Remember That Box of Pink and White Strings?

Remember that box of pink strings I was going to make into quilts? (If you don't remember go back and read my Feb. 15 post). 

Well, so far I've made a couple of flimsies from that box of strings. 

 Rocky Road to Kansas

63 x 63

I've always wanted to try to make a Rocky Road to Kansas string quilt because I've been inspired by many vintage ones.  

 So I've finally done it. 

 I actually didn't even know how to begin. I didn't want to make a lot of small blocks because a lot of my strings were wide and I wanted to use the strings without further cutting.  I'm not good at making my own templates but then remembered...

...a quilt called Chance in Kathy Doughty's book Making Quilts. Her wedges are made up of triangles but the wedge template for the background pieces worked perfectly for me.  I made wedges out of newspaper and sewed my strings to them. I first thought I would make strip sets and then cut the wedges out of the strip sets but later decided I wanted four similar blocks in each set rather than some willy nilly blocks like the stars in my 3+ Sheets to the Wind quilt  The wedges aren't all exactly the same since the strings weren't all the same width but each set of four uses the same strings. 

 Strings without a clever name.

40 x 60

 I made 10 inch (finished) blocks. I used taped together phone book pages for the foundation piecing. 

 Both of the quilts, when finished, will be donation quilts.  They probably won't be finished until summer. Right now I don't have batting or backings for them. 

  So now...what's left of that box of strings? 

I took out all of the bright pink strings and put them in with the bright strings box.  That left me with a few pale pink strings. I'm not sure what I'll do with them right now. I may combine them with other colors of pastel strings and neutrals when I get to them and make a quilt. 

 I have some small string end pieces that I'll put with the crumb scraps or make into coins. 

I have some wide and very long pieces (from sheets I used for backings) I separated out that I can use for bindings or piece together for backings. 

And I have some white/neutral strings. I'm thinking I might combine those with some black/dark strings and make something.  Time will tell. 

Foothills Quilt Along Blocks 2 - 5

Foothills QAL blocks 2 - 5

Mary Elizabeth Kinch Foothills Quilt Along

Inspired by a vintage Bar and Chain quilt

I'm using patriotic fabrics but have a difficult time choosing all the fabrics for each block before I start making it.  (I always have a difficult time choosing fabrics for blocks and that's why I like using scraps - the choosing is done for me!) 

So my method? (Or madness?)  I start with the large HSTs. I choose 2 fabrics and make them.  Then I decide on fabrics for the Flying Geese. I'm not using the cutting instructions given for block instructions on the QAL page but using specialty rulers instead to cut my pieces. The geese use a 2 inch piece of fabric so I first look through some old patriotic scraps I have that are 2 inches to see if any scraps look good with the HSTs I've made. If not I go to the patriotic fabric box and look for something.  Above you can see I have the HSTS paired up with fabrics I chose for the Flying Geese. 

As I mentioned I use special rulers to cut the Flying Geese bodies and wings. 

After I sew together all the Flying Geese I go ahead and sew them to the HSTs and see how it all looks. 

Next I look through my scraps to see if I have something to use for the cross bars and if I don't have scraps that look good I go back to the patriotic fabric box and look for something. After cross bar fabrics are chosen and cut I decide finally on fabrics for hourglass centers.  I cut those from 2 inch strips so, again, I go look through the 2 inch scraps to see if there's anything I could use. 

And that's how I ended up with the blocks that started this post if I made any sense and wasn't rambling on too much. 

One more thing...when I cut the Flying Geese bodies and the hourglass pieces with the Easy Angle Companion ruler I also cut HST pieces before and after the Geese bodies.  That way the leftover fabric scrap stays square and I don't waste the fabric at the beginning because I can make an HST. 

I cut some muslin and made those into twenty eight 2 inch HSTs right away.  And I tucked them into a new project bag.  That darned Gayle (Mangofeet) is a temptress of the worst kind. She sent me a link to a new project that requires 2048 - two inch HSTs and then some.   We are calling it Totally Demented. 

I Was Just Going to Make a Little Doll Quilt

 I got into the orphan box (well, it's actually a bag) looking for a few orphan blocks to make a doll quilt.   I didn't end up making a single doll quilt. I made three flimsies instead from orphans and parts. All measure roughly 40 x 60 and when finished will be donated.  First I need to piece together some batting and find some backings. 

Moving it Forward Monday at Em's Scrapbag

Monday Making at Love Laugh Quilt

A Finish! 42 Cents Forever Stamp

42 Cents Forever Stamp

74 x 92.5

hand quilted with perle #8

From the book 19th Century Patchwork Diva's Treasury of Quilts

I actually bought the book for the Sunflower pattern but got sidetracked before I got to that. 

It's not often that I make a quilt in the same colors and almost exactly like the one in the instructions but that's the way this one turned out.  I don't buy a lot of large cuts of fabric but it just so happened I had a double pink fabric that was about right as far as yardage. And I happened to have a lot of the postage stamp blocks already made and I had a lot more postage stamps already cut and stored in pencil boxes.  It was meant to be. 

That's a lot of little 1.5 inch pieces of fabric! 

I just casually (no lines drawn) quilted through the stamps on the diagonal with pink perle #8. So there are quilted vertical lines about an inch apart across the quilt. Pulling the thread through all those seams was hard on the fingers!  I had to lay it aside several times. 

I ran out of thread with five rows left to go.  I hate going out when the weather is cold and snowy if I don't have to so I made do and used some pink crochet cotton that matched pretty well for those last five rows. The crochet cotton was a thinner thread but I don't think anyone would even notice the difference. 

 And speaking of making do...I used a soft flannel sheet from the thrift store for the backing. I had to let out the seams all around in order for it to be big enough. 

This was my goal #1  on the list for 

2018 Quarter 1 Finish-Along

and

18 in 2018

This took a lot of Slow Sunday Stitching and then some. 

And Oh Scrap! 

Purple Slab and Crumb Edition

From the purple box of scraps...

Two twelve inch Heart of the Matter slab blocks. 

 From Cathy's Crumby Confectionery Company - three grape Crumby Yummies and three blackberry Crumby Yummies - sweet eight inch candy blocks. 

 And into the aquarium with the blue fish swim some Itty Bitty Nitty Gritty purple fish.   (I was going to try to use blue scraps for "water" around all the fish but it looks like some get lost in the backgrounds. Maybe it will all work out when all the fish are in the aquarium??? I was then going to arrange fish with lightest blue backgrounds on top and darkest on bottom. ) 

And six eight inch stars from the Crumb Galaxy not too far away. 

Rainbow Scrap Challenge ScrapHappy Saturday

It's a Flimsy! Blind Man's Fancy

 Blind Man's Fancy

90 x 90

It's a flimsy!

 Blocks finish at 15 inches and the sashing geese finish at 1-1/4 x 2-1/2 . 

I used the free online pattern by Beth Donaldson .  I later acquired the book History Repeated and the pattern instructions are in that book finish at 18 inches if I remember correctly. 

 My February OMG (One Monthly Goal) was to complete all the Flying Geese necessary for the borders and for in between the rows then to assemble the top. I already had the five rows with Flying Geese assembled.  

There are a variety of reasons I make a quilt. This one? I made it because I wasn't sure I could. Of course the fact that a beautiful vintage quilt was the inspiration figured in there somewhere. 

And I have another one in rose and tea themed fabrics in the works.  

Linking to:

Elm Street Quilts OMG

Sew, Stitch, Snap, SHARE

Foothills Quilt QAL

Mary Elizabeth Kinch is hosting a Foothills Quilt QAL.  

A vintage Chain and Bar quilt is the inspiration for the QAL.  I just love vintage quilts and am inspired a lot of times to make a similar quilt. This is one of those times. I decided to use my patriotic fabrics (plus some plaids) because I've challenged myself to use my holiday fabrics this year.  It may even be a Quilt of Valor quilt if I'm able to part with it. 

Block 1 of 25

I'm using Easy Angle rulers to cut the pieces instead of the QAL directions. 

I meant for the Flying Geese to have white body and red corners but I've been making hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of little Flying Geese for my Blind Man's Fancy quilt sashings and they are dark with light corners so I guess I just automatically did the same thing here. (sigh)!

The Paths

No, I haven't forgotten that I was making 12 six inch Drunkard's Path blocks each week for 13 weeks in order to move this UFO forward. 

Above are the blocks I made last week. 

 And above are the blocks for this week already.  

And that makes 179 (if I've been counting and adding correctly) blocks of the 224 I'm aiming for. 

Oh Scrap! at Quilting is More Fun than Housework

Purple 2.5 Inch Scraps

This week I used my purple 2.5 inch scraps. 

With the addition of a few six inch HSTs  - some cut from scrap chunks but most left overs from the Parts Department - I used my 2.5 inch purple scraps (and  few yellow and red 2.5 inch scraps) to make lots of little HSTS that ended up in six 10 inch Crazy Lady of the Lake blocks.  This is a RSC project carried over from last year. 

And speaking of (very old) RSC carry over projects...I made a couple of Sprout blocks, a couple of Depression Blocks and had a few HSTs left over for a little Broken Dishes block for the Parts Department. 

Rainbow Scrap Challenge ScrapHappy Saturday

In the Pink (Strings)

The last few weeks I've been sorting strings and other scraps.   And I told myself if I'm going to keep these scraps I need to get something made out of them because they definitely take up a lot of space I don't have.  I sorted strings into four separate piles - 

1. pinks and whites

2.  earthy colors - greens, yellows, browns

3. light blues, grays

4. brights

I set aside the brights to use in donation quilts for kids. 

 I'm starting with the pink and white box. I'm surprised I have so many pink scraps but a lot of these were pieces left over from sheets I used for quilt backs for girls.  The nice thing about strings is that they are basically already cut so I don't have to do too much prep work. 

 I have decided to try something new and different with each box of strings.  

 So far I've made some BIG wedge paper foundations and made 16 string wedges.  I haven't trimmed them yet. 

I'm thinking about what to do next.  And I'm thinking I might have enough of this pink polka dot fabric for some pink string centers. 

I work on these a little bit in between working on projects that require more precision like making all those small flying geese for my Blind Man's Fancy sashing or like adding the outside circles to those Boho Roosters or like making a bunch of 2.5 inch scrappy purple HSTs for this week's RSC projects or like sewing up a dozen Drunkard's Path blocks every week.  

In the Pink (Strings) is for break times. 

It's a Finish! Birthday Wishes

 Birthday Wishes

60 x 72

My husband shoveled a path to the clothesline so I could go out and take a few photos now that the weather has warmed up just a little. 

I participated in a Birthday Club several years ago.  Members request a block for their birthday month and I requested any star in 30s reproductions on a blue background.  I was thinking these stars were from two different Birthday Clubs but now that I look at the stars it looks like I made all but about 8 of them. Most of the blocks I received were on solid blue backgrounds. I guess I'm a little wilder. 

My birthday wish was a Star sampler.  I don't know what took me so long to get this together since I only needed one more star to make a total of 30. 

I did variable width straight line quilting on my DSM in a variegated blue thread. 

 I was afraid to begin with that when the lines were closer together the quilt would be stiff. It's not.  I used a light weight 100% polyester batting and maybe that's why?  Most of the time I use Hobbs Heirloom 80/20 and I'm thinking that's a little heavier and might have made it stiffer.  Anyway, it all worked out and I like it a lot. 

For the backing I used a gingham that's a little wrinkly like seersucker but it's not seersucker. 

This was my goal #4

for 

Q1 Finish-Along

and 

18 in 2018