I've been working so much lately, that this top is the only project I've completed so far this year. That should change the end of this month when a co-worker comes back from her medical leave.
The next project I started working on was using my scraps that I cut with my accuquilt just after Christmas. It is random and it'll be whatever it turns into... Wait and see...
I've now completed 8 slabs. (slow and steady wins the race, right?)
Making these blocks was a bit intimidating at first, but the more I make, the easier it is, and I just go with the flow instead of trying to judge if that scrap should go here or there. I just grab the next piece in the pile and sew it on whichever side it fits with as little waste as possible.
I don't necessarily love each block, but I love the concept of using up even the smallest scraps, and this organizes it in a way I can work with (I don't do well with randomness). Each scrap has a memory of another project, so in essence, this will end up being a memory quilt for me. And that, I love.
This is what I use to
store my random quilting stuff. The bigger drawers have my scraps, sorted by
size, smallest in the top drawer, largest in the bottom drawer. The
smaller drawers hold random things like paper patterns, rotary blades,
charm packs, fat quarter bundles, a quilt cut out but not assembled, fabric for a quilt yet to be cut out, thread, sewing machine feet, pins, safety pins... I keep my yardage, and fabric bought for specific projects, stored elsewhere.
I decided it was high time to do something with the scraps, as it's getting hard to slide the drawers, they are so full... Help came in two forms.
The first was a Christmas present! Welcome to my home, Accuquilt Go! fabric cutter. I've been waiting for you for a long time.
The second was a book. I've had this since the summer, and have looked through it on several occasions, but am now actually putting it to use.
I started with the drawer that has my smallest pieces in it; leftovers from other projects, teeny bits and pieces, but not so small that I could justify throwing them away. I just reached in and pulled out whatever scrap was on top of the pile.
If the scrap was large enough to cover any of the die shapes on the fabric cutter, I cut it. If not, it went into a different pile to be sorted later by color.
These are the new shapes I now have, just from that one drawer. Lots of half square triangles, and two sizes of squares. Two half square triangles fit together to make the smaller size square, and four of the smaller squares equals the size of the larger square, so they can all be mixed and matched into a scrap quilt. Then it was on to sorting the smaller bits by color.
Here are a few of the new mounds, sorted by color. You can see purple, blue, red, cream/pale yellow, orange/bright yellow, and pink. There was also a pile each of brown, black, white, and green. Sorting these was difficult at times, as quite a bit of my fabric is brightly multi-colored, leftover from making I spy quilts.
Once sorted, it was on to the book instructions, and piecing the fabric scraps back together to make "slabs" of one color family.
These are my slabs of black, 12" square. I don't have a lot of plain black. I'm drawn to brights on blacks, and my scraps reflect that. It took almost all of my black scraps to make these two slabs. The rest goes back in the drawer for next time. What a great way to use up the leftovers.
My machine is fixed and hums along as it should again. Yay!
So, onto the next project! I took those leftover squares from the Christmas Twister I made, and cut up some more red and some more green from my yard sale box of Christmas fabric, and made a big stack of half square triangles. Then I was at a crossroads of what to do with them. I hadn't thought that far in advance.
Pinterest to the rescue! I found this image that I fell in love with, but no pattern, (edit: I have since found a pattern, here, for a much smaller version) so I dug up my graph paper and drew it out.
I had no measurements from the original, so I just used the hst's I'd made and cut squares the same size in various reds and greens from that yard sale box of fabric. A special trip was made to buy enough white and a few more bits of green from my local quilt shop.
It took about a week to assemble the top, and I tried to let it be random, as long as two of the same fabric were not next to each other.
Some of the fabrics I love, some are ok, and some are just downright ugly. They are not all quilt shop quality, and I'm not even sure they are all cotton, but when they are all put together, it makes for a stunning quilt top.
(Oops, it's upside down, but we'll pretend we don't notice.) Finished size is about six feet on each side.
These aren't cotton, and have nothing to do with quilting, but I've been waiting a couple of weeks for my sewing machine to be serviced, and this is how I've passed the time.
They were a special order request, and I will be popping them in the mail later today.
I had found an advertisement for a box of assorted Christmas fabric scraps for ten dollars. Who could resist that kind of deal? I snatched it up in a hurry! Unfortunately, many of the fabrics are not my usual kind of quilting colors, so it has sat untouched for almost a year now...
Today, the snow is falling and it's looking a little blustery outside, so the itch to make wintery things has hit me. I have a Twister ruler that I've never used, and thought these Christmas fabrics might be just the thing to give it a try. I needed 36 ten inch squares plus a border. There were 42 different fabrics in the box, in all different conditions; some seemed brand new and untouched, some were prewashed, some had pieces cut out of them, some were just leftover scraps from someone else's projects. I just pulled one fabric out at a time, and if it was big enough to cut a ten inch square, I cut it out. It was easy to come up with 36 different squares this way.
I laid them out on the floor and tried to go for a pleasing, but random arrangement. For a border, I opted to go with white.
This is how the pattern instructs me to begin. All the squares are sewn together, and a border is added all the way around.
Then I use this fancy ruler to cut up all the blocks I just put together.
Then I sew them back together in the new arrangement, and I have a completed quilt top like this one. It finishes about a third smaller than it started, and I have a 4" square of each color leftover from the cutting process. I can leave it as is, or I can add a border or two to make it bigger.
Here's what I would do differently next time:
- watch the placement of similar colors next to each other (the two browns in the bottom row, for example)
- if using white as a border, put darker blocks along the edges where the border joins to avoid lights next to white
- solid colors and small prints look best (large prints are just too busy and the pinwheel effect gets lost)
I enjoyed the simplicity of this pattern. The instructions were easy to follow. The ruler has these little grippy feet that makes it a breeze to work with. The blocks were large. It was made in one day, in about 8 hours from start to finish (would be even faster if you used a layer cake precut).
I think I would be inclined to do another one.
I took some time out from quilting this week to work on a Halloween costume for a friend's little girl. If you are familiar with Pixar's movie Monsters, Inc., you might remember the character named Boo.
I had no pattern to work with. I googled, and pinned, and googled some more. It was trial and error, hit and miss, but eventually, a final product appeared.
As soon as I have a pic of her wearing it, I will post it, but I'm sure she'll be adorable for her first trick or treat session.
