Progress with pinwheels

      It has been very satisfying sewing the Kindred Pinwheels blocks with the Tilda triangles Maureen sent me. In fact, I have so many blocks that I think they are too much for one quilt and will split them into 2 comfort quilts, 4 by 5 blocks each with lattice and borders.

Rosie's inspection looking for imperfections and stray threads

Figuring out lattice and cornerstones

I will make the second quilt with darker lattice and then light cornerstones, so I am just testing the idea with a few greens. Not sure if these are the lattice fabrics yet.

New Leader Enders

     Since the nine patch stripe quilt is sewn, I need to supply some leader enders at the machines to keep going.  Besides the red crumb center blocks, I decided on two. Both are Bonnie Hunter patterns because they use size of scraps I save and can accumulate until there are enough blocks.
     The first one is Triple Treat as I have lots of pieces of 2 1/2" strips and 1 1/2" squares. This one is a free pattern on her site.

     The other one is Sugar Grove which is a new pattern ($) from Bonnie . It uses 2 1/2" strips that I use the Easy Angle Ruler for. This uses light and dark strips. By layering the light and dark together and cutting them, I put them in a basket by one machine to use this as my leader ender.

     These are 4 full blocks here. I webbed the blocks by column and ironed the layout on freezer paper to keep them in place. Got to go and cut some more.      
     I am not smart enough to figure out why the comments on the blog are not coming to me, if you know, pass the info on.

More Block Ideas

      Since I have fabric pieces everywhere, I continued on making more birds and adding some butterflies for a baby quilt for my granddaughter to be. I need to make some beefier butterflies and a couple more birds. Then I will try to assemble  the front.

     I have been sewing 1 1/2" squares as Leader/Enders that I cut when I made the Snail's Trail wall quilt. I continued making 4 patches and it is time to figure out what to do with them. I remember the Scrap Jar Stars Quilt  pattern I saved. I made a block with the 1 1/2" squares 4 patches (8" finished). I like it but it is a lot of sewing. I would have to make 56 of them to be big enough for a comfort quilt. That is a lot.
     So, I pulled out the box of 2" squares, which is what the pattern uses and made a block (12" finished). It is not as cozy as the smaller one, but would need less blocks to be sewn. Hmm.

Among all the chaotic fabric and various machines, Tugger decides to make his bed on the Snails Trail Quilt awaiting the last binding stitching on the Singer 15.

The Snail's Trail- the other quilt show reject

Made fabric, now what?

     First of all thanks to Preeti, I was able to meet her on her visit to Buffalo which was thrilling for me. You can checkout her post. The color of the sky in the first photo is so Lake Erie. I grew up here and saw the Lake almost every day until college and grew to love all its shades and formations and colors.

    Second, due to Julie's post about the Scrap Vortex quilt, I pulled  all my made fabric and arranged them out to see and maybe figure out a scrap quilt not as pattern-less as the Scrap Vortex. I love making scrap made fabric and have it in all sizes. When I laid it all out, I still cannot figure out where to go with it. Yikes, which way do I go? Lots of questions. Got any answers?

2 1/2" Strips. Four sewn together as blocks. Bleh.

2 1/2" strips. Set of threes. Made originally when Bonnie Hunter was making them,
but she never revealed what they were for.

2 1/2" Strips. Set in columns, skinny space between?

 

3 1/2" Squares. How to set or what. Was thinking possibly center square with thin triangles around

6 1/2" Squares. How to set or what.

6 1/2" Squares set on diagonal. Doesn't do anything for me.

Lots of made fragments, not any shape yet.

Big fragments. Cut up smaller or add on?

Quarter log cabin made fabric set in square.

Quarter log cabin blocks on point?

Red made pieces. Keep going, trim all one size, assemble a small quilt?

Blue made pieces. Same questions as above.

 

Scrappy Super Zig

    Another quilt I made for the Easy Scrappy Quilt Presentation coming up is Super Zig by thehappyzombie.com. It is a free pattern that uses pieces 4 1/2" x 8 1/2". However, I wanted to show how to use scraps, especially 5" wide strips cut from scraps. Once I cut the length I needed (3 pieces x 8 1/2" long- 25 1/2") from a 5" strip, I cut the width of the pieces to the required 4 1/2" so the remainder of the 5" wide strip could be cut into 5" squares making more precut squares for the next quilt. I will show them how to choose scraps that will read well together. If I had more time, I would have used scrappy creams and whites for the backgrounds.

Stacks of all cut scraps by color

Blocks pinned in place

Rows sewn 

All sewn

Hanging in the breeze

     The weather has still been wintry like. This photo is the edge of my driveway with crusty snow and then the anenomes blooming inches away. The dichotomy of the seasons.

The sun came out enough the other day to photo the done Katie's Quilt top (MSQC) without a stiff wind. I love the periwinkle text fabric for the border. I used the whole yard. I wish I had more of it.

Spurts of sewing

     For a whole host of reasons, I have only been able to sew in small spurts. I made a set of wine coasters as a birthday present for a friend who loves dachshunds, and a sample of scrappy bowties with partial seams in two sizes- one starting with 3 1/2" squares and one with 5" squares. I like them, even with the fussiness.

Don't be a step skipper!

     Actually, I am borrowing the line from a Seinfeld episode where one character is accused by George of skipping one of the steps in Alcoholics Anonymous. Seinfeld was the last sitcom I have watched and liked. Our whole family still uses lines from episodes to describe situation we observe. There is a Seinfeld line for every occasion.  
    In my case, it was skipping preview on the design wall and just sewing scraps together when making blocks for a smaller Film at Five quilt than I had made before. My idea was to make each block part of the rainbow spectrum. I love rainbows. I don't care that they have been co-opted by a particular movement, I love rainbow spectrums. I just love color.
    I have my 2 1/2" scraps sorted by colors in plastic boxes. So, I just took out scraps and sewed them leader ender style between other quilts. Big mistake. I resisted putting them up on the wall because that would be a lot of little blocks to deal with. So, I selected 25 and sewed them together.  Skipped the wall, paid the price.
    When I put them up on the wall, I noticed I totally forgot the Red Violet block. The green greens were awful olivey, and the red oranges were not distinct enough from the red reds. Do you know green greens are really hard to find? I had to comb through a lot of uncut fabric to dredge up enough colors for one block. I had to compose a red violet block and I need to deconstruct the red orange to fit in (partial seams, o boy). 
     I am thinking of grey solid sashing and I need to pick out the color squares for the sashing also. This time, it goes on the wall first, I am not winging it. Whenever I wing it, I never get in flight, but grounded.
     Don't be a step skipper!

First view on wall, uh oh 

Had to junk block on left. Have to sew new block on right.

Red violet ready to sew- on the wall!

Digging in the scrap piles, oh joy!

     I have no idea why I love scraps so much. I love sorting them, ironing them, cutting them and making them into beautiful quilt creations that give comfort. Fortunately, people give me scraps. My friends, the twins, that dynamic duo of quilters, just gave me a big bag of them. 
     My approach is to dump it on the floor (need to use a table from now on, getting too old for the floor) and sort. I pull out all strips, put in a pile, all squarish, all longer and folded fabrics and try to sort by shapes (the first photo).
     Later, I pull all the batiks and sort by shapes and bigger amounts as I keep my batik fabric separate from the regular cottons. I also keep solids separate. Then all the kids fabric goes in a pile. Leftover binding in a pile, and weird shape scraps in another, whites and similar in another. Then I take one pile at a time and iron and fine sort. Then I start to cut. I made a big mistake not buying an Accuquilt Studio cutter when it was on sale recently. Wanda told me about it and I balked because we were trading in a car for a new one. Now, the cutter costs $200 more and I can't get it. I think the cutter would have allowed me to plow through these quicker and have more time to sew.
    I cut my scraps- strips, 2 1/2", 2", 1 1/2" . Squares- 2", 2 1/2", 3 1/2", 5", 6", 9" and 10". Anything smaller than a fat quarter gets cut up. I store the cut pieces in plastic storage boxes, hopefully by color and value. Filing in boxes sometimes lags. When I make a scrap quilt, I pull the pieces out of my cut stash. Bonnie Hunter's system helped me. Need to find a better way to store the plethora of plastic boxes. 
    The more the variety of scraps, the better the quilts look. 

Table of presorted scraps by shape 

Piles unsorted- top left- childrens, bottom- batiks,
middle- larger pieces, top right- white and oddball shapes

Scraps and trouble

     I received a chock full envelope of scraps and fat quarters from Chris Hudson and her blog. Perfect for comfort quilts. I sorted all through them and divided by size, color, and type. All batiks get grouped together. Anything bigger than 2 inches, but less than fat quarter get the Stripology ruler treatment. Thank you, Chris! The more scraps, the better the quilts look. Variety is the spice!

Small pieces on the top of my scrap basket I use for strings and made fabric

    As usual, Tugger the terrible has to get right in on the sewing and make it difficult to navigate. If I don't pay attention to him, he starts knocking the seam ripper, scissors, etc off the sewing table.

"Are you sure you are doing a 1/4"?"

Three Finishes, all bound and ready to roll!

     I tend to work grouping similar tasks. For example, I will do a whole lot of backings at once for tops and hang them together ready to quilt. Last week, I made bindings for 4 quilts and sewed on three. The last binding is a large quilt, and it is harder to glue bind- moving the bulk around. All three are comfort quilts, waiting for someone to give me a name of a recipient.
     The black/color strips were sewn as tubes, then cut to stagger the placement. I quilted a different pattern in each stripe to practice my quilting.

Front

Back

     Dancing Star was a Square in a Square pattern- finally completed.

Front

Back

     Goodnight Irene was a leader-ender scrap quilt. I did diagonal quilting with my new ruler and I am not real pleased with the shaky lines.

Back

Front

Coming together!

    A while back, I made Fading Charms from Wedding Dress Blues. I love using the scraps and the clean look of Deanna's designs. I use Kona White but would love a white that did not ravel as much. Is there one out there? 
    I started, as my next scrap/leader-ender project, Film at Five by her also. I chipped away at it, as a leader-ender projects and lastly sewed all the sashing, some when I was traveling with the trusty Featherweight. Finally, I laid it out on the design wall. I sewed it together, column by column (9 of them) like Wanda taught me. This keeps everything in order. Then I split the web halfway down and sewed the bottom rows together. 
     All that waits is the top half rows and then sewing the two halves together. I love it! Takes all those disparate scraps and makes a beautiful quilt. In the big blocks, I did do a dark/light pattern and always had the corners in darks. I think it holds together better that way.

Layout on wall, bottom sashes missing

Bottom half sewn, top half webbed, rows need to be sewn.

More scrap processing

     I am really fortunate to know people who give me leftover fabric for the comfort quilts. Anything smaller than a fat quarter, I cut into the scrapsaver system and file away to be used by size and color. The bigger pieces are carefully folder and put in plastic baskets by color and stored in a cupboard. I cut these usually in the kitchen on a counter because it keeps the mess out of what project I am sewing and cutting at the moment. It gets me in a different room to give my mind a breather. I am blessed that my husband does not mind my fabric fragments all over. I do clean up and put away so that helps.

Scraps, fabrics, successfully processed, ready to file away