of our show and tell is always a quick walk through of all the quilts made for the Neo-natal unit at the hospital.  For a guild the size of this one, they do a tremendous number of quilts.  Of course, because of the August heat and Hurricane Florence, there had not been a meeting since July so there were a lot of baby quilts .  Don't you just love some of these!!

 It is hard to get pictures of all the quilts but some people slowed down in front of me.  For some reason, I really liked this quilt a lot!

The following quilts were all part of our Show and Tell.  You can see that Christmas quilts are beginning to creep in!

Pat used the kit from the cancelled September class to make this wall hanging which is just wonderful!!

A very clever wreath.

A good sized tote made with Kaffe Fasett fabrics.

Michelle just got this quilt back from England where it has been for quite some time.  Michelle teaches her techniques nationally and has been our program chair this last year and did a wonderful job!

Another quilt I just love -- scrappy of course!!

 These next three quilts were made as part of the Sweet Charity group.  This was the sample so we new what we were aiming for.



The following two were made in about 3 hours by about six of us.  Four of us were sewing and two were ironing.  It is a very efficient way to work and the results are always so nice and scrappy!!

I worked primarily on this one.

They were basically just triangles with log cabin style strips around the -- just one round though.

Sweet Charity Sewing Day and Finished Stack and Whack

It was Nancy's day to pick a quilt to construct in record time.  She called this Stacks of strings.  I was fascinated by this block and we sewed like crazy this afternoon and made enough blocks for two fairly decent sized quilts.  This was just to show what it would look like when done.

It is not obvious how this is made or how it goes together from the pictures and I was very curious as I love scrap quilts (you might have noticed).  The block is made up of two 4 1/2 inch by 10 inch rectangles.  

Our process was to first make strip sets at least 5 1/2 inches wide and 10 inches in length.  The triangles were already cut so I don't know their height but may try one on my own to make up a pattern.  

We then attached one of these light strip sets to a 60 degree triangle on the right hand side and then a strip on the left hand side.

Each of the steps is done by a different person -- one sews, one irons, one trims.  The final step after the strip sets were attached was to place a ruler on this odd looking thing and trim to line up with the bottom of the triangle and the top of the triangle.  Then the ruler is placed so that the 5 1/2 inch mark is at the point of the triangle and it is cut to a rectangle.  We wasted a bit of fabric but these were literally scraps.  I think it would be more efficient to cut the strip sets into diamonds using a 60 degree ruler marking and then we would only be trimming a bit off.  Don't know how wide the diamonds would have to be but will work through one.  It was important to always have the light darks consistently on the same side.

Here is a display of some of the blocks we did so you can see how they fit together.

This is the second of the stack and whacks from the same fabric.  It ended up being about 45 x 60 inches so a decent size.

I ended up putting all the second set of blocks up on the design wall and decided that it didn't do it for me so will use the format I used for the other two and use white fabric for the setting triangles.  Don't know whether it will result in one or two quilts.  The radial symmetry is so pretty in some of them, I think they need to show off more!