scrap bag quilt

I posted this scrap quilt on my other blog a week or two ago but it wasn't finished. Now it has a 3 inch border/binding in a deep purple which continues to emphasize the brightness of the scrap strips. They are foundation pieced on drier sheets-- I loved making it, quickly without any need to measure; using many of my scraps -- but actually not even half of them.

Since then I have made another using the same method but toning down the drama, I've use light blue stripping  and will use a blue border/binding -- all scraps, of course. And I still have about half my scrap bag of strips and scraps and may eventually make a third (although I've use up quite a lot of the drier sheets I had saved over a couple of years.

I'm contemplating writing an essay (or even a how-to) book about making a quilt using your scraps in a totally sponatenous way, ignoring almost all the rules of the "Quilt Police" -- no measuring, various widths of the strips, no concern for color matching or pattern harmony ... it all works fine, as you can see. Or maybe not everyone agrees -- that depends on one's OCD burden. (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) -- I have almost none. I never never been a perfectsionist. I hate the rules and I know I'm pretty bad at color choices. I love the total freedom of making this quilt. The drier sheets are all the same size (used of course- most had to be lightly ironed, being a bit crumpled) so I simply started with a corner to corner strip and added from there.  I DID have to begin every other one from the opposite corner to get the diamond pattern (and of course, pay attention to that pattter as I laid them out. But that's it. The quilting is simply in the strips -- I don't enjoy quilting so I don't do a lot -- the old rule about needing a lot of quilting is horse manure in these days when batting is in sheets. (I am aware that people with long arm quilting machines do LOTS of quilting -- it's their  pleasure, but not mine.)

Later this week I will put up a picture of the second strip scrap quilt -- it will have a very different feel. I'd be quliting it today but it's a very hot and humid day and I don't feel like sitting at the sewing
machine with my lap full of fabric and batting.

Totally Dotty

This quilt is called 'Totally Dotty" --because it is --it's made entirely front, AND back and even binding. from my stash of different kinds of dotted fabrics.  In fact this is "Totally Dotty #2.) Making the first one was  a lot of fun and so was this one. The squares, of course, is entirely basic. all the pieces are cut 2-1/2 inch-- the square in the middle and the framing pieces, and on a simple light/dark patern, both in each square and then in how it's put together. The backing is  made of three larger pieces of dotted fabric. One doesn't realize how many things can be done with dots until looking at a collection like I had.  I'm sure several aren't actually "polka dots" but all are dotted. I haven't entirely depleted my collection but made quite a dent in it.

I have always loved looking at the inventiveness of fabric designers -- the designs, the color variations. About 30 years ago when quilting suddenly was rediscovered by women and by designers  a burst of ideas appeared in the fabric stores -- so much for all the sweet florals --yes, they still exist, of course -- but much else is now available. There are tons of novelty fabrics, especially for children's quilts, often based on TV characters; these don't appeal to me.

But there are magnificent lines of fabrics from high end fabric manufacturers that are works of art.  Most quilters have at least one of two (or maybe many) fabrics they love so much they just don't want to cut into them. I have some, too.  Meanwhile, I'm digging into stashes and seeing what I can come up with this summer. The "totally dotty" quilts (#1 and #2 -- same idea but each very different in color combinations) is only the beginning.
 

The Hexagon quilt in header photo

I love paper foundation piecing.  This particular one is a triangular log cabin design. It takes only a moment after being told that to see it. The total size is only about 15x15 and each of the six triangle blocks has 17 pieces in it.  I could not imagine sewing this design without using a paper foundation.

It looks difficult but in fact was quite simple, black and then white and then black again and so on around the center.  It took an afternoon of carefully copying the design onto tear-away paper and then sewing each triangle.  The look is, to me, wonderfully dramatic.  The red and white  striped fabric for the border seemed just right and was, in fact, the most difficult part as the corners are not at all easy to sew.

I have done many paper pieced quilts -- nearly all wall quilts, many of them from Carol Doak designs. But other block designs, or over all designs are quicker and easier and, of course, do not require the steps of copying and later tearing away the paper backing. There are a couple of paper pieced designs that I've been thinking of a long time, one a New York Beauty ... perhaps I'll get around to it this summer -- or perhaps not, as I really am committed to doing mostly stash smashing quilts that can be sewn more quickly and use up considerably more fabric.

Summer at Last

Deep red peonies at Heritage Plantation a couple of weeks ago.  I was give a bunch of white peonies and the living room was filled with that singular tangy-sweet scent ... then one morning I looked and there was a snowbank of white petals surrounding the vase.  They simply drop en masse when the time has come. So short lived but so wonderful what they last.

Right not the rhododendrons are fading away and in a very short time the hydrangias will replace them with mounds of blue, purple, white. And the rosa rugosa in the dunes at the beach are white, pink, and read  and delicately scented.

Summer is marvelous!  This week has been busy with "things" -- a memorial gathering yesterday for a woman who passed away quietly at home while watching TV and was not discovered for at least 12 hours, maybe more.  Very much a loner although also very much involved in politcial activities -- protest marches and so on.  Today a couple of friends helped me get out a maiing about the anthology we will be puting together in the fall. It was also an opportunity to talk (i.e, gossip) while we worked adressing and stuffing envelopes.

Tomorrow there's a birthday celbration but I hope to have time for some quilting in the morning and then get a photo of some recent quilts in my attempt to do some stash smashing this summer.

This quilt is not a stash smasher, it is only about 26x30. Our Uncommon Threads group chose the theme "Childhood or Youth" for the May challenge. This is an obvious metaphor of the roads that lie ahead for a young person  -- a pony-tailed girl in this case.  I'm sorry the color is not brighter. The white expanse reads as mountains although it could be a difficult sea or an icy expanse far to the north. In this sort of metaphor almost anything works.

Speaking of metaphors -- spelled differently but nevertheless the same word, an online literary magazine has a couple of my short stories, one flash fiction the other longer story.  If one searches Metaphorespring19 the stories will be found in the index and can be read (free) by simply clicking their names.

Sunflower Quilt Done

This very large sunflower quilt hangs on the wall facing the slider door to my patio so that usually it's the first thing one sees on entering. A cheerful, bright welcome on the gray days of winter.  (Although, so far this has been a winter with a lot of sunshine and almost no snow. -- we hold our breath and wait for when it will come.) The design was inspired when I was sent a note with this as the design.  I immediately saw it as a possibly way to use up many of my buttons.  Three are over 300 hand-sewn buttons on this quilt. It's about 40x38.

Having finished the work on the anthology for the Academy for Lifelong Learning, I have some time to finish projects (like the previous post here below). And this week-end, President's Day, gives me three days to get my sewing room/studio in good shape, which I've been doing.  I have another long-time quilt top waiting to be quilted. I sandwiched it today, will do the actual sewing the next two day. And I'll take some time out from that job to make a small abstract little quilt for Uncommon Threads whih will meet Thursday.

Meanwhile I've done a lot of straigtening rearranging and the room actually looks fairly neat.  Needless to say, I have a various of other projects in mind.  The list grows as I think about it. When I'll have time... I'll see.

Finally time to finish UFOs

This is an incomplete and not very good photo of a  bed-size quilt I was finally able to finish today (border and binding). I put it on my bed and will sleep under it tonight as I usually do when I've just completed a bed-size quilt. The block pattern has a name but I've forgotten it. This was  swap (from a Swap-bot) quilting group. I liked the easy way one could cut up a four-square block and make it much more complex looking.

About 1/3rd of the blocks were sent to me in the swap. I usually made one or two additional ones (beyond the one I was to send my partner). The various colors were a stipulation of the swap directions.  I've forgotten which blocks I made and which were made by others.  I'm pleased with the relative simplicity that looks far more complex to make than it was.

I have been so busy with editing the anthology, Reflections, for the Academy for Lifelong Learning that I have not worked on large quilts for months. We had a well attended launch party yesterday and I am now finished with that project for several months. I have another bed-sized quilt top made which needs batting, backing, quilting and binding. I will begin that job on Saturday and hope to finish it (maybe?) next week .... I'm aware that almost everything about quilting takes longer than expected.

Meanwhile I have made an art quilt that is larger than expected. I'll write about it, with photo, maybe tomorrow, more likely over the weekend.

New post, new year, new quilts

The picture in the header above is my quilted version of a forest fire. I made it last summer when our Uncommon Threads art quilte group chose the theme "chaos".  To me that's what this quilt says -- it's not beautiful but it's fire-y.

The quilt here in the post is one of three I gave to a member of the Baybery  Quilt Guild when she asked for quilts to be sent to victims of the horrible forest fires in California. Her contact in California said people had nothing and were cold at night sleeping in tents. Obviously it is a simple, very basic quilt of random 3 inch squares set in patches. I very much enjoy using up scraps and found this very easy and satisfying to make.  I'll make another this winter. I like to have two or three extra quilts stashed for just such opportuities to share them with people who truly need them.

I've been very lax about keeping up this blog. I will try to do better this year. Below is a quilt I recently made for the Uncommon Threads challenge to use "unusual materials".

This uses real money that I have from various trips to various countries, both paper money and coins; th(which is about 15x18 is Money/Men -- making what I think is an obvious political statement. (I do not mean for Trump's face to be obscure, the particular photo I used did not transfer well. Although, to make a personal statement, I do not enjoy looking at his face and am not sorry it's not clear.