Tag Archives: made fabric

Scrappy HST Finish

This finish was long in the making. I started making large (9″ square) scrappy HSTs in the beginning of 2016 as my RSC16 project. They were a lot of fun to make and I easily finished the quilt top by the end of the year. Then I promptly pressed it, hung it neatly in the closet, and closed the door. It languished for all of 2017, poor ignored quilt top. I think I left it there because I felt it was too small and I wasn’t sure what to do with it.

At the beginning of this year, I decided to make a stack of 5″ squared scrappy blocks. Without any plan, I figured I would somehow use them for a border. After making the blocks, I figured out the size rectangles I needed to space between the squares to create the border. For the most part, this worked ok. But you know me and quilt math….. When I laid out the border and it looked like I would be coming up short, I just expanded one or two of the scrappy blocks to compensate. I hope this doesn’t offend anyone. It doesn’t bother me. 🙂

In fact, I love it. I am wild about this quilt. It is my kind of project. Imperfection works in this sort of quilt. I am pleased with the colors, the polka dot background which provides a nice spot for the eye to rest, the border of gray dots between the HST’s and the scrappy border – all of it! This one took a long while to come together, but it was worth the wait! I took it to the long arm shop and quilted it with a meandering loopy motif. Some little spirals, some large loops and some small ones. It left the quilt with a nice, cozy drape. This was a lot of fun to quilt and took no time at all.

For the backing, I chose Newsprint in a wide back. This was designed by Carrie Bloomston and is probably my favorite backing. When I ordered my first bolt of it, I was pleasantly surprised to sell the bolt within weeks. I just received a second bolt so I have it in stock again. Because it is such a fun print, I also take the wide back and cut fat quarters and 1/2 yard pieces. Each of these (wide back, fat quarter, and 1/2 yard cuts) are available in my shop.

The binding is a print by Lotta Jansdotter called Aliisa from her Lemmikki line. I really like this fabric but looking back, I don’t know if it is the best match for the quilt. The color is “slate” but when it is next to Newsprint and the gray dotted background, it has a very blue tone. Because the quilt is so scrappy, I decided to go with it anyway. I like the angular pattern of the print. So, I think it is ‘good enough’. I did go back to the listing though and update my description to explain about the blue hues this fabric has. If you are intrigued by this one, click here to see the shop listing.

I can happily check this one off the list and report I am down to three unfinished quilts in the closet. Well, that is not including either of the RSC18 projects I am working on. Not too terrible!

Tomorrow I am off to see my kids in Vermont. Probably no blog posts until I get back – unless I change my mind. 😉 I am so excited to see my grand daughter. She started walking last week and it will be so fun to watch her toddling around. Like I mentioned in my last post, any Etsy orders placed by 3:00 Friday (today) will ship. If placed after that, they will ship on Monday, April 2nd. The last time I was gone like this, I promised to refund half of the shipping charge for orders placed in my absence – sort of a thank you for being patient and waiting until the 2nd for shipment. Same goes with this trip! Place the order and just know I will pay half of your shipping cost. Thanks so much for understanding!. It is a bit difficult to be a grammy to a little girl in Vermont when you live in California!

Linking to Finish It Up Friday and a few others. All are listed at the top of the page, under Link Ups.

Scrappy HST Progress

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Over the last couple of weeks I have been working on my scrappy HST project. You might remember that I have been making fabric with my scrap bins and then pairing the made fabric with a deep gray polka dot and creating HST’s. Last time I posted about this project, I mentioned I wanted to make two more sets to complete the quilt top.

I made a pale yellow set.

After that, I stitched a light green set of blocks.

I am quite pleased with the effect of these scrappy blocks now that they are sewn together. There are so many fun bits of fabric to look at and enough different values within the quilt top to make it really interesting. The two shades each of blue, yellow, red and green are really nice.

It isn’t quite big enough though. I added a two inch border to frame it in gray. Now I am going through the chunks of scrap left from trimming the made fabric. I want to make a scrappy border with these pieces. I am thinking it will be about 3 to 4 inches wide, depending on what the scraps look like. There isn’t going to be quite enough so I will have to build them up – this is certainly not a problem. If you could only see my scrap bins!

For now though, I am setting this aside. It is nearly finished and won’t take very much time to do that last border. However, I have a few gifts that I am working on and hope to have completed by Thanksgiving. Always something to work on, right?

Hoping everyone had a wonderful weekend!

Linking to Crazy Mom Quilts and Scraptastic Tuesday this week.

Scrappy Finish for the Month

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As with last month, I finished my scrappy blocks just in the nick of time. I finished with only one day to spare. September has come to a close. Time moves at a dizzying pace sometimes. Anyway, I played with some deep red scraps and added gold accents where I could as this was the RSC16 color scheme for September. This is a combination I really like. It worked better for my scrappy HST’s than it did for the gemstone project. The gemstone project requires I cut 3 1/2″ blocks and I didn’t really have very many deep red scraps that were big enough. I had tons of strings though which I used for the scrappy HST’s. Here you go. Take a look.

I love these colors. They add a richness to the project. What do you think?

I was playing with these blocks on Tuesday when Julia was recuperating on the couch. We looked at colors trying to decide the last two colors to finish this off. Of course I don’t know what the October color will be for RSC16 but I think I am going to do a set of deep purple blocks and a set a very pale yellow. (Unless, of course, Angela comes up with some crazy colors for the month of October that appeal to me more. We shall see. Also, I cannot decide if I should keep the multi colored scrappy blocks that are in the center. Do those stay or do they go?

As I said, I didn’t have much to work with for the Gemstones quilt. I do like the blocks but was only able to make two.

Here is the sum total of what I have thus far.

I definitely want to add some deep yellow blocks to this. I don’t know if I have the right scraps and may have to splurge on a fat quarter or two to supplement. Kind of silly to buy pieces for a scrappy project but I think it is calling for yellow. Also, it might need some blocks with a deep, midnight blue. Do you agree??

Glad I am keeping up with these, though just barely! I look forward to finding out the color for October and deciding if it works for either project, now that I am coming close to completing both of them.

Happy weekend everyone!!

As always, I’m linking up all over the place. My favorites are listed at the top of the page, under Link Ups.

Relief Quilting – Learning Something New

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I have been remiss in posting lately. It has been really hectic and I haven’t had time to sit with my laptop. What little free time there was, I spent in front of the sewing machine. A girl’s got her priorities, right? As summer came to a close, Julia had the typical teenager desire to pack as much as she could into those last few days. That is fine – she will soon be a slave to homework and won’t have a lot of free time. There were movies to see, shopping to do, and friends to hang out with. School started Wednesday and so another year begins.

When it is busy I like to have a simple project to work on during those 15 minutes of sewing time that present themselves now and then. I have been wanting to try relief quilting for quite a while now. Over a year ago, I read a cute post over at Night Quilter where Kitty explained her process of relief quilting a name on a baby quilt. I love the look and have been planning to give it a try. I pulled out some graph paper and fabric scraps and got started.

After creating this incredibly inspiring sketch of the project that was floating in my head, I brought out some alphabet stencils that I have. I don’t have the whole alphabet but it was enough to get going. I used the E in place of the F. For some reason, the R was a bit bigger than the rest. I think there are multiple sets in the zip-lok bag and these letters weren’t really from the same set.

Next I found a rectangular scrap of some Kona cotton and traced the letters, centering them as best I could. I didn’t measure this at all. I used a Frixion pen to trace them. I am not a huge fan of Frixion pens for marking but I figured this was just a practice piece so I wasn’t too worried about the final result. Isn’t there something totally freeing about working on a practice piece? Knowing it isn’t going to be your best work and it doesn’t have to be spot on allows one to sit down and have fun. No pressure.

I placed the fabric on top of the batting (which was a large piece that I had created with batting scrap). Using a walking foot, I started to fill in the areas around the letters I had traced. I used tight, straight-line quilting. Without a real plan, I was sort of all over the place – just filling in areas.

In retrospect, I see that I didn’t need to stitch as wide a swath above and below the letters. With my next attempt, I will plan a bit further and decide how far I really need to stitch. I wasted quite a bit of thread with the extra quilting. I used a variegated YLI thread which provided a nice bold look. The more I use YLI thread, the more I love it. The texture is provides is just wonderful.

When the quilting was done I was just thrilled with the look, even with the slightly oversized R! 😉

When I first sketched the project out, I planned to use a stack of 2 1/2″ squares that I have collected to make a border for this. Once I got to this point though, I changed my mind. This guy was calling out for a scrappy, improv border. With my bin of bright, multicolored scraps, I began piecing bits together with only a rough idea of what I wanted the result to be. For the borders I created two large improv pieces that were both more than five inches wide. Then I sliced each in half lengthwise, creating 4 strips measuring 2 1/2″ wide.

I laid them, right sides together, on both sides and stitched the border on. It was a bit of a Quilt as You Go project, since I was just sewing right on top of the base fabric and the batting. The bottom borders were stitched a few inches below and above the lettering. (This is where it became very clear that I didn’t need to quilt as high and low as I had done.)

Borders on and pressed, all that was left was to make baste the top to a backing and quilt it. I thought it would be cute to FMQ a spool of thread in one corner and then have the “thread” spooling off of it, looping along the borders.

After creating that little spool, I wished I had used a solid fabric on each corner so I could place spools on all four of them. I did put one on another corner but it doesn’t show up very well with the print fabric. The overall look is cute though, isn’t it?

I love all the bits of different fabric that surround this piece. They bring back a little memory of whatever project they were originally used in. A piece of green dotted fabric was used for the backing (I think I got it out of the remnant bin at Jo-Ann’s) and I bound it with the same Kona that is in the center.

As always, I would do a few things differently the next time I made this sort of project. If I were doing this sort of thing as a part of a larger quilt, I would fuse stabilizer behind the solid fabric and do the relief quilting over just the fabric (sans batting). Then I would incorporate the block into the larger project. Once I was quilting the larger project, I would use a walking foot to outline the letters (to quilt the block down).

I need to make a sleeve for it and then I will hang it above my sewing machine. This was great fun and I am really pleased with the result. I encourage you to give it a try. Let me know if you have any questions or check out Kitty’s tutorial.

Linking up all over the place – for details, look at the top of the page, under Link Ups.

Weekends are the time to shop Craftsy. This weekend they are having a Black Friday “When You Need It” sale on kits and supplies. If you are hoping to make handmade gifts in time for the holidays, it is a good time to make a plan and stock up. I love the kits at Craftsy – the fabric is often a huge bargain and no one will know if you use that fabric for a different purpose. I am loving this Benartex quilt kit – 100 charms and 3 yards of fabric? Another one is the Eclipse kit, which uses the Allison Glass Sunprints line. There are almost 18 yards of fabric included and the pattern is gorgeous.

If fabric isn’t your thing this weekend, there is also a great sale on books over at C&T. They are having a $5.00 Blowout Sale and many great quilting titles are on sale. I love C&T – they are the publishers of so many of our favorite quilty books. Check it out! Sale runs through the end of day on Sunday, August 21st.

(This post contains affiliate links.)

July’s Scrappy Projects

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This month I barely made it in time! I kept thinking about working on my two scrappy projects but there was always something else going on so I would put it off. But I squeaked them in. Part of the problem was that this month in RSC16 land, the color is hot pink with a lime green accent. People have been making some really awesome blocks with this combination but it just wasn’t calling to me. So I decided to change it up and pulled out my bin of red scraps instead.

Once I made that change I was able to get into the idea and worked first on my made fabric. Scraps came together well as the red bin is packed with scraps to choose from. For the Gemstones quilt, I wasn’t sure how any red blocks to make. I started with two. But I like the addition of the red so I will need to make two or three more. Looking at them all together, I am getting excited to finish this one up. Remember there will be sashing between the rows when I start to piece the top.

Looking at the scrappy HST’s, I am at somewhat of a deciding point.

I think it is time to commit to a layout. The layout will determine how many of any one color I will need. Well, unless I choose to go scrappy and not group by colorway. Above is a scrappy layout without grouping colors. Below is one where I am keeping colors together.

If I keep colors together, I think I need to sketch this out and try to plan how many blocks of each color will are needed. Do I break the colors up in any one row, or make enough that the row is cohesive. Decisions, decisions… I think I will do some planning using the Quiltography app that I recently posted about.

Alternatively, I could use a simpler layout. With this one, it feels like each row should be one color. Planning is still needed though. Luckily, I have been saving any chunks of the scrappy made fabric in case I need to make more of any color. It won’t take any time to add blocks here or there.

I am strongly leaning toward the first layout shown above. However, I am equally enjoying the scrappy look and the more organized, cohesive look. Will you throw in a vote? Striped layout or the diamond? Scrappy or organized colors? I am curious and would love to hear your thoughts.

This is the hottest part of our summer thus far with triple digit heat all week and into next. We were able to escape some of the heat while at the coast for a few days. Now that we are back home, Julia and I have been hunkered down enjoying the AC. It is just awful outside. Julia has been trying out some fun techniques with her water colors, making stencils with painters tape. This one is an interpretation of the Seattle skyline with the Space Needle featured.

She is also working on some lettering. Yesterday she was channeling Walt Disney.

I am pleased to see her enjoying other activities and relying less on technology. Three more weeks and school resumes. Hard to believe but summer is winding down. Hope you are staying cool these days!

Linking to Oh Scrap and Crazy Mom Quilts, both of which are listed at the top of the page, under Link Ups.

Turquoise or Aqua, Scrappy Projects

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The RSC16 color for June (according to Angela over at So Scrappy) is aqua. She suggested adding a pop of lime green but I am pretending I didn’t hear that part. 😉 I love the aqua part though. My blue scrap bin is overflowing and the lid no longer closes (literally) so I was happy to use a few scraps up.

This week I finished up the turquoise gemstones and they look so pretty. Turquoise, as in the actual gem, isn’t one of my favorites. But these blocks are. What do you think?

Now that I have so many blocks done, it is becoming difficult to lay them all out. (My design wall is not huge and the light in the sewing room makes for terrible photos.) But here is a sampling of them to give you an idea. I like this more and more with each month! I will have to find another way to lay them out. I suppose I will be crawling around on the floor with them next month!

After working on the Gemstone blocks (the pattern for which was designed by Cynthia Brunz and published in an issues of McCall’s Quilt magazine), I played with more aqua scraps to create some scrappy HST’s. These are so much fun to make. The process is very relaxing.

I have added these four HST’s to the pile which now consists of 24 eight inch blocks. As before, it is really fun to play with different layouts. This is a favorite of mine.

I am drawn to this configuration. Next month when July’s blocks are added to the pile, I will crawl around and arrange all of the HST’s and see where I am at that point. But this arrangement is high on my list! We will see after I add a few more rows to it.

There you have it! The scrappy updates for my June RSC16 projects. I am kind of hoping that July will be some shade of red. We haven’t done that this year and I want to create some ruby gemstone blocks.

If you haven’t already entered, I have a giveaway happening this week. Saturday, 6/11 is the last day to enter. Hop over and see! Have a great weekend all!

As usual, Craftsy has another great sale going on. Classes are 50% off beginning today, June 10th and running through the 13th. You know how I feel about their classes – I love them. If you haven’t tried one, now is the time.

(Note: I am a Craftsy affiliate and if purchases are made by clicking on the link I provide, I will be paid a small commission.)

Projects, Projects, Projects

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I am currently working on lots of different projects. I don’t normally do this but I am enjoying it. It allows me to enjoy bits of the process, depending on what I am in the mood for (piecing, trimming, stitching etc.)

I have been hand stitching the binding on my Square Dance quilt. I found a cute red and yellow print on a sale table that works well with this pallette. Picking this up in the evenings and stitching a bit is perfect. I brought it up to Downieville over the weekend for some hand sewing but only worked on it for a short while. I should have it finished up by the end of the week.

Knowing that we were going to be up at the house in DV, I made a little curtain. In our bedroom, there is a door leading to a tiny room which will someday be a sewing room. For now, it is where Ray keeps his tools and supplies for all of the work he is doing on the house. But someday…. it will be a perfect place to sew. This door has a window that I wanted to cover for privacy. The sewing room has windows that one can look through to the bedroom. I used a great piece of Tula Pink in gray and blue. I took the photo at a weird angle because the sun was coming through and when I took it straight on, the colors were way off.

Now that April is here, there is a new color for RSC16, orange. Not at all my favorite color, I was surprised to see how many scraps I had to work with. Last night I worked on “making” fabric (as discussed in “15 Minutes of Play” by Victoria Findlay Wolfe.) It is coming together well. I had a patchwork block left over from RSC14’s quilt so I unpicked some seams and used bits of patchwork for the new blocks.

These colors will add a huge pop to my scrappy HST quilt. I won’t use them for the Gemstones quilt though. After a little back and forth with Cynthia Brunz, she suggested swapping out orange for a deeper rust (think of Topaz gems). I love this idea but don’t have enough choices in my stash. I will pick up a few FQ’s for this.

Finally, I made huge progress on the Stepping Stones QAL that I am doing with Jennifer over at Inquiring Quilter. Participating in the QAL has been the perfect way to keep me on task. After many years of working to a deadline (which is so common in the HR world) I am finding that having the deadline is really helpful to me. I have pieced the 143 HST’s needed. I also cut some extra charms. After counting what I had, I came up slightly short. Take a look at these black and white FQ’s that I picked up to supplement my charm squares with.

I love all of these! The fabric at the top is a Tula Pink which I found interesting – I don’t think she uses black and white very often. It is gorgeous though.

2016 Advice and Tech Helpfor New Quilt Bloggers

Finally, I want to let you know that signups are open for the 2016 New Quilt Blogger session with Quilting Jetgirl, Late Night Quilter and Meadow Mist Designs. I participated in this activity last year. If you are relatively new to the quilt blogging world, I highly recommend participating. It was a valuable experience offering tips and techniques that taught me so much. Working with a large (we had about 70) group of bloggers, I became acquainted with many new bloggers. Opportunities were available which helped to push me to learn and grow (such as the block hops sponsored by Paint Brush Fabrics.) Be sure to check out the information at any of the three websites I have linked to and see what if this is right for you. If you have questions, leave them in the comments. Here are the criteria for participating in this event.

If you have been blogging mainly about modern quilting (modern quilting to you is modern quilting to us.),
for less than 2 years,
writing at least 4 posts a month,
are willing to agree to be actively involved in the blog hop through visiting and commenting on the other blogger’s hop posts,
and have or are willing to open a Facebook account to participate in the group discussions.

**If you are interested, sign up here!

Hope you are all having a wonderful week. Springtime is certainly long in coming to the east coast but we are in full swing on the west. My lilacs are fully blooming. I tried to cut some for inside the house but the fragrance was powerful and I couldn’t leave them. We were all sneezing after just a short while!

Linking to lots of fun places. Check out the links at the top of the page, under Link Ups.

Purple Scrappy Projects

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This week I discovered that I have almost no purple fabric; scrappy, yardage or otherwise. I don’t know why. The purple section on the shelf is nearly empty and my purple scrap bin is the same. I will soon have the pleasure of shopping for a few purple blenders to build things back up. But first, let me show you what I managed to cobble together for the RSC16 for the month of March.

My blocks for the Gemstone quilt are starting to accumulate. Here are the newest additions in all their purple splendor.

This quilt is going to be so pretty. The first three months look wonderful together. Remember that each block will be sashed in the pale green so they will be floating on the green background.

Because most of my purple scraps are strings of various widths, it was easier to work on my improv project. I made a slab of purple fabric using all sorts of tiny pieces.

Check out my teeny tiny HST’s on the lower right. Those were fun to put together. Once I had the slab done, I decided to start making blocks out of the slabs I had made thus far. I wasn’t sure what size I wanted to cut them to, so I practiced with an old rainbow slab I made a while back. I am going to make HST’s which will combine the made fabric and a simple gray polka dot fabric. Once I decided on the size block (9″) I started cutting the blue, pink and purple slabs. You’ll notice a substantial color difference in both of these shots. The photo above was taken on a rainy day when I had to rely on terrible lighting. The shot below was taken today with wonderful sunlight streaming in. The color below are much more accurate. (Thankfully so.)

I am loving how these are coming together.

I was careful to preserve the parts of the made fabric that I wanted to show up in the HSTs. My little girl, the pink pinwheel, the tiny purple HST’s, and the little deer on the edge of the other pink HST. For now, I am going to aim for four or five blocks from each color, which will give me about 50-55 blocks. Then I can lay them out and see what it still needs. I have plenty of the gray dot fabric for the project.

Cutting the made fabric slabs left me with a number of large scraps. I will hold on to these and can stitch them back together as needed for extra blocks when I lay this out.

Linking up with my usuals, including Oh Scrap and So Scrappy and looking forward to seeing what everyone is doing with their purple scraps this month!

Scrap Challenge Rebel

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If you follow along with Angela’s Rainbow Scrap Challenge, you probably know that this month’s color is mocha. Angela suggested adding bits of pink if that felt like a good idea. Hmmm…. neither of my scrappy projects for this year call for brown. So I rebelled and just sewed pink. Call me crazy.

I love both of my projects. They are coming along nicely now that I have two colors to look at.

Here are my blocks for the Pretty Gemstones quilt.

The pink looks great with the sage green solid corners. They look wonderful mixed in with the blue squares from January. I already know I am going to love this quilt. 🙂

I made two rather large pieces of “made” fabric, just like last month. I don’t have a huge amount of pink scrap but I found enough.

I love the scraps that are in this piece. The windmill block is made from those little triangles that were snipped off of my row of heart blocks when making my BOM for Classic Stitches last February. It is just peanut sized, measuring two inches square. There are pink dotted triangles that were saved from my Allison Glass mini quilt swap last spring. And, my favorite, the little girl looking into her jar of fireflies from a piece of Wee Wander, Wander Woods. I fussy cut her and will be sure top keep her intact when I make a block from this piece. It might be a trick to keep the tiny pinwheel and the little girl whole but that is my goal.

This second piece has more kidlets and a deer from the Wander W!oods piece. Check out the tree that looks like it is in blossom on the lower right. The pink plaid in the center is a piece of vintage fabric from the bundle of fabrics that were given to me last spring. There are a few fun posts about this fabric here and here. I love seeing bits and pieces of past projects popping up.

I am almost certain that I am going to create HST’s with these fabric collages. I bought a pall gray dotted fabric and I am thinking I will use that for the “other” side of the HST. My next decision is how big to cut the HST’s. I need to do a little thinking before I start cutting, but they will be on the big size. If I actually make any of the HST’s between now and next month, I will post them with my March scrappy post.

February was all about pink scraps for me. I am sure that at some point Angela will call for a pink month and I will have to substitute something else in that month.

Linking to Oh Scrap!, So Cute Tuesday, Linky Tuesday, and Let’s Bee Social. Find these links at the top of the page under link ups.