Pea Soup

 Pea Soup

It's a flimsy! (or a top, if you prefer)

64 x 80

 It is the third quilt to come out of a 16 quart bin of 4.5 inch parts accumulated over a number of years.  The first quilt was Whigmaleerie which is still a top. The second quilt which has yet to be gifted to my new grandnephew Evan born in February was an I Spy. 

For this one I first pulled out all of the green 4.5 inch parts and made a variety of 8 inch (finished) blocks from those parts. I ended up with 38 blocks. Then I decided on size. At first I was going to combine blocks into a 40 x 60 donation quilt but then looked at my green scrap chunks and decided to make an alternate hourglass block and go a little larger. 

I decided to make the Hourglass blocks out of a solid or tone on tone green plus another green scrap. It took almost all of the solid and tone on tone greens I had to make the 40 Hourglass blocks but I made do.  

I made the Hourglass blocks with a 4.5 inch scrap cut with the Easy Angle Companion ruler. When I use that ruler I cut the beginning piece with the Easy Angle ruler so I have an HST to use later and so that fabric doesn't go into a crumb box. 

 Then I just sewed blocks together.  

Sometimes you can see an Ohio Star formed and other times you can see an Economy Block. 

 And so it goes. 

 And here's the 4.5 Inch Parts Department after three quilts. 

Hmmmm...what next? Maybe I'll do something with the pink and yellow stack. 

 Scrap Management

 But first I need to clean up the leftover scraps. Remember those HST pieces cut from the beginning and end of the strip used for Hourglass pieces? I need to get those made into 4.5 inch HSTs. The should I put them back into the 4.5 inch parts box?? Or sew them into blocks for the orphan box? Or sew them into a strip for a border,strip quilt or pieced backing? 

And there''s a few scraps I need to cut into 4.5 inch squares and put them into the squares scrap box and then any pieces less than a 4.5 inch square will be sewn into a strip because I have a scrap box of strips in a variety of sizes and colors that will be used in a Chinese Coins quilt someday. 

And sew on.

What's In The Hoop?

What's in the hoop? 

Rainbow Dresdens

A BIG quilt - maybe 84 x 84 or so?

I'm hand quilting the Dresdens right now. 

I work on hand quilting each night for about an hour before bed.  It helps me relax, forget about all the world's troubles and to sleep better.  It also gives me callouses and broken fingernails. 

This is an old Rainbow Scrap Challenge project.   I used my 4.5 inch scraps and made four blocks each month throughout the year - one in the color of the month, one in the color of the month plus it's complement, one with black/white, one with white/black.   All are on gray backgrounds and have polka dot centers surrounded by gray rick rack. 

I'm using regular hand quilting thread (not perle) in all colors.  I did NOT cut away the fabric behind the Dresdens ( I was afraid to do that) and was thinking I would have problems stitching through all those layers but no problem...I just take a little bigger stitches.  I'm still trying to decide how I will quilt between Dresdens where the seams meet but I have plenty of time to decide. 

Slow Sunday Stitching at Kathy's Quilts

Oh Scrap! at Quilting is More Fun than Housework