Scraptastic Tuesday

Yesterday the last stitch was put in the binding. The sleeve was put on and hung up in the sew room. Late last night. It looks great in there. Enjoyed a little Netflix while it was hanging last night.

I didn't take a picture in natural light before it was hung.....so this morning down it came. The sun was beautiful this morning. 

It was quilted on the long arm, which I still am growing accustomed to. Since the quilt was going in my sew room I decided that it was an opportunity to practice some new designs. The quilt was sectioned off with double lines and loops. Each section has a different pattern. It gives some practice without a huge commitment. 

The quilt is made with blocks cut with the Accuquilt drunkards path block and 5" batik squares. The 5" squares are from the guild fabric exchange in February 2015. 

Check out the other projects at Connie's Linky Tuesday and with Mrs Sew & Sow Scraptastic Tuesday.

Happy Quilting,
Just Another Quilter

Quilt of Valor Option

Our guild swapped Blue and Red 10" squares about 2 months ago.  These will lend themselves to making a great Quilt of Valor quilt.  The medallion style quilt found on Moda Bake Shop by Andrea Harris is called Avignon Picnic. It utilizes jelly rolls for a quilt classified as "easy".   Here is how to convert the pattern into 10" squares.  Here are my blue choices.

Layer up 2-10" squares and sew on both sides.  I paired up blues with blues.

 Cut the units apart and press seams to 1 side. Trim unit to 9 1/2" square.

Place background and blue unit that are 9 1/2" square, right sides together.  Cut apart on the diagonal.  Sew the diagonal seam.  Press to the dark.

 

 Arrange in a pleasing manor.  You can see my plan.  These are very versatile blocks.  Any of the log cabin or half square designs can be achieved.  Bonnie Hunter of Quiltville.com has shown numerous different layouts.  Her blocks measure 6" these more in the 9" arena.

I will post more about this quilt as it gets closer.  Problems: Only 1 background fabric used.....Not enough to make those last blocks.   First option is to go shopping to see if any is left. 

Here is the previous quilt finished with the medallion style layout in the Avignon Picnic Quilt. The quilt below has an inner border that is 2 1/2" around the center unit.  The next border is more 2 1/2" strips.  The strips alternate 2 1/2" by 6" and 2 1/2" x 4" with a background 2 1/2" square. 

Check out what is going on over at Freemotion by the River's Linky Tuesday.  Connie always has a great response with so much to check out just down river.

Just Another Quilter

A 5" Square Pattern

I have been helping with the 5" square fabric exchange for 1 year now.  I enjoy finding places to use these fabrics.  The guild had an Irish Chain block using Christmas prints.  The 5" Christmas exchange squares were easily cut to accommodate the 2 1/2" squares called for in the rabble block pattern.  The best part.....I won a great stack of blocks.  These blocks will be used for the Christmas Traditions quilt to be auctioned off in December.

 The latest finish is a quick option for using your 5" squares as a type of sashing.  This pattern works great with fat quarter bundles or a little yardage.  The novelty prints are great because the larger pieces allow print patterns to still be distinguishable.

This quilt is using the 5" black square fabric exchange.  Some of my swap fabrics were lighter than I wanted for this quilt so some fabrics from my stash were cut into 5" squares and substituted into the quilt. Occasionally a 2 1/2" black strip was paired up and sewn to make the block.  Use what you have and cut only what needs to be cut.  Using the pre-cut pieces first is what turns this quilt into the quick project.

Here you can see where 2 black squares are layered right sides together and sewn on 1 side. The unit is cut in half across the seam yielding 2 pieces.  Press the pieces.  It doesn't matter how you press here....none of these seams match up with anything....no bulk no matter what you do!

To make this block square....cut a 5 1/2" x 9 1/2" rectangle out of your novelty fabrics.  My stash included some older sample card fabrics.  These sample pieces were from the same fabric lines but the focal pieces were larger, the accent pieces were small.  The card was carried by the salesman to shops showing current selections.  These had some memories for me and I seemed to by keeping them not sure of how to make a great quilt out of such little pieces.  The largest piece couldn't have been more that 14' x 18".  If these larger prints were cut too small the great patterns were lost.  Pair up the 5 1/2" x 9 1/2" novelty print with a pair of black 2 1/2" x 9 1/2" pieces.  Sew.

Lay out the blocks alternating the black strips vertical and horizontal.  Sew the rows and columns together.  A 3" scrappy black border frames the body of the quilt.

The hardest part of this quilt was organizing the squares.  The variety was just a jumbled up mess when pieces were random.  The contrast between the tone on tone fabrics had your eye jumping everywhere.  The pretty prints...well that's all there was.  What you can't see...some of the print backgrounds are brown, some are black.  Also 2 of the flower prints only occur once.  The bright fun print on the left cut to my favorite 6" border finishes the quilt.  The lime green binding can be seen in the top photo really brings it all together.  Many other options were auditioned...the lime green made the quilt.  I was hoping to use that fabric somewhere else, but.....use what you have, but what you need.  I guess a shopping trip will be in order when lime green is "needed".

You can check out what others are doing at Freemotion by the River.

Christmas Traditions Quilt

Our Christmas Traditions is quickly approaching. Our group of church ladies have met a few times and put together this quilt. We took the leftovers from a project for the local library and put the center "square in a square" portion together. This project pulls stash fabric from many quilters and helps keep the price down. We did purchase the outer border fabric. The quilt was machine quilted on a Juki TL-98.

 

The event has handmade candies, pies, cookies, homegrown canned jellies and salsas. This year I get to oversee the silent auction room. 

Stop over to Freemotion by the River and see all the designs. 

Just Another Quilter

A Charming Pack of a Quilt

On Sunday…it was time to tackle a quilt.  My knitting project has been in the fore front and quilting has taken backstage.  With the 5" squares going back to guild members on Tuesday (today), ideas for the current swap of fabrics was needed.  What to do with 5" neutral charms. 

Now….Tuesday isn't far away from Sunday.  So, I was looking for something that is useful and attractive.  Initially I chose Rick Rack Nines from Bonnie Hunter's "Leaders and Enders" book.  After making about 12 nine-patches, it dawned on me that this pattern didn't use very many of the 5" charms with lots of sewing in between.  That was not my GOAL.  Let's use up this fabric swap. 

Bonnie's Rick Rack Nines

Swap to a new pattern….what to choose.  Out comes the Ipad.  Instead of printing out every pattern that "needs" to become a quilt, I save the patterns by choosing "Opening in Ibooks".  So after looking through the stash of quilts found Arignon Picnic over at Moda BakeShop.   The original pattern has great diagrams, so stop over and check it out.

Here are how the pattern was modified to work with my fat quarter bundle and 5" charms.

The size of the final shape is 2 1/2" x 4 1/2".  The 5" charm is combined with a 4 1/2" x 5" piece.  Here is how to get there.
The fabric is from a fat quarter bundle.  To utilize the fabric wisely…Cut a 4 1/2" by 22" strip.

Subcut the strip every 5" for 4 units 4 1/2" x 5".  The remaining bit of fabric…cut it up…2" squares for 9 patch leader and ender project??

Here you can see the 5" neutral charm with the 4 1/2' x 5"

Sew down both sides.
Trim of the charm square to 4 1/2" x 5"
Cut the unit in half to make 2- 2 1/2" by 4 1/2" segments

Open  and Press.  There are no great pressing directions for this quilt.  Here I pressed to the dark.

There are two blocks to make.  Check out the original pattern for better instructions.  There are 2 blocks.  This is what the pattern calls the "S block".  See the "s"?

This is the "Z block".  See the "z"?

The pattern comes about by pairing these 2 blocks together.  One row alternates the blocks…the next row alternates the same blocks ALL UPSIDE DOWN.  Check out the pattern again for better instructions. 
Surprisingly, after 10pm only a few blocks incorrectly orientated were found.  They were quickly fixed and the quilt went together in less than 3 days.  Borders will probably be added later to my version.  The original has no borders but has another 2 rows of blocks to make the quilt wider.  
                                                   Windy out there today.

Stop over and check out what others are doing today at Connie's Freemotion by the River.
Happy Quilting,
Just Another Quilter

A Recent Class

Last week the local library gave a fabric dyeing class.  We had a good time.  The library has many very artistic employees.  This means very artistic programs for patrons. 
We are given 3 dyes.  We mix the dyes according to directions.  These serial dilutions have the colors going from 100% of one dye to 100% of the next dye.  There is 30 different combinations.

The dyes are added to the fabric and sit for 24 hours.  The complete directions were on the board.
The colorways available to choose were: Tutti Frutti, Sea & Sky, Fall, Earthy Tones just to name a few.  I went with the Sea & Sky.  Before anyone asks….brand of dye is unknown….it is a powder that is already made up into into a liquid filling a quart mason jars.

Picked up some Retain yesterday.  It says to use it before you originally rinse out the dye.  These are soaking in vinegar trying to hold more of the dye.  Hopefully all will be rinsed, "Retained" and dried.   
I am hoping to make "Baby Waves" by Kaye Wood out of my Neutral swap fabric and these hand dyed fabrics if they ever stop running.
Linky Tuesday over at Freemotion on the River highlights what others are up to.
Just Another Quilter

Linky Tuesday—December 10th

Progress is being made on the Quilter’s Scrapbook.  The color in these blocks is amazing.  The colors were  so dull when this was going together.  The prominent color seemed to be beige & olive.  As I dove further into the stash the variety started to come out, and after deciding on the blue fabric for the borders any blue/turquoise/purple that I came across went into the blocks.

The border colors are being cut and will show up soon.  Some manhandling of the blocks was required yesterday.  Those small squares along with my imperfect 1/4” don’t always go together.  With a little starch, some steam and borders cut to the exact size, those imperfect blocks that were warped and not looking very square, look great.  Sure if you look hard you will see a parallelogram instead of a square every now and then, but I can live with that.

On the home front, MJJR played 2 games of basketball last night.  The game was 30 minutes away.  This is happening at least 2 nights a week.  DH left yesterday and returns tonight.  Lola comes home after finals on Friday. 

Sunday DH and I went over to Buffalo Wild Wings for one last get together with the co-workers.  We were stuck on the I-80 bridge over the Mississippi River for at least 40 minutes.  An accident backed up traffic, we were 30 minutes late for our own party!  The ladies waited.  Thank you ladies.  The weather was bad, a few didn’t make it…I was glad NOT to be driving.

Back to the bridge…the bridge design is the same as the I-35 bridge in Minneapolis that collapsed a few years back.  Since the collapse of that bridge, this bridge has under went numerous repairs.  The latest set of repairs were on the side we were stuck on…with paint still present about “No Vehicles” right where we were sitting.  The large semi’s going fast from the other direction & the length of the span across the river at this point, make the bridge rock and roll as you sit and watch not only the ice on the river but the tug boat that ran aground last week.  Did I mention that I wasn’t driving.  Had me a drink immediately upon arriving at BWW’s.

Off to pick up some chicken broth, making a soup similar to Olive Garden's, Zuppa Toscana.  Great for a chilly day on the bluffs of the river.

Stop down river and see the other links at Connie's Quilting by the River.

Just Another Quilter

Linky Tuesday

Today is Linky Tuesday at Connie’s Freemotion by the River.  Stop by and see what projects are happening.
My Quilter’s Scrapbook is coming along nicely.  The piles of strips made up of 10 - 1 1/2” squares are getting smaller.  Here is the current view.

The colors are amazing.  Each of these need at least 2 more rows.  I found the blue fabric in the stash.  There is adequate yardage and it needs to come out of the stash.  It was an impulse buy, binding for a quilt, it didn’t go. It is neat fabric.  Stop back and watch the progress my on Canuck Quilter’s new pattern. 
Today is the local guild’s Christmas Potluck.  I am taking some Chicken salad and crackers.  Also on today’s agenda, label on the Christmas Traditions Quilt, and making Saltine Toffee Cookies for the Traditions sale.  This recipe is one of my go to recipes for sweet treats.  The ingredients are items found in the average kitchen: butter, brown sugar, saltines, chocolate chips and optional nuts.  Total kitchen time: 10 minutes or less.  My kind of recipe.

Have a good day, 
Just Another Quilter

Linky Tuesday Project

Here is the latest quilting project.  The top maker requested the bright raspberry thread. Goods and bads to that...you can see every stitch.  I like the results so far. What do you think?

Check out the other links at Linky Tuesday.

Happy Quilting
Just Another Quilter