Quilts of Valor blocks

     My LQS requested 40 quilts for their Quilts of Valor group.  At the guild meeting, members decided they were willing to make blocks but didn't think they could complete a full quilt.  The president and I came up with the idea of alternating monochromatic 16 patches with a single fabric star of any design.

     Here is my version.  I was close on keeping the direction of the print the same but not quite successful.  We decided to go with the luck of the draw on combinations and not have people sign up for colors.  Hopefully that will turn out well.

Purple chicken

     I started going through my scrap bins and cutting them into squares.  I finished the purple bin today.  I think I might need another scrap quilt planned for my 3 inch squares.  It seems like there will be a bunch of them.  As I needed a purpose for the 3.5 inch squares, I decided to start an urban chicken quilt using my scraps.

     Last weekend I finally started quilting my Arts walk challenge quilt.  As I started the quilt right after the election, it felt slightly therapeutic to quilt it on MLK day and then start the hand binding on Friday.  It sparked from reading "And Still I Rise" by Maya Angelou shortly after flipping through A Quilter's Mixology by Angela Pingel.  Hopefully I will finish it shortly.

Let what I have dictate what I choose to do

     Moving had me stuff a lot of fabrics into a lot of places.  It's been frustrating looking for fabric I know I have, and being unable to find it as it's been stuffed somewhere.  I have attempted to reorganize my fabric collection back into the plastic shoe boxes.  It feels a bit better but not perfect.  So I spent a large portion of my holiday break cutting and prepping projects so they move beyond fabrics intended for specific projects to actual works in progress.

     While I have seen many stashes that are way more extensive than my own, I have more than I could possibly work on in a year unless I quit my job and sewed full time.  Even then, I doubt that I could finish using the stash and the scraps.  An extensive fabric stash sort of makes me happy, but it also just stresses me out a bunch with how much I have and the guilt of not using it.

    In 2009, I did not have a fabric stash and shortly after, plenty of bloggers wrote about cultivating a stash and choosing fabrics so I chose and cultivated.  Unfortunately, I did not know that really, that is not how my process works.  I seem to like to buy fabrics for the project when I have a project in mind.  I do enjoy buying fabrics just to buy fabrics as well and to have them, but I often don't use them as quickly as I'd like, which results in a ridiculous amount of fabric in my house.

  In 2015, I read a few books about the disposable fashion industry and decided that I needed to choose quality over quantity and get rid of the urge to purchase a good deal.  Flash sales and the creation of a shortage had already started to bother me.  The MQG challenges where we had to use only the manufacturer's fabric, bothered me.

    There are many people that want to shop their stash first before buying.  That sort of works for me, but I decided that I just need the stash and scraps to dictate the projects.  I'm ok with deviating from this a bit, but I'd like to work on this first.

My list of projects that I'd like to work on this year includes:

Anna Maria Horner value quilt using six inch squares:  I've been collecting AMH fabrics ever since I took the value class my guild offered from Katie Pederson.  I made a wonderful value quilt then, but decided that an AMH value quilt would be one I would like to keep.  A ridiculous amount of fabric hoarding and cutting later, and I have a six inch square of every AMH fabric I own as well as a 1.5-3 inch strip x WOF.  The stack in this picture might be over three inches tall.

AMH Candy Coated quilt:  Using the strips cut above, make a Candy Coated quilt from Sunday Morning Quilts.  The first one I made like that was so mindless and easy.

Flea Market Fancy Arkansas Crossroads:  I bought the reprint FQB and have meant to do something with it using white fabric as that is how I've liked seeing FMF quilts.  I finished cutting the 6.5" white squares this morning and the 3.5" squares last night.  It is now sitting in the box ready to go.

Meadow Mystery Quilt:  This is the quilt along for my guild this year.  I picked out scraps and stash to make it after I remembered that I had 4.5" light blue pearl bracelet squares cut already from a Bizzy Kid project fail.  I think we were only supposed to think about picking fabrics, but mine is cut and I've sewn and trimmed the HST and hourglasses.  Need to do the squares and flying geese, but I am way ahead of the guild schedule.

Starburst Brambleberry Christmas.  I like Violet Craft's fabric collections.  I like the color of her Christmas collection.  When it went to 50% off at my LQS, my mom and I bought some.  From what we bought, there was enough for three Starburst quilts.  She's making one, I'm making one and the other one needs a neutral and for one of us to make it.  So perhaps, by next Christmas, I will have at least one Starburst quilt finished.  This is the fourth Starburst quilt I've made.  Large blocks make it easy.  Thank you Melissa Corry for your quilt-a-long.

Brambleberry Ridge Christmas Candy Coated:  With the extra Christmas fabric, I'd like to make a Candy Coated quilt.

Tula Hexagon Quilt from the ORB quilt along way back when.  I bought a Modern Meadow jelly roll way back when this started.  I never started the quilt.  I still have the jelly roll.  I need to make a minky quilt for my oldest, so I cut up a bunch of blue, red and yellow Tula prints that I have to make a hexagon quilt similar to Jaybird Quilts' Neptune Hexagon quilt.  I might have a Neptune jelly roll waiting to make that quilt as well.

And Still I Rise:    This uses our Artswalk challenge fabric for the guild.  This year's requirement is that we use a template and the red fabric (or gray or blue depending upon which one you chose).  I chose to use the Drunkard's Path template and Angela Pingel's book, A Quilter's Mixology.  I made a variation on the butterfly quilt.  It is basted and waiting for me to decide how to quilt it and dedicate the time to do so.  It probably needs spiffy quilting.

I have spent quite a bit of time ironing my scrap bins and cutting them into squares.  The orange and yellow bins are done.  Two scrap quilts I am planning for are:
Scrap Plume quilt: From Fat Quarter Style
Scrap Star Value: 

I think I started this post more than two weeks ago.  If I do not finish it now, I will continue to be distracted and never post it.  So here goes and hopefully, someone's stomach has settled and does not see his food twice today.  That would make me happy.

   

2016

     Writing here was not a priority for 2016.  We bought a new house for ourselves and set about fixing it, fixed the other house, moved ourselves and my parents as we just exchanged houses.  By golly both households own a ridiculous number of books.  It is a good thing but books are heavy.

    The sewer line from our house to the city connection ruptured and there were multiple opportunities for all of us to live together in one or the other of the two houses while various things got fixed.  We eventually need to get some other floors fixed, but we're waiting a few years and dealing with it until we feel like upending things again.  Love the additional space and the large yard to send  kids out into for outdoor recess when they bicker or are rambunctious.  

     The first five quilts shown were donated to Seattle Children's Hospital through Katie's Comforters Guild.  The first two started as potential quilts for a co-worker, but we decided they were not the style of the parents and went another direction.  The other three are using fabrics that I had on hand.  

This quilt went to a co-worker and used the blue and green solids I already acquired.  I don't seem to have a finished quilt picture so I am not sure what I put on the back.

 The co-worker I gave the other Parson Gray plus quilt to for her retirement asked for the second quilt and paid me for it.  I am happy that she likes them both and hopefully is enjoying her retirement snuggled up in them.

The blue Starburst quilt went to my sister in law when she got her AA degree.  Another example of using what I had.  The navy burst points and the blue solid came from stash.  The batiks were from the PNW Meetup in Seattle courtesy of Clothworks.

Cascadia started as part of a guild challenge for our local Artswalk.  On a sunny day, one can see two mountain ranges from various parts of town, the Cascades and the Olympics.  We had to use improv (I think) and the flowered fabric from V and Co.  I used leftover strings from the black, white and gray HST quilt that went to my nephew.

This quilt got finished as well.  Somewhere I have a finished picture but it is not easy to find at this moment.  So now, with 11.5 months in between posts, here's to some of the quilts I finished in 2016.  

Giving Tuesday

Today is Giving Tuesday.  I wasn't really aware of that until reading somebody else's post.  Figured I should perhaps showcase the quilts that were dropped off at Seattle Children's Hospital that I haven't talked about yet.

 First up is a stacked coins quilt using a variety of fabrics donated to me by Katie's Comforters Guild or my sister.

The second quilt was made from the leftovers of the two Pacific Crest quilts.  I overbought fabrics because of the wide variety of colors in the pictures my mother in law sent for her two quilts.  I made approximately 80 extra units so I could get the layouts and colors balanced the way I wanted to.  Rather than let the extras sit unused, waiting to be assembled, I threw together this quilt.  My normal layout assistant was a little distracted and chose to have identical units by each other.  I went with it rather than argue.  

The backing was made of other extra pieces from the quilt.  The fabric is from Laura Gunn's Edges collection.  

There was a single block Swoon quilt that I did not snap an additional picture of.

I got to choose a block for my guild's charity quilt bee.  I chose the Birch Tree quilt pattern by Amanda Jean Nyberg.  I made a couple blocks, pieced the guild blocks, made the backing and quilted it.  Binding was hand attached by another guild member.  This quilt got dropped off for Children's as well.

And finally, since the spirit of today would be giving, here are two that I finished up this weekend but did not make it in time to travel to my sister's house so she could drop them off before their appointment yesterday.  Hopefully I will get these to the hospital before the end of the year.

Black to White PNWMQG Challenge

Sometimes I feel obligated to complete all the MQG challenges or opportunities that come up. I was excited about the Black to White Challenge for the PNW guilds for the Quilt! Knit! Stitch! Show and had a great plan.  I drew out a lovely diagram for stitch and flip HST and cut all the fabric.

Then, I picked up a bit of extra responsibility at work which reduced my desire to fill the spare time I did have with sewing a quilt that had no recipient yet.  I ditched the idea of adding the triangle to the other side of the HST and just went with the value based HST design.

This was not finished in time to submit it and I took it across the country on vacation to bind it.  The binding fairy finished the final side for me.  She also is going to give it to a step-nephew in June when he graduates from HS.  Yay that it is done nearly one year early.

I did a variety of quilting styles along the diamonds but primarily did the wishbone style.  The quilt is bound with a Valori Wells print.  It is about 60 x 70 ".  And best of all, it is another quilt crossed off the WIP list!

Some little things

My guild had a pillow swap.  I waited until the last minute to complete mine.  My partner liked bright colors like orange, yellow, blue and green as well as Tula Pink and Cotton and Steel.

 At the PNW MQG Epic Meet Up, I won a 12 pack of the larger spools of Aurifil from Island Quilter.  Island Quilter had a pop up shop in the hotel and I decided that perhaps I should purchase my pillow fabric at that time.

I have a hard time conforming to some trends.   I've bought some Cotton and Steel prints, but won't say that I love it all.  So....I went searching through the Tula and CS and found the flower Tula print that there are three of in the bottom row (oops).  The print didn't have orange in it, but there were lots of good coordinating prints that I liked a lot.  I thought they were bright or at least not pastel or muted.

The pattern is from Tula's 100 block sampler book.  Someone else posted a picture that I saw using this block and I changed my mind as to what design I chose for the pillow.  Less negative space than the original design.  It was small enough I should have remembered that I wanted to try spiral quilting.  It is bound with the red lazy stripe from her True Colors line.

 I have a bunch of 2.5 inch strips cut from the pillow fabric so I can sew the strips together and make a quilt from Jaybird's Hexagon Quilt-a-long on the Old Red Barn flickr group.  I've wanted to make one like her Neptune quilt since the original quilt-a-long and just haven't gotten around to it.  No excuses when I finish up the quilting of the two Pacific Crests.....

Last year I bought some Notting Hill Home Dec fabric to make a friend a bag.  I finally got around to it last week and made three Spice Market Totes.  I managed to use nearly all of the Notting Hill fabric that I had and did not have to buy anything for the bags.  The bag above is the small size and went as a gift for a friend.  The bags below are the larger size.  I wish I had enough to make a matching exterior on the second bag, but I'll just favor one side when I use it.  The other side of the bag is the poppy print that matches the straps like this first picture below.

The three bags also used the majority of the bolt of Shape Flex interfacing that I bought about 2 years ago intending to make more Spice Market Bags as gifts.  Yay for me that I finally used it.  It makes me happy, those little things like not needing to buy anything to make the bags that were planned at least a year ago......

Arts Walk Quilt finished three months after the fact

Back in early March or late February, I finished this quilt top with the intention of finishing the whole quilt in time for the guild exhibit at the local Arts Walk in April.  The Coral pattern was a free download by Angela Walters.

But it sat, unfinished and untouched while I debated how to quilt it.  It seemed to need spiffy quilting and I just wasn't up for spiffy quilting.  And the deadline for the exhibit passed and I still didn't touch it.  Last month I finally basted it and then thought about how to quilt it.  Yesterday, I finally committed the time to quilt it.  Today it is machine bound and washed.

My quilting is only somewhat spiffy in my mind, just five wavy lines that follow the pattern of each block.  They are not so straight, but flow, like water.... It is a step above loops or meandering stipple.

The quilt came together relatively quickly and painlessly. The guild rules stated that we could add solids but only use the given Anna Maria Horner print.  I pulled coordinating solids from the print using Pink Chalk's What Goes with What feature and Hawthorne Thread's Field Study page.  I believe the main background is Kona Indigo.  FS Cosmic Blue, Purple and Cotton Candy, AG Crystal Pink and Parisian Blue, Kona Alegria and Lupine, Michael Miller Mint, Starfruit and Venus.    There might be one or two others but I am unsure at this point and my record keeping was not so good.

I deviated from the pattern just a bit by making it bigger.  I'm not sure if it is a problem that I have in wanting to make quilts large enough for beds and not just lap quilts.  This is approximately 64 x 88 I think.  Perhaps it also has to do with the size of most people in the family.  A 70 inch quilt really doesn't cover one's toes extremely well when one is 69.5 inches.  By then, it is close enough to being twin size, may as well make it a little bigger.

 The back is an American Made Brand solid, maybe dark aqua, paired with a print from Denyse Schmidt's Shelbourne Falls in Lilac.

I will keep working on sharing the backlog or projects that were completed between March and now.  Definitely not as many finishes as in the previous year.  It will get better.  

Some scrap sewing

It is that time of year where I really wish I was independently wealthy.  Work has been pretty emotionally draining and staying up past 8 pm seems really late.  The weather has been beautiful for weeks, my yard has lots that needs to be done, and I wish I could be at home once in awhile without the two kids so that I can stare at a clean house for more than 2 minutes before it is covered in Lego pieces.  But I also really do love Lego sets at the moment because they have been wonderful to help with the imagination of the kids with minimal adult intervention needed.  Sometimes, the room needs to be divided in half so they can each have their spaces where the other one can't touch their stuff.  

Here are some of the current sewing projects.  The scrap bins are pretty full so I started making slab blocks from the different colors.  My current projects include sewing monochromatic slab blocks, 

binding this quilt,

and needing to baste and quilt this one.  I think it would look better with spiffy quilting and I haven't quite managed to wrap my mind around that yet.  It should be done in about 2 weeks time to make the guild deadline, but the schedule right now does not have enough uninterrupted time in it to do what I want unless I start staying up later on work nights.  So I will need to make a choice between making the deadline and spiffy quilting.  

I also have a stacked coins quilt made from fabric given to me by Katie's Comforters Guild that I need to attach the binding to and take a picture.  The kids decided that I should make slabs from the entire rainbow, so today I will start on the cool color bins.  I am trying to just use small pieces and not cut pieces off of larger scraps.  That might not work for green, but it should work way too well for blue.  Sewing scraps into slabs is much easier for me than making quarter log cabin blocks with scraps.  I think I might try some mixed color ones next.

Amish Snowflake block

     Only a month late, but I finished the guild charity block today.  Kristi wrote the tutorial and it was requested that we use black with jewel tones.  

     I am not so comfortable with my jewel tone selection, but I figured that turquoise and the dark blue were jewel tones.  The fuchsia color is similar to the tutorial and I suppose I can find a jewel of similar coloring.  Funny how another person I made a quilt for wanted jewel tones but thought more along the lines of ruby and emerald.  I guess it isn't really funny, just different definitions leaving me with a lack of confidence in my color selection.
     I used American Made Brand solids by Clothworks because that is what I could source locally when I thought better of going to Costco the week before Christmas.  (Costco is only relevant due to proximity of that and the fabric store).

     But hooray for crossing off another unfinished project from the list!

Purple Crazy Crossknot

Nearly a year ago, I took a crazy piecing class from Katie Pedersen of sewkatiedid.  I chose a monochromatic color palette as I had a lot of purples at the time.  It might be my favorite color.  I finished three 12 inch + sections during the class and put them on the design wall where they sat for 10 months.  I did hide them behind some other projects, but I knew they were there.  

     The original plan was for the squares to be diamonds surrounded by a white frame with the shot cotton background.  I was a little uncertain about needing to add triangles to the diamonds to set them in the background fabric.  Not sure why, but I didn't feel like doing that with the shot cotton and having the grains in multiple directions on the quilt.  So, the three diamonds continued to sit and sit and sit.
     But in the last few weeks, I saw Aria Lane's Crossknot  while shopping at Hawthorne Threads and thought that it might work.  Instead of following directions with sizes, I chose to use convenient sizes of the crazy piecing sections.  For the most part, I cut approximately the largest size of section I could with the sections I made and used those instead of the given measurements.  I think I should have cut down the size of the white frames around the blocks by a half inch but I can live with it.

      This quilt screamed that it needed custom quilting rather than get it done quilting, although it was a bit "get it done."  In the shot cotton, I quilted clam shells.  The white sashing has wishbone quilting and the purple sections have swirls.  I could have benefited from marking on the clam shell section as the sizes vary greatly, but so do different ages and species of clams so I really am just being true to the nature of clam shells.  (Yay for biodiversity!)  I tried one section from the top down and the other three sections were starting from the bottom up.  It worked much better that way.

      The backing used up three prints from Basic Grey's Eva line as well as Kona Wisteria and Orchid.  Look, some of the quilting is more visible on the back.  I chose to bind the quilt with the shot cotton and chose not to extend the white sashing into the binding.  This quilt is going to a co-worker when I return to work after the holidays.  Her unsuspecting husband told me over a year ago that her favorite color was purple.  Hopefully she'll like it and he knew what he was talking about..  

Finished size 58 x 70 inches (or so)
Fabrics: many Art Gallery purples, Lizzy House, Tula Pink, Valori Wells, Lavender Shot Cotton (Kaffe), Kona White
Backing:  Eva by Basic Grey, Kona Wisteria and Orchid
Binding: Lavender shot cotton
Quilting: clamshells, wishbones and spirals by me
Finished: 12/29/2014
Began: February 7, 2014

    The hourglass quilt is quilted and the binding is attached.  The binding fairy said she'll bind it next week when she returns.  Only one major guilt inducing work in progress remains, the blue HST quilt.  After changing the rotary blade, I trimmed the HST that were ready and figured out how many I have left to make.  Less than 200 HST.  That shouldn't take long....

     Perhaps I will do a goals for the year post with some specific projects that I'd like to complete.  Or, I will sew and trim blue solid HST to add another quilt to the finished list and not feel guilty about it anymore.  I did clean and sort fabric bins in an attempt to put it all in the locations it belongs.  Haven't sorted the colored scraps into various sizes, but there is always tomorrow or after the HST quilt is done.  Hope you all have a happy new year!