Chunks of Aqua

Irish Chain

It's a flimsy!

66 x 78. 

 This month the Rainbow Scrap Challenge color was aqua.  I found I had very few aqua scraps except for several chunks - scraps greater than 4.5 inches and less than a fat quarter. 

 I also had a small shoe box of 2.5 inch half width of fabric black and white strips from a swap long ago. 

 I have been working on several UFOs this month that fall into a chain theme so I was in chain brain mode and dreamed up this Irish Chain. 

And now that I have that out of the way the aqua scrap chunks became smaller scraps so I can now proceed to make my normal Rainbow Scrap Challenge projects I make from small scraps. But the month has almost  run out so I'll just combine aqua with a blue month to make those normal RSC blocks. 

 Oh, but wait a minute...I've been working on a Medallion Quilt too.  So far it is 45 inches square but I'm not stopping here. 

 Previously I posted about these Pineapple Blocks that I didn't like. I made them incorrectly I think or picked colors that didn't contrast enough. Whatever. Some of my aqua scrap chunks were in with four of these Pineapple Blocks. I was going to call it quits and throw the four blocks in the orphan box to deal with later rather than sooner. Gayle (Mangofeet blog) suggested I make a nine patch medallion center with them.   So I did. 

 I opted for an easy Nine Patch block for the alternate Nine Patch blocks. 

Then I added a little 1.5 inch border.  Then I made a Snowball/Nine Patch border. 

And now I know what my next border for this will be because I've started on it! 

Rainbow Scrap Challenge ScrapHappy Saturday

What's in the Hoop?

What's in the hoop?

Triangle Tiles

It's probably the last big quilt that gets hand quilted until Autumn. 

 Baptist Fans

I mark a fan with chalk and a pounce pad. Then I hand quilt the fan. Then I mark a fan, quilt the fan, mark a fan, quilt the fan...

This is not big stitching. 

Someday I'll be finished. 

Two Little Finishes

Two baby quilts finished! 

36 x 36

For Jack's Basket - one of this years Hands2Help Comfort Quilt Challenge sponsored charities. 

 The first consists of 12 inch Sawtooth Stars.  I've had that fabric with tops in the stash for awhile and had just enough for those blocks.  

 The blue and the green alternating backgrounds pick up the blue and the green in the light checks in the top fabric. 

The backing is the same Kona Spring green. (I have a lot of that on hand because I like to use it with 30s repro fabrics. It's similar to the green grandma used in her quilts. And that's the only reason I actually know that it's Kona Spring. I don't usually remember fabric designers or manufacturers.) 

I pieced the batting using wide zig zag stitch.

I quilted it in light green thread with spirals  - appropriate for tops, don't you think? 

Binding is that same Kona Spring. 

 The second one is a Hole in the Barn Door. 

I originally went looking for some farm animals for the holes in the barn doors but came across a Peppa and Friends remnant first. So Peppa and Friends ended up in the barns.  I had just a few pieces leftover from that remnant so I guess it was meant for this baby quilt. 

The backing is a light gray with white jungle animals baby fabric I've had for a while.  The binding was a light gray solid -- part of it from the leftover binding bin and the other cut from a scrap in the scrap chunk crate. Batting was pieced for this one too and I quilted it with serpentine stitch. 

These were goals #19 and #20

for

Q2 Finish-Along

Midweek Chain Report

 Trail Mix

It's a flimsy!

If I remember correctly it's 72 x 80.

I decided that this month I would work on a couple of UFOs with CHAINs in them.  This is my second UFO with CHAINS I've brought to flimsy stage this month. 

 I started this in September 2014. Then I worked on it again in 2016. I actually have the book with the pattern but since then it has been released as a free online pattern if you are interested.  I'm not adding the borders which would make it 84 x 102. I don't want a quilt that big. 

I used Autumn themed fabrics and colors in the various blocks and used different yellows and a few oranges to form the chain or what I see as a trail through the woods.  Makes me feel like I should go take a hike! 

That's the only chain themed work I did this week. I think I'll have to carry my theme into May in order to get those old UFOs like Jack's Chain to flimsy stage but it's rather difficult to concentrate on those more complex quilts in between gardening tasks this time of year.  But I have no deadlines except for those self-imposed ones so I'm free to go with the flow. 

It's a Jungle Out There!

It's a Jungle Out There! 

48 x 64

It's finished and ready for giving or gifting! 

Last year I tried to reduce my string scraps and sorted them into boxes by color group.  When the sorting was done I had a box of pink and white strings, blue strings, green and brown strings, bright strings.  

This is the second quilt I made from a box of brown and green strings. There were a few gold ones thrown in there too.   I posted about the other quilt from the green and brown strings yesterday.  I finished this top way back in March 2018 to be quilted this year. The time has come. 

I also added in a variety of green and brown critter fabrics for the centers (are they really centers in a quarter log cabin or are they starters? )  - odd bits and pieces left over from bug jar quilts, I Spy swaps, etc. 

 When I found I didn't have 48 pieces of critter fabrics I threw in some glow in the dark eyes from the Halloween fabric stash.  Here's looking at you, kid! 

 I used a tan sheet for the backing and quilted it with leaves in green variegated thread. 

The binding is scrappy and also came from the box of strings.  I sewed it down by machine using a blanket stitch. 

By the time I get to my strings they are pretty stringy. Even after washing I can see a few stray threads here and there.  Guess the quilt needs a shave. 

This was my goal #15

for

Q2 Finish-Along

Log Cabins in the Woods Finished!

 Log Cabins in the Woods

It's a finish! 

45 x 63

This was originally going to be a donation quilt but now I'm kind of eyeing it for the camper.  

 Last year I made an effort to use my boxes of strings. This is one of two that came from the green and brown sort of strings.   

 I made little 3 inch log cabins for the Wonky Log Cabin centers.

 Then surrounded them with green and brown strings. 

I differentiate between strings and strips. 

I don't cut strings. They just happen.  If I cut a strip off of yardage I call that piece a strip, not a string. My strings come from trimming quilt backs or from the very end of a piece of fabric that is less than 1.5 inches in width or it may come from a strip I cut wonky because the ruler moved or it may be the leftover end of a strip.    I consider selvages a type of string. 

This quilt was made from strings and not strips.  In other words I don't usually cut anything from yardage to make a string quilt. I just use the string scraps from the string box. I have a tab at the top of my blog for a page of some of the quilts I've made in the past. 

The binding came from the string box too - light and dark green quilt back trimmings (strings))  that were more than 2.5 inches wide were cut for bindings and if there was any width left that was over 1 inch it went back into the string box.  I machine stitched down the binding with blanket stitch. 

A soft pea green (or is it olive green? - pic is very dark, I know) sheet was used for the backing.  And, yes, the trimmings went back into the string box. 

Batting was pieced with wide zig zag stitches. 

Of course a log cabin in the woods needs some leaves so I quilted in some with variegated green thread. 

Monday Making at Love Laugh Quilt

Moving it Forward Monday at Em's Scrapbag


This was my goal #16 
for
Q2 Finish-Along

Easter in Ticky Tacky Town

I'm pretty sure this was taken after Easter Mass on Sunday, March 29, 1959, in the backyard of my maternal grandmother's farm.   I had just turned seven years old about a week earlier.  I'm the oldest one squinting into the sun.   My sister Debbie would turn five in April, Kerry would turn four in October and Steve would turn three in September. And my baby sister Theresa would be born at the end of May 1959. 

That was a time when everyone wore their "Sunday best" to church and women and girls were required to cover their head with a hat or chapel veil (and sometimes as silly as it sounds...a kleenex or hankie if no hat was available).  That was also a time when most businesses like gas stations, grocery stores, department stores and liquor stores were closed on Sundays.  It was a time before big discount stores existed and most grocery stores were "mom and pop" shops. Some restaurants were open on Sundays. My dad managed one and almost always had to work on Easter Sunday and all other holidays except Christmas. 

And so you see our new clothes we wore for the first time that year to Easter Mass and would wear every Sunday thereafter until the weather got cold. Our next new set of Sunday clothes were brought to us by Santa on Christmas.  I think my dress and duster was a light purple and my sister's was pink. Looks like I was showing off my fancy white gloves and purse. And don't you love my Easter bonnet! 

I don't remember any Easter baskets. I don't think we ever got one. Maybe no one did back then?  I think we dyed eggs a few times with food coloring, hot water and a teaspoon of vinegar. I remember once that dad told me to use a white crayon and to write my name on the egg before dipping it. Oh, I thought it was magic when my name resisted the dye and showed up in white! 

 I only had Easter themed scraps enough for four little ticky tackies. 

I think those scraps are left over from making Easter baskets for the grand kids over the years. 

And that makes 254 little ticky tacky houses. I still need lots more. Memories will be written on the back of the quilt. 

Happy Easter from Ticky Tacky Town! 

Streak of Lightning Flimsy

 Streak of Lightning

It's a flimsy! 

60 x 72

It will be a donation quilt when finished. 

 A lot of times I only use rainbow colors in my Rainbow Scrap Challenge projects. That leaves me with scraps in a few other colors without a project.  In 2017 I made some pink and blue-green HSTs to use those colors of scraps. In 2018 I made more  HSTs until I ran out of blue-green scraps and then joined them together into blocks.  This year I found more aqua and pink scraps and made 11 more blocks and joined them for a flimsy. 

I don't have a design wall so just randomly sew blocks together. Most of the time that works well with small scrappy blocks but sometimes not so well with larger blocks.  Above was how the flimsy looked when I first sewed blocks together. I didn't like all that dark blue-green in the middle so took off the bottom three rows and sewed them back on as the top three rows.   That left more of the same value of blue-green together in the body of the quilt and I liked that a little better. 

I was thinking that this was close to a twin sized quilt but now that I'm blogging about it I think I am a row short. I think a twin quilt would be better at 84 inches in length instead of 72 inches.  I think I'll have to find more pink and blue-green scraps for 45 more HSTs - one more row.  

Rainbow Scrap Challenge ScrapHappy Saturday

I Finished Up the Leftovers

 It's a finish!

And it's blowing in the wind, sunshine and shadows so I didn't get a good pic. And so it goes. 

42 x 60

Ready for giving or gifting. 

I'm not certain yet but it will probably go to Wrap-A-Smile.  I'm waiting to finish a batch of tops I made last year and then will divide them up to go to various charities and to give as gifts. 

 These pieces were left over from making a scrappy strip pieced kaleidoscope quilt back in 2015.   If there was enough of the stripped piece left I cut it into 6.5 inch squares to use for this little quilt. 

As you can see this quilt is full of smiles and kisses...

 ...and love.  And there's a few other surprises too. 

 I added some 1.5 inch stripped pieces to top, bottom and sides to add to the length and width. (Actually I think I wanted to get rid of that lime green little piece).  

 I had some 3.5 inch HSTs in the Parts Department (left over from making other quilts) so made those into Broken Dishes blocks and added a row of those to the top and bottom to get it to the 60 inch length I wanted.  

Batting was pieced. 

Binding was the last of that lime green piece I wanted to get rid of (success!) and was sewn down by machine as requested by a lot of charities. 

I quilted it with vertical and horizontal serpentine stitches in purple.  I thought the quilting kind of matched the backing fabric wiggly lines. 

This was my goal #13

for

Q2 Finish-Along

Joining the Peacock Party at Wendy's Quilts and More. 

Crumb Stars Finish

 Crumb Stars

40 x 56

It will probably be donated to Wrap-A-Smile. But it and another Crumb Star quilt finished earlier this year might get gifted to a niece who is due to deliver twins this year.  (A little stork also told me two nephews and their wives will also be the recipients of new babies this year. With 31 nieces and nephews the stork stays busy with deliveries.)

 I made this crumb blocks last year as a Rainbow Scrap Challenge project. Each month I sewed together crumbs for the 4.5 inch centers in the color of the month. The star points usually matched the center and the backgrounds were made from scraps in a complementary color. 

 It's fun to see what shows up in little crumbs. 

The batting was pieced. The backing I had set aside eons ago to make a shirt. Then I set it aside in a backing pile to use on a small red/white quilt but then forgot it was for the red/white quilt so it got used as the backing for this quilt.  I quilted it with loops and stars on my Brother.  For the binding I used bits and pieces of leftover solid bindings from the leftover bindings bin.  I'm not a fan of sewing the binding on my machine but a lot of charities request that it be done that way. 

This was my goal #14

for

Q2 Finish-Along