I Spy A Sixteen Patch Star Finish

Sixteen Patch Star

It's a finish!

40 x 60

In 2023 someone gave me a large bag full of 3 inch squares. For this quilt I pulled out the wild and novelty fabric squares. 

I started making 16 Patch Stars. All of the Stars have white centers and points.  I made several Stars then waited to come across more scraps for more Stars. Finally in 2024 I had enough Stars to make a top. 

I quilted it on my sewing machine with vertical lines on each side of the vertical seams. 

The binding is a diagonal stripe. I had to piece together several smaller pieces of that backing fabric.

And sew on...

Finished Or Not Finished Friday at Alycia Quilts

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REMEMBER, TREASURE, GROW, READ (my words of the year)

This is the view from my couch of the first of seven Amaryllis to bloom. Gosh, it has two stalks with four flowers. It got top heavy and the plastic pot that came with it was too light weight to hold up the stalks and flowers so I put it on the floor inside a larger terracotta pot. 

 

WITB Top #2 - I Spy

I Spy

16 Patch Star

40 x 60

It's a top!

I started on this one last year after someone gave me a big bag of 3 inch squares.   Since then I have received other 3 inch squares and 3 inch width strips in various lengths from other folks and I have been accumulating them all in a box. Normally I have a block going for every size scrap I encounter; however, I have really not ever generated many 3 inch width scraps of my own and in the past if I received some 3 inch width pieces I cut them in half for two 1.5 inch pieces because I usually have a lot of blocks in the works that use that size of scrap. When I received that gallon bag of 3 inch squares last year I decided to start making a few quilts with those scraps and start saving those scraps in a box instead of cutting them smaller.  

The other day I posed the question WITB? 

This is comfort quilt #2 ! 

For this top I used all of the I Spy pieces in the box.  For the wonky star centers I used novelties with white backgrounds.  

I didn't have enough novelties for the quilt so I also used multicolor wild and crazy squares mostly in the pieces with star points.  I'm trying to use up pieces in my 3 inch width box so didn't want to go outside the box for more novelties. 

The grandkids used to love their I Spy quilts. We played many a game of I Spy and the kids learned their colors, body parts, etc. playing the game. As they got older I would ask them to find things that fly or are sweet or live in water, a fruit...or find something that rhymes with goat, pen...  and sometimes we would walk through the squares and each kid could pick a direction to go for the next square and tell that part of the story and so on.   Most of the time the stories had silly things happening to grandma like a bat in my hair or I stepped in dog poop or something like that. Oh no!

I'm the oldest of five siblings and my hubby is the oldest of 8. When our siblings started having grandkids I made the proud grandparents I Spy quilts to keep at their house for when grandkids visited so they could play too.   It is difficult to believe that now that generation of grandkids are now having kids. Summer's (our grand niece) baby girl Scarlett is past due!  

And sew on...

Oh Scrap! at Quilting Is More Fun Than Housework

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CELEBRATE! (my word of the year)

August 31 - I finished a book! - Midnight at the Blackbird Cafe by Heather Webber. One of the last books I read was classified as being of the magical realism genre. I had never heard of magical realism before that but I thought it was a nice easy reading happy sort of genre and a good way to take a break from some of that historical fiction I usually read. I decided I needed a little more magical realism in my life. I read on my Kindle (so I can enlarge print and have backlighting for reading at night) and have a Kindle Unlimited subscription so looked up some magical realism books and Midnight at the Blackbird Cafe is one of the books that came up.   It was light easy reading...reading that was the equivalent of watching a Hallmark movie.  All of the characters in the little village found happiness, the pies at the cafe always sold out and the blackbirds were magical.  And now I'm finished with magical realism for a little while. 

 

It's a Top!

It's a top!

42 x 60

SIS (Square in Square) #2 of 4

Happy SIS?

I Spy SIS?

For a couple of years one of my Rainbow Scrap Challenge (RSC) projects was Square in Square (SIS) blocks (aka Little Chips and Economy Blocks). I used 2.5 inch scraps for the centers and a black and white 2.5 inch squares cut on the diagonals for the sides and ended up with a 3 inch finished block. Well, after a couple of years of making those I ended up with a little over 300 SIS blocks.   So I divided the blocks up into a few piles and decided I could make 4 different quilts with them - four for kiddos and one for an adult. 

SIS #1 is finished and used SIS blocks alternating with squares. 

For this quilt I picked out mostly the I Spy type SIS blocks and then used them as the centers of Happy Blocks. 

I added the borders and made the Happy Blocks each month with scraps in the RSC color of the month. 

And sew on...

RSC ScrapHappy Saturday

 

Blue Stuff

This month my personal theme is "brown stuff". I took a little break from "brown stuff" to work on the Rainbow Scrap Challenge (RSC) color blue. Well, actually the RSC color is blue and green pastel; however, I have dark and bright blue scraps I did not get around to using in January when that was the RSC color so I chose to use them now. 

You may or may not know that a couple years ago I made over 300 little 3 inch Economy or Square in Square (SIS) blocks. Last week I turned some of the blue/black SIS into Stars.  This week I added 2 inch borders to some blue/black SIS to make 6 inch Happy Blocks. 

Most of the SIS I used last week were florals and this week I tried to use mostly I Spy. 

Then I turned some 3 inch Broken Dishes blocks into 7.5 inch Squared Away blocks. 

And then I turned what was left of the 2 inch width scraps used in the making of the I Spy Happy Blocks and Squared Away blocks into 3 inch Bow Ties for my collection of over 600 Bow Ties. 

And sew on...

RSC ScrapHappy Saturday

 

I Spy A Finish!

I Spy

42 x 60

It's a finish!

A long time ago when the grandkids were younger (youngest is 14 now) I belonged to an online "I Spy" swap group.  There were mostly  monthly swaps of squares in a specified size that followed a theme. It was fun because you could buy yardage of just a couple themed fabrics to cut into squares to swap but get lots of different squares of themed fabrics back in return. 

Every once in awhile there would be a Happy Block swap. They were made with 4 inch centers and TOT (tone on tone) or solid borders 1-3/4 wide for a six inch finished block. 

Last year I got out a few blocks I had left over and gathered together a few centers and borders of my own in order to make enough blocks for a top. 

I quilted it on my DSM (Brother PQ1500) with ribbons/streamers. 

It's bound with a rainbow. 

And sew on...

 

I Spy A Flimsy!

It's a flimsy!

I Spy Happy Blocks

42 x 60

A long time ago when the grandkids were younger I participated in a lot of I Spy themed swaps and I made a lot of I Spy type quilts. 

I've had about 30 swapped blocks for over 10 years. They have 4 inch centers and 1.75 inch solid or tone on tone (TOT) sides to finish at 6 inches.   I also have a little drawer of swapped 4 inch squares. What I did not have way back when was enough solids or TOTs to finish up enough blocks for a top. Whenever I have thought of it I've been throwing solids and TOT pieces into my Happy Block box and back in December I decided to cut parts for enough blocks for this quilt top. 

The grandkids used to like to make up stories. I would point to a square and one of them would start a story about that picture. Then I would point to a different square and the story would continue on with one of the other grandkids.  Those were the days! Sometimes their stories would get a little silly or spooky but they always brought giggles and had happy endings. 

And sew on...

 

Four Finishes

 Three string quilts.

All are 40 x 60

These will be donated to Wrap-A-Smile, a partner of Rotaplast, and Quilts Beyond Borders.  Rotaplast International, Inc. is committed to helping children and families worldwide by eliminating the burden of cleft lip and/or palate, burn scarring, and other deformities.  Quilts Beyond Borders is an all-volunteer 501(c)(3) non-profit organization which reaches out to under-served children, mainly orphans, across the world to provide a handmade quilt and spread love and hope. 

The Sunshine Online Quilt Guild supports both of these projects if you care to join us and learn more about the various ways you can support these projects as well as others. 

 The first one is made of pink and brown strings. I used a paper foundation and made 10 inch finished blocks. 

 I used a pink center string, then added brown strings to each side, then added pink strings to each side and then finished off the block with brown strings.  I made this set of blocks back in December. They are nice mindless sewing for hectic times - no decisions about fabric, no pieces to cut. 

 Most of these strings came from quilt back trimmings.  I trimmed the blocks and removed the papers and assembled the top in January. 

 I quilted it on my DSM with three petaled flowers. I used a big polka dot for the backing. The pink binding strips came in a box of quilty goodness from a friend. 

 Quilt #2 is also a string quilt.  I think I started making these 10 inch finished blocks way back in 2017 as a Rainbow Scrap Challenge project. 

 I worked on these off and on since 2017. I didn't always have enough string scraps for an entire block in the color of the month so would just sew together what I did have and then wait until the following year to complete the rest of the block if I could. 

 I used a consistent 2 inch black polka dot print in each block. 

I quilted it on my DSM with swirls. I used the same fabric for backing and binding. 

 The third quilt is another string quilt made the same way and at the same time as the pink and brown one. 

 In this one I used black strings in the center and brights on each side. 

 This one was also quilted on my DSM with swirls. 

 It got a bright backing and a bright scrappy binding. 

Quilt #4 is an I Spy quilt that measures 40 x 60. This one is for my nephew and wife who are expecting a baby this month.  

 The quilt consists of little Happy Blocks with 2.5 inch centers and 1.5 inch sides. The blocks finish at four inches. 

 The quilt consists of 150 little blocks for lots of I Spy fun.  I have made these blocks off and on over the years when I felt like it and I've been throwing them into the 4.5 inch Parts Department bin. 

Back in December I blogged about that bin and how I hoped to empty it in 2020 by making quilts. When I sorted the parts in the bin I was really surprised there were more than enough little Happy Blocks to make a quilt.  This is quilt #2 from the bin and the first to be finished.  

 Again, it was quilted on my DSM. This time I just quilted it with vertical and horizontal lines evenly spaced on both sides of the seam lines. 

I spy some ABCs in the backing and binding.  This binding was sewn down by hand since it is a gift. I prefer to sew down binding by hand; however, the places I donate the quilts requests that the binding by sewn down by machine.  Getting this to the finish line was my OMG (One Monthly Goal).

One Monthly Goal at Elm Street Quilts

Peacock Party at Wendy's Quilts and More

Finished or Not Finished Friday at Alycia Quilts