Scrappy Scot's Plaid

Yesterday I put the borders on this scrappy Scot's Plaid I made as a leader/ender project last January. It sat in a box for months as I debated how big to make it. So I decided just to go for a 1 1/2 inch inner border  in pink and 3 1/2 out border in black, repeating the pink and black in the quilt. Click on photo to see the wide variety of scraps I used for this quilt, mostly from the bricks and blocks I cut using Bonnie's Scrap User system. The backing is a black on white Anna Griffin bird print. This is going over to a friend for machine quilting on her mid-arm, and then to its intended recipient by Christmas. I impressed myself yesterday by cutting, piecing, and ironing the binding as well.

Collaborative quilts

Warning: quilt heavy content!

My quilt guild, the Strip Piecers met at my house earlier this week and we had much quilty goodness. Before they arrived, I moved my DR table to one end to leave a wide open space in the middle so we could layout quilt blocks. I have a really big dining room (11 by 15) so we laid out several at a time. Karen held hers up for everyone to see, and she made sure to tell me how my quilting style had influenced hers: note her freestyle letters and all the strip piecing (which I introduced to her in this quilt, after which our guild got its name.) Very fun. It's a wall hanging for her future SIL.

Here Cheryl, my partner in quilting crime, is holding up two 48 by 66 cuddle quilts for two little boys we both know. At right is the I Spy quilt I've shown before, rearranged a bit with more darks. At left is a strip-pieced quilt made from novelties from fellow guild member Bonnie, who gave us yards and yards of fabric she was done with. I supplemented it with the letter fabric and a few squares leftover from the I Spy. Cheryl strip pieced both onto navy microfleece backing, and brought the fleece to the front for a nice dark binding. Bonnie had enough yardage to make a pillowcase for both boys, which I haven't pictured. Thanks so much Bonnie!

Below are two of the monthly challenges. Each month a different guild member sets a challenge and we make the block in the colours or patterns she asks. At right are Laura's 6.5 inch string blocks which was our October challenge. She brought them back because she had a few more, and I gave her the 10 more that I made. Lovely, lovely, lovely. We tried out several b/w sashing fabrics, and she's hoping to make several quilts from these 99 she has. At right is Anne K's November challenge of Jack in the Box blocks in blues and purples. Mine are at the top right, including the mistake. I like the value combinations where the pinwheel appears to flip over , like the 2nd one from the left in the top row. At the bottom right is the bag of bonus HST squares we made when making the flying geese. Anne is the ultimate scrap quilter, so she'll find another use for these.

We have so much fun playing with these blocks and showing off our new quilts that some evenings we don't even get out our handwork. Thanks, Strip Piecers, for a fun and inspiring evening.

Round and round the circle

Several months ago I started cutting into my hand dyes, making circles from some and 8.5 by 11 inch backgrounds of others. I wanted to practice my applique skills on small quilts, just the size for Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative, and perfect for taking along.

So far I've done six little quilts, and I photographed the tops before I basted them to the backing and batting.

I'm planning to put corner triangles on the backs to hang the quilts, and then they can hang vertically or horizontally. I'm having fun playing with the colours and I'm liking the applique. I gathered these around templates I cut with my circle cutter for paper, pressed them, popped out the template, and pressed again, and then appliqued them to the background. I'm going to hand quilt these minis free hand, so they'll be take along projects for the next while.

This is the day...

that my two blogs converge. I've been writing about the psalms everyday for the past two months, today I'm writing about the psalm on which this quilt is based. Check it out here.

Not even one day of free motion quilting

I've been watching what Leah Day is doing over at her blog, 365 days of free motion quilting fillers, and I have to say, she makes it look easy and fun. I admire what she's doing, especially coming up with a new design each day. But when it comes down to it, I suck at free motion. Maybe it's my machine, maybe it's me, or it could be the combination.  Or maybe I need waaaaay more practice. So yesterday, when I should have been studying, I started practicing on some quilt-as-you-go blocks that I've abandoned. (Could someone tell me what to do with 12 or so of these 10 inch blocks? I was going to make a full-sized quilt for my bed, but I went another direction.)

At right is my pitiful free motion quilting, with jerky, uneven stiitches and no discernible pattern. This is with my old Elna SP with a plate covering the feed dogs and a darning foot. So I uncovered the feed dogs and put on my regular foot back and impressed myself with making this vine. Yes, I have to twist the fabric and stop to turn at the point of the leaves, but the stitching is even and controlled and the vine doesn't look too bad at all, considering I did it free hand. To prove to myself that this wasn't a one-shot wonder, I did three more squares, and they're  OK too, maybe even good. So maybe me and this machine can't free motion, but we can machine quilt, even without a walking foot. Now I need to find a blog that has 365 days of machine quilting designs, but not free motion. Any takers out there?

I also made a couple of blocks for my guild's monthly challenge. Anne K. asked us to make the Jack in the Box block in blues and purples, which I did at right, using a yummy Kaffe print and some hand-dyed tone on tone white fabric that's now purple. Using this value configuration made the block too swastiska-like for my taste. The one at the left is the result of making twice as many flying geese  as I needed, using the no waste method where you start with squares. I didn't have enough fabric to make two blocks, so this is a variation of the Jack in the Box.

While I was procrastinating from doing my homework yesterday (it did get done in time for my class presentation today) I made a dozen 6.5 inch string blocks for last month's guild challenge set by Laura to add to the 63 she already has. I'm valiantly attempting to empty my string box, or at least create some room in it, although I had to use some non-strings to get a pink block. I also made two black and white selvage blocks, as well as a word selvage one to match the dotted selvage one I made before. The blocks on my header are the ones I made for Laura last month.

I've been caught in the web!

I'm up to 21 scrappy spiderweb blocks, hoping for 36 to make a comforter cover measuring 82 by 84. Since these finish at slightly under 12 inches, that means I'll put a border around the blocks. As you can see, I'm using a variety of 1.5 inch red strips and three different neutrals for the foundation. These are fun because they are mindless but I'm amazed how many strings remain in my scrap box. When this is done, I'm going to enjoy lazing in bed under my newly-washed and re-ticked wool comforter and looking at the history of my quilt-making over the last five years with all these yummy (and some not so great) fabrics. I'm using Bonnie's method but sewing directly on the background, since this will not be quilted and the extra layer of fabric won't matter.

I was a winner at Jill at Quilt Rat's  postcard giveaway. She does beautiful machine quilting and she made the fabric for the exclamation mark by transferring her doodled design onto fabric with her printer, then colouring it with coloured pencils and fabric paints. Thanks so much for the inspiration and lovely postcard.

I spy lots of help from the quilting community

This I Spy quilt for a  young friend is made with the help of several of you out there in blogland as well as local friends who have been passing me bits of fabric over the last year. I've cut fabrics in 3.5 inch squares, 3.5 by 6.5 inch bricks or 6.5 inch blocks, and there's even a few 4.5 inch ones set in a 9 patch as well as one 12.5 inch block. Right now its laid out as 8 by 11 which will measure 48 by 66. My friend Cheryl is going to strip piece the rows onto a fleece backing, so we want to keep it narrower than a width of fleece. I've sewed together the 3.5 inch squares into four patches, and laid out the whole thing on the fuzzy side of a picnic tablecloth I bought at a yard sale for $1.

My inspiration was this Becky Goldsmith quilt on the Sept. page of my quilt calendar. She's got more darks in hers than I do, but I'm going for a similar colourwash effect.

Here are the squares I have left over. I cut another set of squares for another quilt, and I kept the off-cuts and strings for use in another scrap quilt. I tried not to duplicate the fabrics, or at least the images in the fabrics. I did use some of the same heavy equipment fabric twice, showing different vehicles and two different butterflies in the same yardage.

Here's a close up of the centre with light backgrounds. This has been fun so far, and I was spared the effort of collecting fabrics over the years. Thanks to Sharon and Laura and blogless Terry and my mother for their contributions.  I still could be missing someone. Be assured this quilt is going to a good home, to a child who could really use the comfort of a cuddly blankee.