It's a Finish! Backstories II

 

It's a finish!

Backstories II

60 x 80

It is called Backstories II because most of the pieces in this quilt came from quilt back trimmings. A few of the other pieces came from duplicate fabric strips sent to me by others. 

 Backstories I was finished in 2022. 

This top was assembled in July 2024 and you can see it's backstory in that blog post. 

I quilted it on my sewing machine with vertical lines of blue thread.  The binding consists of different blue pieces that came out of the leftover binding box. 

I pieced the backing with two blue fabrics. 

And sew on...

Finished Or Not Finished Friday at Alycia Quilts

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“Winter is on my head, but eternal spring is in my heart.”...Victor Hugo

It's A Top! Back Stories II

It's a top!

Back Stories II

60 x 80

I made the top for Back Stories I in 2020 using a pattern I bought called Interweave.  Unfortunately when I started making the top I realized that the top was not going to finish at the dimensions the author listed and was going to turn out almost square. I had to improvise to make a longer quilt and wrote about the problem to the pattern author as you can see in my 2020 post. (Note: She still has the same finished dimensions listed as she did in 2020 when I bought the pattern. I thought I would mention this in case you are inclined to purchase the pattern.)

So, anyway, I finished the Back Stories I quilt two years later in 2022.  As you can see in that post I mentioned that I had made revisions to the pattern and in 2022 started collecting strips for Back Stories II in a little shoe box.   Here it is 2024 and I noticed the other day when I added a couple of strips to the shoe box that I had enough strips for the top. So here we are.

I call the quilt Back Stories because most of the strips are cut from quilt back trimmings. 

Not all of the strips in this one, though, are from trimmings. Some strips came from friends in boxes of scraps. 

Back Stories II is a scrap community of plaids, florals, geometrics, novelties in a rainbow of colors. I tried to make them all get along together. 

And sew on...

Finished Or Not Finished Friday at Alycia Quilts

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CELEBRATE! (my word of the year)

July 25 -- Garden Veggies. The rascally critters actually let me harvest some! 

 None of my big tomatoes are ripe yet but I have been eating some of the cherry type tomatoes -- yellow pear, black strawberry. I also tried a new one this year called spoon tomatoes (those tiny red ones in the glass bowl). I grow all my tomatoes from seed and those were free seeds so gave them a try and put a plant in a pot on the deck.  I also grow my peppers from seeds. I don't eat hot peppers but used to grow a few types for hubby but now that he doesn't eat I only grow sweeter types of peppers. I harvested Lesya which is supposed to be the sweetest pepper (not sure about that) and I eat strips of peppers almost every day for lunch. I harvested a few Jimmy Nordello (an old Italian heirloom - the long ones) that I use for cooking (had them in my omelet for dinner last night). There's also a couple of Paprika peppers in the bowl. They seem a little small this year but I will probably dry and grind them for paprika.  I also have Baby Bell, Chocolate and Anaheim peppers growing but have not harvested any of those yet.   There's a few "volunteer" new potatoes in the bowl. Volunteers are potatoes that sprout up from a few potatoes that did not get harvested last year.  I harvested a red, yellow and white onion that was in my green onion row but grew larger than a green onion. I buy plants from Dixondale Farms for my onions. I love onions. I grew two different types of pickling cucumbers but can't remember which they were. If I get a lot of them and can't keep up with eating them I'll make bread and butter pickles. And I harvested some Dragon Tongue bush beans. Some critter and insects ate most of my bean plants early on so I wasn't sure if I was going to get any beans. Some of the Dragon Tongue plants survived but only one of the Red Swan - both heirloom beans. 

Backstories -- A Finish!

Backstories

63 x 81

It's a finish! 

I call it backstories because it is made from a box of quilt BACK trimmings. And all those BACK trimmings all remind me of the STORIES of finished quilts. BACKSTORIES. 

Well, the pattern is called Interweave.  When I purchased the pattern it said that it would make a quilt 65 x 71. I like my donation and gift quilts a little longer - closer to 60 x 80- so I was doing the math to figure out how to lengthen the quilt a little. That's when I discovered that the pattern made a quilt 60 x 65 inches. Ugh! and Darn it! 

Well, as you can see on my last post about Backstories in October 2020, I did write to the pattern designer and let her know and she did reply; however, unless she has actually changed the pattern instructions she still declares the pattern makes a quilt 65 x 71.  So be aware of this if you decide to buy the pattern. 

I did end up doing the math to lengthen my quilt and to make it a wee bit wider.  I guess my brain was meant to do a little bit of exercise once in awhile. 

It's an eclectic mix of mostly backing fabric trimmings accumulated over a period of years. I quilted it on my DSM simply with vertical lines that were not evenly spaced in a neutral thread. 

The binding is scrappy too. And it came from the current box of backing trimmings.  I still like to sew bindings down by hand unless the place I donate suggests machine stitched binding. 

The back is wild and crazy. 

The trimmings are now in the banker's box that is overflowing with quilt back trimmings. 

So it's probably time to make Backstories II. 

I've done the math and revised my pattern!

And sew on...

Finished Or Not Finished Friday at Alycia Quilts

Peacock Party at Wendy's Quilts and More

 

Tales From The Backside: Backstories.

A Tale From The Backside

I made a flimsy

and I call it 

Backstories. 

63 x 81

I called it backstories because it is made from...

...a box of quilt BACK trimmings. And all those BACK trimmings all remind me of the STORIES of finished quilts. BACKSTORIES. 

I saw a quilt called Second Strings at Timeless Reflections and I just knew it was the perfect way to use my box of eclectic quilt back trimmings (greater than 2 inches in width) that has been accumulating for quite awhile. If I studied a picture of the quilt long enough I probably could have figured out the math on how to make it myself but I wanted to get this top made quickly before I forgot about it and while I had the urge so I ordered the digital pattern called Interweave  so I wouldn't have think much -- just cut and sew. 

When I downloaded the Interweave pattern I saw it was supposed to make a quilt that finished at 65" x 71". I like to make my twin sized quilts at least 80 inches long so tried to decide how and where to add a little length...top, bottom or center?? Well, as I was trying to figure that out I happened to notice that the block size made with the pattern instructions would NOT make for a quilt 65" x 71" but a quilt 63" x 65" instead.  Hmmmmm....I had to do a little thinking and a little math and I finally decided to make an extra set of half length blocks to add to the center of the quilt. 

Well, I did make the top in a hurry like planned and I did enjoy the process and I do like the finished top. And I did use a lot, but not all, of the quilt back trimmings. Some of those remaining trimmings I'll cut into squares, scrappy binding or strips or skinnier strings for the skinny string box which is a separate box from the quilt backing trimmings box. 

 I thought before I blogged about the error with the pattern length as stated in the pattern  I should notify the author of the problem. That message and response through Etsy are as follows: 

Date: 3 days ago 09:33 EDT

Message:  I ordered the Interweave pattern a few days ago. I think there is something incorrect about your finished length of 71 inches. With the pieces in each block cut at 3 3/4 inches I think the finished block size is 10.5 x 32.5 so the length is more like 65 inches and not the 71 inches as you have listed in your pattern.

Date: 3 days ago 11:35 EDT

Karen Griska

Message: Thank you, Cathy. I'll take a look at that. I hope it didn't cause you a problem.

Best wishes,

Karen

And now you know the rest of the story. 

And so ends the tale from the backside.

More scrappy stories may be found at:

Oh Scrap! at Quilting is More Fun than Housework