4-patch fun

 Oh, I've had lots of fun quilting lately. I made the blocks for this first quilt late last year. I made the blocks before (the 1930's prints) and in fact I wanted to make the quilt again just in the 1800's fabrics.
I couldn't find a sashing fabric I liked, so chose to change the setting. Finding setting triangle fabric was easier.  Finally I decided to border it first with sashing fabric then border fabric to match the setting triangles. I wanted it to fit my table in case I was in the mood to use it there. I'll leave it on the wall a few days to think about how I might want to quilt it.

I mentioned last post how I have been cutting my scraps. Since them I've made more blocks.  The pile on the left goes together with the cornerstones shown. I still have to piece the sashing. The pile on the right can go to charity. There are a dozen blocks in each pile. I think. Do I have cataracts or are these pictures really dark? hmm. They could be tops soon but I've been using the longarm in the evening. So not likely.

 I quilted a 2012 top last weekend and I've got another small one ready to quilt next Yes, everywhere I turn I have another one to quilt. It seems if I decide how I want to quilt it then that's what gets quilted next.

The best alternative

It's winter in Wisconsin. We don't have snow now, but it's coldish. The best alternative I know to being out in the cold is spending time in the sewing room. Our temperatures have been a bit above normal the last month, so I get outside on good days for a hike. Now that hunting season is over Mark and I have started to work in the woods again, thinning the understory and stacking brush and wood from fallen trees. It's great to work in the woods when there is no snow and the leaves are off the trees. You can easily see all the trees that came down that you want to clean up. We don't aim to pick it all up cause really leaving it is good for the woods, but with much more forecasted to fall down, it'll be a real jungle in there if we don't clean it up some while we are able. And if feels good to work of those Christmas goodies.

In December I was able to finish my 1930's quilt I call my
porch quilt cause I think that's where it would look best, On someone's enclosed porch in summertime. Maybe with white wicker furniture. Sorry the photo is so pale.

On New Years Eve I finally put the borders on the Delectable Mountain Quilt that I made several years ago. I never took a good picture of it cause the border was never on it. I'm just showing you a quarter of the quilt here - my evidence that it's done.  It's big so I'll get it on the bed for a shot and I will get it on the flannel wall too, but that will wait till Mark moves some of His Christmas stuff in the way.

I told myself that I wasn't going to start anything new till I get the borders on 3 quilts. Then I found a 4th, then I made a 5th. Then I bordered 2. I still have to get a border for the 16 patch I did last month and I found the fabric for one other. I'm still using the excuse Mark's stuff is in my way. That should tell you that I started something new. 4 quilts actually. I just dove into my scraps and started cutting. Not without making some plans first. So I cut and kitted up a few more new quilts.That is always so much fun. Some plans aren't final. I didn't do any counting. I didn't even draw up any plans. For 2 of them I had a picture I put with the pieces.

The other 2 are mysteries. That means I don't even know what I am doing with them. There are 2 different sets of triangles. One set is 3" finished Civil War triangles, both light and dark. Do I sew them together for HST units. No, I don't think so. I went to EQ and tossed around a few ideas and quickly made a decision. But I need to cut more background and squares before I proceed. The box of scraps for that is at Studio 3. I'll pick those up tomorrow.

The other set I didn't cut just now, they have been accumulating for probably a few years. When I cleaned out the closet a few months ago, I noticed the box of 2" finished pieces was quite full and then I saw Nann  at WithStringsAttached had the same issue so made a quilt with her surplus triangles so I figured I ought to do the same since I was taking a break from quilting downstairs. What else is a quilter to do? I had a few ideas of what to do with them. First this block came to mind. Nope.

Then I decided I would make a block with the triangles arranged around a light center square like the first block in this picture. But where do I want to go from there? I tell you, it's a mystery. I'm still not sure. Look at the options. And there are more I am not showing. Nope, not going to EQ with this one. Well, I have been having a good time. I hope you have been busy quilting too.

Multi-tasking

I've been dabbling at quite a few different quilts in the last week or two.

I added borders to a few of the tops waiting. I updated the picture of the pinwheels with the green border added. I still have 2 big quilts that are waiting for their borders. Maybe by the end of the year.

I think this is a radiant star variation. I finished this one earlier this fall. I left it at Studio 3 and finally remembered to bring it home. I didn't have a definite plan for this one and I am happy enough with how it turned out. My original plan was to make a summer quilt. But with all the piecing in the stars, I don't think it is a good candidate for that. So to find the thinnest batting I can find. That may just be a layer of cotton flannel. I might add a flat green piping before a muslin binding but that will be determined after quilting in the year 20??.

I finished the quilting on the qpplique quilt. I did a bunch of quilting in the ditch on my pfaff upstairs. I have a hard time doing a good job of that on the long arm and I do like what it adds to some quilts. I'll start work on the binding at Studio 3 this afternoon. I am going to plan to use this one. That is as opposed to just displaying it. It's nice to be able to say I actually hand appliqued a quilt. I think it's my first!

Lisa was over the other day to finish cutting the blocks needed to enlarge the Broken Dishes quilt she chose. She did a fabulous job cutting. She hasn't worked with me in the sewing room in 20 years. She never did very much back then either. It was nice to share that with her. I'll do most of the sewing now to finish it but she may be interested in doing some. She liked the idea that it was a quilt we worked on together.

At Studio 3 I started work on a quilt using plaids. I've collected them for a good long while and when a bag of plaid scraps was turned in at church I just could resist no longer. Yet I couldn't decide what I wanted to do with them. The homespuns are a little thicker so I didn't want to many bulky triangle points coming together. So I chose 4 patches with a few Shoo Fly blocks mixed in. Still wasn't sure I'd like it so I only cut some. Yesterday after playing on the wall I could see it would be fine as long as I didn't use the busy plaids. Those are the ones with lots of light and dark colors in it. It's busy enough. Next I need to decide how much bigger I want to go. I have a bag fulllll of plaids.I like to mix in a few regular prints too. Just to relieve the business of the plaids. I hope to return to the ufo's in the closet soon.

Upstairs here at home I opened a box on the shelf that I thought was part 2 of a 2 box kit. I was wrong. I think I simply put the fabrics together cause they didn't go with anything else in my stash. I had no plans for these but before you know it I settled on 16 patch block. Hmmmm. What next? I thought of using them in the center of stars, but since I cut 2 1/2" strips that would make pretty large stars so I decided to frame them with triangles in a light gray then sash them.We will see how they like that treatment soon.
Yeah, One quilt at a time is just not my style.

To Continue

Work continues here in the sewing room. I have all the fabric put away with the exception of the tabletop basket of scraps I keep there to collect scraps as I work. I will plan to sort that sometime this week.

All week I've been hoping to get the pieced border on the Ohio Star quilt. Finally Sunday I had time alone and got that done. The blocks are 6". The triangles in the border are trimmings from cutting equilateral triangles for a charm quilt. I thought they were too big to toss so I thought of 6"Ohio stars. I didn't even make the first one and changed my mind about each star being so scrappy. I made half a dozen blocks before I remembered the reason for making the stars was to use those little scrap triangles. SO by then I was in love with the little Ohio stars and decided they would look great with a pieced border with scrappy triangles. As usual when I started I was unsure of the setting, setting fabric or the pieced border and the quilt evolved as I worked on it.  I think it turned out pretty awesome. I love the classics.
As I cleaned and sorted things in here and the closet I came across 6 tops waiting for their borders. That will be high on the priority list this week. Some of those tops have been waiting a few years already. It'll feel good to put them upstairs with the other tops.
I chose 2 of my own quilt tops to quilt next. The first is one of the three applique quilt tops I ever made. It is red and green and gold Virginia Reel pattern I think with a swag border. I used  water soluble Solvy to applique the swag. I wanted to remove that before I quilt it so this morning I did that in the tub and immediately I saw that I didn't finish doing the applique on the swag pieces. After drying it till damp I pressed those areas and finished the applique this afternoon. Yes with a blind stitch by machine. I plan to load it on the machine to begin quilting tonight.

I'm trying to catch up with everything including my quilt documentation binder. I can't seem to get a happy combination of camera and printer so I have refrained from printing out pictures for the binder. I'm doing it anyway.  There are a few quilts that I never photographed though they are a few years old. Like this sampler made with batiks. A couple of other quilters at Studio 3 did these blocks.  Only I set them with triangles to frame them.  I showed at least part of this before the border was on.
Time to go sew.

Stash assessment

I thought I better write before I forget everything I did. I've been pretty busy in my sewing rooms.
To finish where I left off in the last post, here is one more top that I put together this summer from a layer cake. I added a few more fabrics to the mix to reach this size. I like it. Even these huge 16" stars. I think I'll do it again someday but with smaller pieces.  I'm still trying to decide if I want to add a border.

Last Friday I brought home from Studio 3 a few empty project boxes. Finding room for them on the shelf in the closet was easy because there was a void where they had been before. This is a walk-in closet, 5' x 10' dedicated to my quilting. On one wall is fabric for church on  a book case  with a few novels for future reading. There's also a dresser still pretty full of fabric for garments. I open those drawers occasionally. And yes, promptly close them.  On the opposite wall is more of my stash, particularly scraps, project boxes filled with kits or ufos and backing fabric.

As I was putting away the boxes I noticed a few other boxes with leftovers from finished tops. I do not want to get in the habit of leaving scraps in individual boxes like that. So I emptied them and started straightening the shelves. In the process I was trying to decide which projects I would pull out next to take to Studio 3 where I piece. It's not like I needed another project there but I like to have options depending on my mood.
 In the end I emptied a few boxes I was through with, I condensed my other boxes of scraps, I found other bundles of coordinating fabric waiting its turn to become a quilt and placed those in the empty project boxes. That part was particularly fun. I'd vaguely recalled some of those purchases so it was like going shopping all over again but for free!

A few boxes from the top shelf labeled "Parts Department" came down. This is where I stash patches if I cut way too many of a patch. This is different from scraps because in the Parts Dept. there is a quantity of the same patch. Could be 12 could be 200 if I change my mind on a fabric after cutting! I made about 20 blocks from the boxes earlier this week. Some of the patches have been there almost 20 years, and I still love the fabric! I still have another dozen blocks planned from the parts Dept to sew together waiting in line at Studio 3. Stay tuned and you'll see the others.



As I'm rummaging in the closet I'm looking for some of my most recent fabric purchases. Couldn't find them anywhere. Did I mention yet that yes, I ran out of room to store my fabric in the usual places. I didn't feel good about that. Took quite a while looking for that fabric when I remembered that for the first time ever I put bundles of coordinating fabric in a few canvas totes and hung them back on the wall looking innocently like they had before I put fabric in them. Oops. So they came out of hiding so I can begin to plan to use them. It can take some time sometimes to decide on a pattern for a group of fabric. Yes, sometimes I choose the pattern first and have to hunt for fabric. It works both ways for me. I made a few plans for quilts from some other bundles I found in there. That might have meant scribbling a note or sketch of those plans to go in the box.

All of this led to reorganizing my main stash in the sewing room drawers. Boy does it need it. Not sure how I plan to arrange it yet. I went through all the drawers of fabric and found scraps and fat quarters out of place. Refolding alone opens up space. I found a few fabrics meant for backs. That led me to the backing stash and organizing that. When I found I still had too much to fit in the drawers its back into the closet into the other dresser where more fabric is stashed. So I sorted through 2 drawers and rearranged more. Like I said I'm not done yet but so pleased I am doing it. I can see I am going to have to plan lots more scrap quilts.

Also this week, I was able to get a few small tops quilted. Some are out of the house already. This brown star was started as a committee project for guild. We never could get it to lie flat. It was my fabric so I kept it when it was abandoned. This was about 33 years ago. Maybe 7 years ago I reworked the setting triangles to get it flat and finally quilted it the other day. Then after quilting the pastel Twin Peaks quilt for a baby I bound it.
 If I could figure out Google Photos I'd share more. Tips welcome.
And the weeks not over.

Still At It

I've been back in the sewing room for several weeks now that it is autumn and cooled off outside. This is the year that we had 7" of snow for Halloween. Not only have I been in the sewing room but down in the quilt cave too, quilting some tops for the church ladies charity quilting. The following quilt tops I finished this year, 2019.

I will start with the sampler I left off with in March. I finished it shortly after that post it just took a while to get a good picture and get me back at the computer. I still want to add a border of the background fabric. Why I stop at this point (so often) and don't get those borders on before the picture is beyond me. I'll try harder.But really I've been leaning more towards no border on the quilts. If you recall this was truly a "What's in the Box?" project. a planned project I abandoned along with directions. However many pieces were cut so I just got creative and designed blocks with what was  cut. Fun. Fun.

This star and chain pattern is a classic no  matter which star and which chain blocks you choose. I used scraps from a Civil War charm quilt I'm still working on for the star points. The rest was from the scrap box at Studio 3.












This leaf quilt didn't turn out as planned. I designed a quilt for Studio 3 where 3 shades of sky blue were used from light to dark across the quilt. I didn't really plan to do it myself as I have several leaf quilts but I made the attempt. I just didn't like any other prints for the leaves. All the leaves in this top are from the same fabric I've had in the stash for years. Mark suggested alternating the block backgrounds and I think he had a good idea. No border is planned.

I've been wanting to make some pinwheels lately, so I did!  I cut the kit for these next 2 kits last winter I think. I dug deep in the scrap archives for the green and jewel tones. I have to hunt down the green for the border. I hope I can find one/it. I stopped making blocks when I ran out of gray background. I like that approach to determining size. I just wish most people understood that every size  quilt is useful.
Edited to change photo with border added.


The pinwheels below right I made with some1930's prints back in 2014. I inspired myself this time and
used my Civil War prints to make the variation.

 I made more but they will be shown in the next post.

Birds in the Birch

I knew when I wrote the last post that I was missing a photo. Only one that I can remember now. So here it is on the right. I finally took a picture. I loved the cardinal/chickadee fabric. Anyone that knows me knows that I don't like novelty prints. Most are too cutesy for me, but this is on the elegant side.  I plan to finish it up for my living room in the winter.

The pattern shown here, Midnight Express, is from my book, S is for Scraps. It's the pattern I used for the Birds in the Birch above. When I designed the quilt I thought the big gray squares would be a good place to showcase either pretty quilting design or a picture print like the birds above. I didn't like the idea of the birds with the scraps, but I'm sure the right cute fabric would still work with scraps. Ugh. So many ideas, so little time. Yes The book is still available from me for $15.00 plus $7 for postage. It's rare that I do the same pattern twice, but if I like it I will and good at lectures.

Next up is the Monkey Wrench quilt in browns and pinks. Recently I've been interested in reversing the position of the lights and darks in blocks. In other words, use a dark print in the area we usually call "the background". In this case I chose to mix up the prints of one color per block because I was cutting into a charm pack and couldn't get all the pieces for one block from the 5" squares. I made 6" blocks for this quilt. I want to throw this one on my dining room table and see how I feel about the size. I usually use square quilts on the table and sometimes I wish they covered the whole table top. I don't want them hanging over  the edge.  We'll see.

I have made the Monkey Wrench before. Maybe you know this block by the name Hole in the Barn Door. These are 5" blocks, made back in the day when I hand quilted. I bet this is over 30 years old.I see it's starting to sag and fade. Good excuse to make a replacement for that spot.

I'm going to plan to link up to a few linky parties. It's a good time for blog hopping.
Oh Scrap!
Design Wall Monday