Two new entirely scrappy quilts

At last I finished this UFO. It's tied throughout the checkerboard; the red border is quilted by machine.  The binding was to be all obvious zig-zags like the section in the lower middle of the photo but the fabric, inexpensive and from JoAnne's, was not printed straight.  A shame because I like the effect.  Ah, well. 

I saw a checkerboard quilt in a European Fabric Mania magazine about three years ago and realized it could be made in 12-patch increments by a method of sewing strips together and then cutting them, flipping every other strip and sewing into blocks.  I had quite a collection of blues and also of whites, many with blue print, so this scrappy quilt contains at least 50 different fabrics. As always I love that so many patterns can all lie side by side making a coherent pattern.

This strip quilt is even more obviously scrappy. A similar one (no two could ever be alike!) was on Selvage Blog (see sidebar) a couple of years ago. It clearly did not need a pattern, just many horizontal strips and a couple of rows of shorter vertical strips to break up the pattern. Nothing complex about the sewing. I attempted to chose among the many, many strips, ones with color affinities so there seems to be a little bit of planning -- actually not planning ahead but thoughtful choices as I went along.  That was terrifically enjoyable for me. I love freedom of choice as I sew, it can't become boring.

I did not attempt to make all strips the same width but stayed in the 1-1/2 to 3 inch range, most are 2 inches or a little more or a little less.  I tried to make the entire strip the same width even when I sewed pieces together. The pale pink and black border makes me smile. The entire back is a busy, small scale black and white stylized print. So much fun, I'm feeling tempted to make another  ... but my "to make" list is always in mind. 

On diisplay- Star Quilts

The summer Bayberry Quilt show will have Stars as the theme.  To inspire people, Tumbleweeds, the large quilting fabric store at the edge of town is displaying star quilts.  A call eent out to members of the guild for quilts they can hang for the month of January.  I gave them three of mine to hang. I've been making star quilts for ages. The red-white-black one is the result of swaps on Swap-bot so, of this 9 patch sampler, I made five square from Carol Doak paper pieced patterns and the others were sent to me.

This star "quartet" with wreaths of flower shapes is another Carol Doak pattern (she did a book of 50). I had a spell of making quartets which measure about 30x30. I actually made 24 of the 50. That was several years ago and I have given away the majority of them. This is a  favorite of mine because I used a striped brown/maroon fabric that worked with the wreath and the borders nicely (click to enlarge and see the print).

This lone star quilt was made about 15 years ago from a paper piece design I found in one of the quilting magazines. It has over 900 pieces. I hesitated to display it because the piecing is so time consuming, and I cannot direct anyone to the paper pieced pattern I used. But maybe it would be a bit inspiring ... besides, I'm quite proud of it and showed it in an Empire Guild (of NYC) show when it was new.

If this morning's snow fall cancels plans I had for today, I will make progress on a small "challenge" quilt for that sunmner Bayberry show and possibly also make one or two of the Block of the Month patterns for the January guild meeting.

I love star quilts as much as I love log cabin ones.