Flimsy Parade

This is the latest in my quest to move fabric to flimsy.  This was a set of  fabrics I bought several years ago.  I finally settled on a design.  I think it is fun.  I have backing for it so it should be quilted in short order.  I'm not sure what color thread.  The backing is a cream/black print and the front is just plain wild.  Suggestions? 

Lunacy

I always say "We will finish no quilt before it wants to be done".  Some quilts really do not want to be done.  We call them WIPS.  But there is almost always a reason they get put back on the shelf. 

Then there are the quilts that pop up and say MAKE ME NOW!!!  Not something I experience on a regular basis.  Today was the exception. 

I was looking through my stash for something else.  Sadly, I can't even remember what I was looking for.  A charm pack fell at my feet.  It is a black and white set of Half Moon by Moda.  It insisted that it could be sewn together in short order.  Even better, it would be GREAT practice for precision sewing.  I know all the pieces are cut properly so any variations will be due to operator error.

There was surprisingly little operator error.  The center panel went together in no time at all.  The seams ironed out correctly... now that never happens.  It was finished in a flash.

Except...  one charm pack makes for a pretty small quilt.  Barely big enough to call a stroller quilt.  This baby needed something else. 

I headed to my stash thinking either a red border or a border of brightly colored squares.  I have plenty of those.  Certainly something will work.

Except... this quilt had other ideas.  It kept saying "Scallops.  I would look so elegant with scallops."  It refused to play nicely with any of the reds in my stash. 

But on the top of the pile was a black kona remnant.  It is a piece of wide backing that is too narrow for most quilts that need a wide backing.  A little time with the graph paper, ruler and some light math and it became clear that there was enough fabric for an 8 inch border AND enough for the backing as well.  Score!!!

So, the top is pieced.  I have the backing and batting.  Spud 1 is on his way home and can help with the basting.  This quilt is going to be finished in a flash.

Except... that I have to figure out how to draw the scallops.  I've listened to the talk at the LQS a couple times now.  I understand it in theory.  I have paper and tape.  The scallops won't be a problem.

Except... that I have to figure out how to quilt that vast expanse of black border.  And that is a problem for another day. 

And... and I can see that this is going to be another quilt that is going to be impossible to photograph.  All that black on black quilting will hide.  It will either hide my multitude of sins or it will hide from the camera.  Either way, it won't be impressive on the intertubes. 

Collections

I rarely ever use the fabrics from only one collection in a quilt.  Even for the fabrics I love, I usually manage to sneak one or two other pieces into the mix.  Now, one of the reasons for that is that I am a scrounger.  I really can't afford to pay full price for fabric. So I get some at the thrift stores, I break into my inherited stash and I shop the remnant table.

I really like the remnant table at Hancock's of Paducah.  I get there a few times a year.  I save up for the trip.  I can usually find some pretty large pieces from fabric lines I have admired.  They usually end up on that table at the end of their run.  Meaning these are probably some of the last of these fabrics available.  That isn't entirely the case with the fabrics in this quilt but some of them seem to be missing from the collections available on-line.

Regardless, the story of this quilt is that I found a collection of pink and green fabrics on the remnant table.  I bought some.  Left some behind.  Some were from Moda's Paris Flea Market by Three Sisters.  Some were big florals and there was one pretty pink from the collections for a cause line.

I knew I was going to make a random sized block quilt from them.  So I started out with the beautiful green rosebuds and the tiny pink cause fabric.  I quickly decided I wasn't going to use the large florals.  Gorgeous as the are, and as well as they blend, they just didn't fit the vibe of this picnic quilt.  So I made 4 and 9 patches out of the flea market fabrics.  I laid it all out on the design floor and was appalled.  Even though the pink was a perfect match for the colors in the rest of the quilt it stood out like a sore thumb.  Horrible.

I pulled out all of those blocks and started trying to re-figure what I could do.  I had started with remnants that were 1/2 - 1 yard pieces.  I didn't have a lot.  No matter how I cut, pieced and salvaged, I was one block short.  I could make a smaller size but it just didn't fit my plan.  I set the whole thing aside.

Shortly thereafter, I was able to make another trip to Paducah.  I searched the entire remnant table and found two pieces from the collection.  One was the pretty pink roses on the cream background.  The other was more of the green paisley.  Except that when I got home I discovered it had the yellow-y olive background instead of the blue-r green in the blocks I'd already made.  It didn't matter.  I set that one aside, used more the cream roses and finished it off this week to a 60 x 60 inches picnic blanket.  

This is another quilt in my recent projects that absolutely required a printed backing.  I'm not all that into fancy backings.  At least I haven't been up until now.  But this year, every quilt I've finished has a printed backing.  Hmmmm.   For this one, I found a nice creamy 108 backing at my LQS.  What a joy to not have to piece it.  And even better, my dear Mother-in-law got it for me.  I really am trying very hard to finish WIPS and PIPS and use only stash.  I am allowing myself to buy backing fabric as I don't have a lot of those in my stash.

Oh, the orphan blocks became part of a smaller tea party quilt so they didn't go to waste.  I have a few scraps and that one small piece of olive paisley left.  Perhaps I will make some sort of table runner out of them. 

The details:  60 x 60 inch quilt.  Made from the Paris Flea Market collection of quilter's cotton.  Backed with quilter's cotton.  It has a dense poly batting.  It is quilted with a large loopy meander.  The binding is slightly scrappy, machine stitched and hand finished. 

A Bit More...

The Post office said they tried to deliver this little quilt to its new owner.  I don't know if it has been sorted out yet but I am going to post a wee bit more of it since I don't have much of anything else I can share yet.  You'll get the description and more pics once I know it is safe and sound. 

Swamped

And trying to match some green fabric.  Why am I always one block short of a dozen?

(At least this time it wasn't because I messed up but because there weren't enough pieces in my 99 cent charm pack.)

Now I have to fill in a hole. 

Path to my Heart

This is my entry for Project Quilting Season 4, Challenge 2: My favorite color. 

This quilt absolutely insists that it's name is Path to my Heart.  I am not exactly sure that the drunkard's path is the best path to my heart.

My goals for Project Quilting this year are simple.  First I want to finish a quilt for each challenge.   Second, I want to use materials from my stash.  Lastly, I want to work on technique.  This quilt is complete, so I met my first goal.  Everything in this quilt is from my stash.  Second goal. Check!  I intended to make this the traditional way and learn to sew curved seams.  However...  It was Wednesday night before I could get started and I just didn't feel I could finish.  So, this drunkard's path was completed using the raw edge applique method.  

The quilt is about 21 x 24 inches.   The fabrics are all solid quilter's quality cotton.  I think but am not positive they are Kona.

The heart, surface appliqued onto the top after the rest of the quilting was done.

The obligatory arty picture of the binding.  I am not sure this binding was the correct choice but a plain red or plain white did not seem to fit at all.

Ok another one.  I was having fun taking pictures.

Here is a picture of the back of the quilt.  You can see the quilting.  It is a simple wave through the red blocks.  I am particularly pleased with the even seams that I managed to mostly iron in the correct direction!

Be sure to check out all of the other great quilts at the flickr page. 

Two Gift Ideas. One Post.

 The ladies Bible Study Group made ornaments to be given to the children after the Christmas Program.  This has been done by the seniors or some group within the church for many years now.  This year we were pressed for time and resources so we made pine cone ornaments.  I love the look and decided to make some for our tree this year rather than pull out all of the other ornament boxes.  

Even better this would be stash busting.  I had the leftover paint I bought for the kids ornaments and I knew I had a huge peach basket full of pine cones in the garage.  They used to sit on the fireplace in the winter time.  Amazingly enough, I did have a basket of them.  And even more amazingly, I FOUND the basket right where I looked the first time!.  AND it was full of pine cones.  A couple on top had been painted gold but the rest were all a beautiful dark pine cone brown.  

I got out my paint and glitter and started in.  Strangely enough the first cone I grabbed had something that looked like hot glue all over the bottom.  I painted it anyway.  It seemed to work OK except for that 'glue'.  I grabbed another.  'Glue' again.  I started to sort through them all.  And then it hit me. 

 These were firestarters!  Pine cones dipped in parafin and left to harden on wax paper.  (Gift 1.  Simple to make.  Looks beautiful.  Useful too.

So I scrambled and looked for the pine cones I'd used in other spots around the house.  I came up with quite a few.  All of those were painted with white craft paint, sprinkled with glitter and left to dry on wax paper. 

To hang them, cut a piece of 1/8 inch ribbon about a foot long.  Fold it in half.  Tie a knot about half way down.

This creates a loop on one side and leaves two long tails on the other.  Work the long tails around the top few petals of the cone.  Tie them tightly in a square knot.  Add a bow if you like. 

And there you have it.  Gift 2.  Beautiful, snowy, sparkly pine cones to hang on a tree.  By the way, the kids loved them and the seniors who were our guests snapped up all of the leftovers! 

Orange Stash Finish!

Yay!  I am finally done with this one.  I started it over the summer.  It is the same as the Kaffee Quilt I started, finished and gifted at the same time.  This one was primarily stash fabrics.  The little slice of fabric you can see in the middle on the left is the one Mr-I-need-a-quilt-for-a-gift choose.

 I ended up using the sunflower with the dragon fly as the anchor fabric.  It has the orange, teal, brown, yellow/green and white in it.  From there, I just pulled anything that had those colors in it and used it. 

I love the binding fabric.  It was a purchase.  I really like the orange, yellow and white plaid. 

This quilt is all 6 inch squares.  It was hand quilted with pearl cotton.  

My corners, they don't always meet.  I got over that a very long time ago!

Here is the whole thing laid out on the coffee table.  It was supposed to be a table topper.  I think it is probably too busy for that.  I'll have to ponder where it goes or to whom it really belongs. 

Details:  approximately 34 inches square.  Made from quilters cotton in my stash.  The backing is muslin.  Machine pieced.  Hand quilted with number 3 and number 5 pearl cotton.  Binding attached by machine and finished by hand. 

Buster and Belle

Some little friends came to visit yesterday.  I thought we were going to get out the dollies but she found her way to basement where the big boys were playing xbox.  The look on Spud 3's face when he realized I wasn't going to rescue him from the line up of toddlers patiently watching him was priceless.  It did remind me that I never posted my dollies here. 

When Spuds 1 and 2 were toddlers, I made them dollies.  They were named Alec and Andy.  They actually did like them and play with them quite a bit.  When I asked about them a couple years ago, they both knew exactly where the dolls were.  I never got around to making one for Spud 3.  That is until a couple years ago when I found the pattern and all the materials in my stash. 

I immediately made one for Spud 3.  I called him Buster because he was a stash buster.  I still had plenty of fabric so I made Buster a friend, Belle.  I was doing this around the time I got my new sewing machine so I spent a couple days making clothing and blankets for them, testing out the stitches and things. 

I have to say a tweenage boy is not exactly excited to get a dolly! Particularly one that comes complete with diaper!

It did bring back happy memories for dad though.