Summer Sewing Catch Up - King Sized Masterpiece

Well, not a masterpiece, but definitely a really big quilt.  Not only did I want to destash scraps but I wanted to reduce some fabric collections.

I have this beige, red and green collection. It takes up a bottom shelf of valuable fabric storage. For years, I picked up yardage, not fat quarters. I am sure it was clearance fabric.  It is good quality quilt shop fabric.  I kept adding and adding reds and greens.  Beige with red and green.  Tiny floral, medium floral, large floral. Victorian and reproduction. The fabric colors and style are still popular with many quilters but it is no longer my interest. I must really learn to be true to myself and not follow the current fabric trends.  Oh well, easier said than done.

TIME FOR A QUILT!

I began to search through my stacks of quilt magazines for inspiration.  I found this one.

Nine-Patch Delight.  I am sure I was drawn to this quilt because the colors and fabrics in this photo are nearly identical to the fabric collection I wanted to use. I like nine-patch.  No real brain power needed. Nine-patch on point.  Somewhat of a challenge.

Designers: Sarah Maxwell and Dolores Smith of Homestead Hearth.com If this quilt inspires you, their business is alive and well. They carry a great line of fabrics and you can make this quilt too.

From this issue.  Sew Scrappy, saying my name. Better Homes and Gardens American Patchwork & Quilting Issue 110 June 2011 

Fifteen inch blocks. Lots of them. Colors are almost the same, Right?  I had to use a bedroom floor to lay out all the blocks.  I did not have floor space to lay out a quilt of this size.   

It kept growing as I kept sewing.

And growing with sewing.

Nearly done.  Move furniture out of the way.  Quilt coming through.

Piecing is finished!  Hanging to photograph. Actually the colors are quite nice. The colors are not lively. They go together well and create a very relaxing bed quilt. I feel I captured the designers idea of what this quilt should be.

It is the first quilt I have ever made that will fit on my king sized bed and will drape down the sides.  I am excited about that.  Did I use up that shelf of fabric?  You might think so.  But NO.  It seemed to grow!

How will I quilt it?  I do not know.  Will it fit my 10 foot frame?  I do not know.  Do you want to buy it? I am open to sell the top and let you quilt it.  For now I have put it away so it can grow on me over time.  And when and if this fabric trend becomes hugely popular again, I don't have to buy into it.  I still have plenty left.

Have a great day!  Thank you for reading this episode of my summer of sewing!           

Summer Sewing Catch Up - Scrap Fabric Elimination

I did TRY to focus on cleaning this summer.  HA!  I would rather do anything than clean house.  I managed to clean out a couple of closets but let us face reality, I just have so many useful things that I am not ready to part with just yet. I feel like my house is the family storage center.  My husband and I both have multiple hobbies and we have tools and gadgets that are useful.  I was overwhelmed before I could get started. Maybe when the weather turns cooler. Maybe when we both are retired. I need a helper to tackle this.  Until then, I will carry on and hope for the best.

I turned my focus on my sewing area.  Here is a place I want to be! I organized stacks of fabric.  I picked up scissors and rotary cutters and placed them in bins.  I organized spools of thread. I looked at my scrap bins and decided it was time to turn all that into quilts.  

I searched blog land for any and all ideas pertaining to scrap usage. A lot of quilters have had the same idea this year.  Lots of folks want to be able to clear the clutter.  I found this tutorial from Lori of Bee in My Bonnet.  She had a form of consolidation that I decided I could work with to fit my need.  Take every scrap and cut it into squares or strips in sizes that I would find useful in a quilt.  I cut 1.5 inch, 2 inch, 2.5 inch and 3 inch squares. I used leftover binding strips and random strips from other projects. A whole day of cutting and more. I put the squares into clear jars and when the jars got full I made a quilt.  

First, I used plastic bins to sort my scraps into lights and darks. 










 Next, I placed cut squares in jars marked 1.5, 2 and 2.5 inches.

Cut, cut and cut.  

Sew, sew and Sew.

Darks and lights.

Let me stop right here and give a shout out to my old Viking Designer II sewing machine.  For years she has been a hard worker.  Those scraps are full of dust and lint.  Please clean your machine often.  I had no idea how fast lint collects and often I had to clean this area while sewing scraps.    

Use your brush to clean your machine in all those tiny spaces.

And this is what I made from all those scraps.

I call this Chain Mail.  The background fabric is a yard cut novelty print from JoAnn's and has French postal markings.  The pattern is a Double Irish Chain.    This is from 1.5 squares.  I practiced some straight line quilting and it looks nice.  

This quilt is a four patch using Kona White with lots of pretty colorful 2.5 inch squares.  

This next quilt used strips and scraps of various sizes. I was creative and used some beginner improv in the center and created a scrap happy border.  The colors are actually quite nice.  The photo doesn't fully capture the depth of the dark colors.      

With some of my reds and lighter beige scraps, I worked on reducing some of my older fabric collections.  I like chickens and I have several fat quarters of chicken prints. I have been saving them for that special project, but it is time for them to go.  I will add some borders and it will be cute.



None of these quilts are finished.  This winter, I will have a marathon longarm quilting week.  I seem to do that every January and February when recovering from a busy holiday season.

I will wrap this up for today.  Take care.

Summer Sewing Catch Up - Finishes

It was June and now it is September.  I may not have blogged but I did not stop sewing.  I will post a few projects I worked on over the summer to bring you up to September.  I will have to break this catch up series into several posts because they cover a lot of sewing projects.  Here goes:

Kitty Litter - Finished, Sold and Delivered.  Happy Customer!    

I finished the Kitty Litter Cat Quilt.  It is one of most favorite projects. It is an enjoyable pattern to sew and I just cannot get enough of sewing quilts that use a variety of fabrics from my every growing stash! 
 

Front. Up close.

Back. Tiny print and quilting.

Mitered binding.  

Label. 

IPad case.  Sold.  Happy new owner!  

 Just getting started with Summer Sewing.  Have a great day!