Zip! And Now Some Assembly Required

And now there are 90 Zip blocks -- enough for a twin sized or throw quilt 60 x 81. 

I used Lynn's (Klein Meisje Quilts) instructions to make the blocks that finish 6 x 9. 

When I went to put the set of blocks into the SAR (Some Assembly Required) box I did another count of the blocks and after counting three times I only counted 89 blocks.  I looked at the scraps left after I made the last batch of blocks and saw that a blue/gray one was missing.  I left that scrap on top of the pile and looked around a bit and could not find the missing block. I was going to wait a day and make another block tomorrow to replace the missing one. After lunch today I looked around again and found the block folded up and in with a little pile of fabrics I have been cutting in between sewing and ironing. 

And sew on...

 

November Triangles

I have had several different large shoeboxes of triangle parts cluttering up my sewing room. They have accumulated for a number of years. There are cut off flippy corners, cut off binding joins or pieces given to me; if I cut Flying Geese or Quarter Square triangle pieces with an Easy Angle Companion ruler then I cut an HST from the beginning and end of the fabric strip with an Easy Angle ruler.  

I've been trying to empty the boxes for quite awhile and usually use the parts as leaders and enders. 

This month I saved up all the pieces and parts I've sewn together for one blog post. 

Above are some of the HSTs cut when I cut Flying Geese bodies for a May 2016 finish called Butterfly Garden.  I'm not sure what I'm going to do with the HSTs now. 

I have 24 sets of four HSTs that finish at 4.5 inches. Maybe I'll make the Broken Dishes blocks and then use them as the center for a medallion quilt. Maybe...

I think these parts were all given to me. The sets of four with neutral will now go on to become Monkey Wrench blocks. The others will go into baggies sorted by size. 

I think these green HST parts were left over from cutting Flying Geese for a March 2021 finish called Pea Soup.  I had to cut some neutral scrap HSTs to pair up with the green parts.   Now I think these 4.5 inch HSTs will be made into Broken Dishes blocks. I have collection of Broken Dishes blocks now in several different sizes.  I will use them in donation quilts. 

These are little Broken Dishes blocks made from the waste triangles left after trimming 9 inch Snowball corners in a Snowball/Nine Patch quilt top made a few months ago.  I have a few more Snowball/Nine Patch quilts with novelty fabrics picked out so maybe after I make a couple of those quilts I will have enough flippy corner waste triangle broken dishes blocks for another kiddo sized quilt. Time will tell. 

Most of these HST parts were cut with the Easy Angle ruler from the beginning and ends of strip pairs used to make Flying Geese for Sawtooth Star points in a neutral baby quilt finished for my niece in May 2021. 

Miscellaneous pieces and parts I made into HSTs and then into Broken Dishes.  Most of these just go into the Parts Department but a few of them...

...that finish at 3 inches will be used to make some Squared Away blocks.  Someone in our Stashbuster Group was making them and I was inspired to make some too. I think this will turn into a Rainbow Scrap Challenge (RSC) project. Each month I will go through my little stash of Broken Dishes blocks and look for sets of four in the color of the month and then make a block or two. 

I found a little baggie of sets of four Flying Geese with white. Someone must have given them to me. I looked through my 3.5 inch squares for centers for Sawtooth Stars and cut some white squares for the corners. They turned out cute. I guess I will add them to the orphan blocks.

Then I made some waste triangles into Quarter Square Triangle (QST) blocks. 

I have quite a collection of QSTs now. I don't really care if they are wonky. I'm going to make a medallion quilt out of them inspired by a vintage quilt. Some of these are wonky and different sizes but I am just going to sew them all together into made fabric for some rounds of the medallion. I have my center star already made and am ready to move forward but I just have not been in the mood to tackle the project yet. 

Then I sewed together some 1.5 inch HST parts and then sewed some of those into strips of 5. Again, some of these are wonky and there are different sizes and colors.  Most of these came from making QSTs for the Clarissa quilt top finished in January 2021. 

I have a little box of strips of HSTs. Maybe someday I will have enough to make a quilt inspired by a vintage one. Mine will be a little different because I hope to use different sizes of HSTs between 1 and 2 inches.   

More to come! My boxes are not empty yet. 

And sew on...

 

The Temperature

These HSTs (half square triangles) represent the high and low temperatures of the first eight days of January 1952.  The low temp. is on the bottom and the high temp. on top. 

I've always wanted to make a couple of temperature quilts -- one to represent highs and lows in the year I was born and the highs and lows of the current year.  I thought it would be fun to compare the two quilts.   

Since I now live near where I was born it will be a good comparison of past and present. I'm using weather data from weather.gov and climatological data from Moline Quad City International Airport. 

A lot of temperature quilts I've seen use solids. I don't have many and do not want to buy any. I just decided to go scrappy.  I assigned a different color to each increment of 10 degrees.  I'll probably use a variety of different fabrics in those colors because I don't really have any big pieces of fabrics in my stash except for what I keep in the backing pile. I'm going to try to use the same fabric in each color for an entire month at least. 

I started on blocks for January 1952 just to see how it goes. I was going to then wait and work on a temperature quilt for 2023 but then I figured why not just go with the current year. The fun for me is in seeing the differences in the two quilts so whether I use the new year or the current year doesn't make much difference. Using 1952 and 2022 will make a nice round number (70) of years between the temperatures represented in the quilts. 

And I can work on both quilts at the same time while I'm cutting my HSTs. 

I'm making 4 inch finished HSTs. I figured if I used an 18 x 21 layout then I would need 378 blocks. With 365 days represented in temperatures that leaves me with 13 blocks to work with. So I figured I would use a multicolor fabric and a fabric to represent each month and make HSTs to use at the start of each month.  The last block in the quilt will be the year. That will complete the 378 blocks in the quilt.  Or maybe I should make that the first block in the quilt. Hmmm, I am not sure yet what kind of HST I'm going to make to represent the year. 

I want to sew the HSTs together as I make them (18 x 21) so maybe I should decide on a year and make that the first block so I don't get the two quilts mixed up. 

So far I have the temperature highs and lows for the first eight days of 1952 on top and 2022 on bottom.  

I think this will be fun.

 

Hearts

And sew on...

 

Snowball and Nine Patch Finish

It's a finish!

Snowball and Nine Patch

60 x 72

Back in 2020 one of my Rainbow Scrap Challenge (RSC) blocks was Nine Patches made with 2.5 inch scraps. Last year I made three different tops with the blocks. This one uses the red and yellow Nine Patches. 

For the Snowball corners I used oranges and pinks. 

I quilted in with simple lines - vertical and horizontal - with a variegated red and yellow thread. 

The binding is the same as the backing. 

The back.

And sew on...

 

What Was In The Box?

What was in the box?

It's not a deep box - just a flat of 3.5 inch width scraps I accumulated in this little pile over the last few months. Quite a few of them are leftovers from recently making complete sets of Buckeye Beauty Variation blocks and then Eight Patch blocks. A few were given to me. A few were leftovers from some other projects and a few appeared out of nowhere. 

I've emptied the box now. Would you like to see what I've made? 

Well, I've been making Monkey Wrench blocks this year in three different sizes from scraps. I think I will continue that into next year and when I get tired of making the blocks (right now I love making them) I will see how many donation quilts I can make with them. 

These blocks finish at 7.5 inches. The 3.5 inch (unfinished) HSTs (half square triangles) were cut with an Easy Angle ruler.  The neutrals were not in my flat but came out of a little drawer of neutral scraps. The 2 inch squares came out of my Monkey Wrench work box. Remember the last time I emptied a box of 2 inch width scraps I cut sets of four 2 inch squares and put them in my work box. 

My only rule is to try to keep the blocks looking happy because I think donation quilts should always have some happiness in them. 

Wow! that sure added a lot of blocks to my collection! 

After I used the longest pieces to make Monkey Wrench blocks I looked to see if a scrap was long enough for two 3.5 inch squares for Four Patches. 

These blocks finish at 6 inches and will also be used in donation quilts next year. 

These are two color Four Patches because I need to replenish my neutrals. And anyway, two color Four Patches are a little more fun and look a little happier. 

Then if there was at least a six inch length of scrap I cut four 1.5 x 3.5 pieces and made Switch Plate blocks with neutral centers. 

The blocks finish at 3 x 5. I'm not sure which way I will orient them in a quilt or quilts. For now I'm just making them.

Then if there was enough of the scrap to cut a 3.5 inch square then that is what I did. I turned the browns, blacks and multicolors into little Snowball blocks with 1.5 inch light flippy corners. 

Someday I'm going to alternate the little Snowballs with little 3 inch Nine Patches with light corners. I have an old bag full of swapped Nine Patches with light corners. (No, I'm not the only old bag in my sewing room.) 

So, the quilt will probably look something like this. 

This is the little pile of squares I cut. For now I'm going to add them to my box with 3.5 inch squares. I will use these squares to make some Snowballs each month next year in the Rainbow Scrap Challenge (RSC) color of the month. I prefer to make these a few at a time. It's rather boring to cut all those 1.5 inch squares for the corners and then sew them onto the corners and then trim so for me this is a few-at-a-time RSC kind of block.  

If I make a twin sized or throw quilt I think it will take 520 blocks - 260 Snowballs and 260 Nine Patches.

Then you probably know by now what I do with the pieces less than a square -- I make Chinese Coin strips. 

I have a bag of them in all different colors and a box of strips each made in a single color. 

And then I had two little piles of pieces. The solids I put with the rest of my solids. I'm making a couple of different blocks that take solids and I don't have a big supply so am trying to keep all solid bits and pieces together right now. 

The other pile is 4 inch width. I'm not really making any blocks that take 4 inch width pieces right now but I do have a little drawer of 4 inch swapped novelty squares I have not yet used in kiddo quilts so I think the novelty pieces will be cut into squares and the other pieces will go back into the scrap chunks sorted by color. 

And sew on...