Temecula Mini's

Today Sheryl posted her layout for her Marvelous Mini's, which I've been sewing along with the past few months. I'm pretty much caught up with the blocks, so I started auditioning fabrics for the setting strips. Here's what I've looked at so far. Maybe you can help me make up my mind!

This is the first fabric I auditioned, and I loved it right away! Trouble is, I don't think I have enough. Maybe if I used it for the vertical stripes, and something else for the horizontal strips.

At first I thought this was boring, but its starting to grow on me. And I definitely have enough for the sashing, and a border. I'd want to add a second, more interesting border tho, and maybe some cornerstones.

This works - the blocks definitely pop - but maybe too much?  I think its probably too light.

Whew! Busy. Looks like a carnival. Kinda cool, though ...

Paisley for the vertical and dots for across? Hmmm....

And then there's my old standby, denim. I'd have to jazz it up a bit, with cornerstones and an interesting border.

Well there you have it. This is what's going on, on my design wall today. What do you think??

love,
Sandy

oops... almost forgot to link up with Judy's Design Wall Monday!

Another Vet Quilt

I'm sort of on a roll with these right now. For one thing, I'm on a mission to reduce the bulk of my stash, with the hope that I can free up some space in my sewing room. Chipping away at my stacks of fabric has actually helped .. somewhat. Of course all those strips I've been cutting have to go somewhere in the meantime, which means filling yet another bin which I have to find a spot for. Its like a Chinese puzzle. Or, robbing Peter to pay Paul. And then what do I go and do? I just ordered four new cuts of backing fabric, because they will be "perfect for Vet quilts" ! And so it goes.

Anyway, after finishing one of the Rail Fence tops yesterday, I started rummaging around for a bin I might be able to empty (for the strips) and ended up going through one labeled "UFO's, random blocks, and leftovers". One bag was leftovers from a couple of plaid quilts - well several, actually, as leftovers from the first one went into the second one which went into the third... and on down the line like that. Three or four plaid quilts later, I still had a bag of leftover blocks and scraps. This morning I started playing around with them, and came up with this:

Here's how it all got started.
I don't have a picture of the original plaid quilt, but it was a Bento Box which I made for my nephew just about ten years ago. Far be it from me to figure out my yardage and cutting ahead of time, and apparently can't count while I sew either, so I ended up with four 12" Bento Boxes left over, a few partial BB's, and about a hundred more 3" strips than I needed. Into the leftover box they went, where they languished for a few years.

Then another project (later? earlier? I can't recall) where I reduced the pattern and made a small wall hanging for myself, and somehow ended up with four 6" Bento Boxes leftover.

Fast forward to a couple years ago, I needed to make a quilt for another nephew. I turned most of the leftover 3" strips into four-patches, sewed them into a top, then cut an additional bunch of 5 1/2" squares for a couple of borders.

Davey's Quilt

I got a great quilt out of it, but now I ended up with a leftover stack of 5 1/2" squares, several four-patches, and a handful of random strips, which went back into the bin.

Which were almost entirely consumed by today's plaid quilt.

 

This is about as close to improv as I will ever get. I did fall back on my friend Claire's "Scrap Strategies" which are very inspiring, and helpful to a linear, stay-within-the-lines quilt maker such as myself. No doubt Claire would have come up with a much more artistic arrangement, but I think this one will do OK. 

This new quilt will most likely go to my guild's Quilters for Hospice group, and through the "We Honor Vet's" hospice program, will be given to a veteran currently in hospice care. Hopefully the quilts we give them will live on with their families, and bring them comfort and memories of their loved one.

At any rate, I consider today's scrap-busting exercise a success, resulting in a fun, interesting quilt, made entirely of leftover blocks and scraps. btw even the black inner border came out of my leftover binding box!
Here's all that remains of the plaid scraps...

...which I can now turn into triangle squares, log-cabin strips, and four-patches.

Yay!

love,
Sandy

More Stash Busting

I've been working on cutting my (mostly "less loved") fabric into 1 1/2" and 2 1/2" strips, with the idea in mind to make scrappy lap quilts for the wounded vets. We're getting ready to take a big load of quilts and books to the VA hospital in Palo Alto this week, and I'm proud to have made several of them this time around.

On to the sewing! The obvious choice with the 1 1/2" strips would be a Log Cabin, so I went ahead and made one of those a few weeks ago. (pic etc. to follow)

This week I decided I'd like to try a Rail Fence quilt. This idea was inspired by one of Kathie Holland's quilts, a rather large Rail Fence, using 5" blocks, which was featured in the August 2011 APQ Magazine, and in fact graces the cover of that issue.

taken in natural light, true to color

The way they're constructed and arranged gives a "basket weave" look - very cool!

Kathie suggests a very slick and efficient way of constructing many blocks at the same time, by sewing five long strips together then cutting them into blocks. Unfortunately, my strips were all kinds of varying lengths so that method didn't work so well for me. I ended up cutting my oddball strips into 5 1/2" lengths, then going from there. Still, I made dozens of these blocks in a very short period of time!

By last night, I had more than doubled the above.

taken last night in artifical light, which warms it up quite a bit

I toyed with the idea of putting the blocks all together for a single large throw, but then.... where was that quilt going to live? No room for it here, and too big for a Vet Quilt (they're very specific at the VA). So I'll most likely make a few more blocks and turn them into two Vet Quilts. Much easier to handle (and find backs for) and so satisfying to give them to our injured soldiers. Meanwhile, I'm liking the idea of a scrappy 2" border to reign it all in.

Back to those "unloved" fabrics. Funny, they look so much prettier once I cut them into small strips! Another thing I noticed is, the quilt gains more than a bit of life from the whites and (relatively) brights, especially the pinks and yellows, usually shunned in my normal fabric selection. Hmm.. am I learning something here?

the Log Cabin

The Log Cabin looks quite lively, don't you think? Hopefully will cheer and delight whoever receives it. Its densely quilted, with a flannel back, so nice and crinkly/snuggly.

Another thing I learned from making this particular quilt is that (my MANY) mistakes (cringe! ha ha) don't show up in the overall look of the quilt. Thank god, LOL!!

Another thing I noticed while cutting strips are the many fabrics in my stash of very small scale - which I normally find uninteresting - but are ideal for making teeny-tiny blocks, such as the TQC Marvelous Mini's I'm also working on. If I had it to start over again, I might zero in on some of those, instead of trying to make sense of my "precious gems" that often lose their character when cut so small.

Anyway... enough for now. Time to link up with Judy's "Design Wall Monday" before it turns into Tuesday!

love,
Sandy

ps Does anyone have any tips on how to post from an ipad? I can't find a way to access my pictures for the post. For now I have to email the picture to myself, then go from there. Very inconvenient.