Feb 262016
 

I had hoped to be further along in my finishes stack by now, but Spring came early here in Idaho and I’ve been spending too much time in my garden. I’ve got a couple more bound or half bound that I hope to finish by the deadline, and one waiting for me to stitch the sleeve on. The following two have the binding and sleeve and I’m calling them done.

First up is this green 9-patch with lilac sashing, one of the last quilts I hand quilted, so I suspect I started it when we lived in Alaska, which we left in 2003. It feels good to finally get it bound! (oops – I forgot to rotate the image, it’s supposed to hang vertical)

purple lattice done purple lattice corner

And then we have this piece, which I sewed up from scraps of a much bigger project, totally at random to start with and then I added the gray/white background, and eventually this figure appeared and started hacking at the tree. I don’t know why, I don’t ask. He’s been waiting for a binding for 3 or 4 years now, maybe now that he has one he can stop torturing the poor tree.

hacker done hacker corner

And here’s the link to my list of proposed finishes. These two were numbers 7 and 16.

 February 26, 2016  Posted by at 9:46 am Finish-Along Comments Off on FAL Q1 Finishes Four and Five
Feb 172016
 

Patchwork Posse has a page with links to all 30 days of organizing posts, which I have failed to keep up with here or in my studio. Her site is a bit ad-heavy, but the list is a handy place to look for ideas for any specific area of organizing your space.

The Quilt Show is running weekly posts, as I mentioned at some point. Here are the latest three, all on what to do with scraps:

Week 4, scraps part a, ideas for both quilts and non-quilts. I like the fabric boxes! But if you REALLY have a lot of scraps – those dog beds would clear your space in no time.

Week 5, scraps part b, with 6 ideas for using scraps other than making a quilt (some use more scraps than others).

Week 6, more scrap ideas, all scrap quilts this time, and there are some lovely ones.

(The posts are on their blog, no need to buy a membership.)

And in my own studio, I did a rough count of UFOs. Assuming I have not missed an entire bin full somewhere (always possible), I now have 114. <gulp> I really have got to learn to spend more time finishing and less time starting! Or spend less time gardening and more time sewing. Or less time blogging … oh, wait, I already tried that.

 February 17, 2016  Posted by at 2:32 pm Organizing and Decluttering Comments Off on Organizing Update – not much progress
Feb 062016
 

I am going to have to stop opening the emails from Project Quilting, I keep falling for the challenge! I failed to finish Week 2’s challenge, but had to try again for Week 3, and here I am. I really do have other quilts I should finish instead of making new ones.

The theme was “thread” and Kim made some spool tutorials available if we wanted to use them. I looked at them, and thought “that looks easy, I can design my own.” So I did, using the same block idea but modernizing the spool. When was the last time you saw an actual wooden thread spool? Yeah, me neither. These are plastic thread spools.

I dug around in my stash and found a suitable stripe, and some white, then went to my scraps for some background strips. Here are my initial pieces – you’ll note I’ve carefully cut the stripe one way for one set and the other way for the other set. You can also see my square ruler set to line up the 3 7/8 mark on the edge of the “thread” print. I decided to make my units measure 4 inches (finished), so the spool block finished 8 inches. spools fabric 1

spools fabric 3

spools fabric 2

I  made four blocks and arranged them to create a secondary design like this:spools four blocks

Then added more scrap strips for the border, and the last of the stripe fabric to bind it. I left the spools unquilted so they would stand out a bit from the background. And that is this week’s excitement here in Deary, Idaho. (Can you find the square that I cut a little off?)spools finished

 February 6, 2016  Posted by at 8:08 pm Challenges Comments Off on Project Quilting Week 3 Challenge quilt
Feb 012016
 

This tablerunner has been waiting for the binding for over a year. It didn’t take me long to finish it, but without the Finish-Along I would have ignored it for a few more years. tablerunner

I made it from scraps left from making cloth napkins for myself. Two years ago my sisters volunteered my house for a family get-together. They both came without husbands so it wasn’t quite as full a house as it could have been, but with my parents here also I had to scrounge a couple mattresses to put on the floor in my sewing room for my sisters.

I forget who had the idea, but we decided to try a napkin-making party. My mom had sent a box of fabrics she’d salvaged from some vintage blouses that had belonged to my sister’s roommate in college, plus some other fabrics, and we made her napkins from those. (My sister cut, I sewed.) I had pictured a group sewing bee but ended up being the only one sewing, working on my own pieced napkins. My other sister decided what she really wanted was fabric squares to dress up the tops of canning jars, so we cut up a bunch for her.

Anyway, mine started with a charm square pack I’d bought online from another quilter, plus a bunch of spring-inspired fabrics from my stash. The leftovers make up the central part of this table-runner. I think they were already pieced, being trimmings when I cut the napkins to the desired size. Or maybe I sewed up all the scrap first, my memory is already fading. Basically it is a stacked coins (shown above on edge, try tilting your head if you can’t see it) with the “coins” presewn scraps.

The binding is straight-cut and sewn on one side at a time, on the back first and folded over to the front and straight-stitched along the edge. The ends were done last and the end of the binding folded over for a finished corner.

And that’s my finish for this week. (List of proposed finishes HERE. This is number 14 on the list.)

 

 February 1, 2016  Posted by at 9:52 am Finish-Along Comments Off on FAL Q1 Finish #3