Showing posts with label chinese coins. Show all posts
Showing posts with label chinese coins. Show all posts

Wednesday, March 13, 2024

Finished With An Edgy Idea

Selvage Coins
41 x 60
It's a finish!

It looks kind of wonky but it's blowing in the wind! 



I made the top in April 2023 when I was working with strings and selvages.  For this one I used most of the brightly colored selvages with little or no writing. 

I just did some vertical line quilting. 

And it has a scrappy binding.



And if the recipient doesn't like the selvages on front they can use the back for the front and the front for the back.  The back (or front) looks like a quilt made of triangles. 

The theme this month in my sewing space is March Madness (Quilting) Marathon.  I'm going to concentrate on finishing up a lot of the small tops I have in the TBQ (to be quilted) pile.  They will then be donated to:




*****
CELEBRATE! (My word of the year)

March 12- A few things in bloom! 

Species tulips

Iris reticulata and crocus here and there along pathways.

I've even seen some bees in the crocus. 


When I was out in February I saw that a rabbit had eaten most of my Hellebore (aka Lenten Rose) to the ground so once again this year I was not expecting any blooms. I put stuff all around it hoping to keep the rabbits out of the Hellebore patch and I guess that worked well enough for me to have at least one bloom this year. 


Scilla is starting to appear everywhere

And I'm not sure I'll get anything other than species tulips to bloom this year. I think a rabbit has been in my tulip bed and eaten almost all of the foliage to the ground. I stuck sticks in the ground here and there thinking the deer were eating the foliage because that usually keeps them out or I see signs of them in there because they will knock over the sticks. Since the sticks were all still standing and the foliage was still eaten I think rabbits are the culprit.   So, while I am celebrating a lot of flowers in bloom already I am not celebrating the devastation in my tulip bed!   And so it goes...



 

Thursday, October 12, 2023

Jots, Iotas, Smidgens, Whits and Orts: A Finish!

It's a finish!
Made of Jots, Iotas, Smidgens, Whits and Orts
Some might even call them crumbs
59 x 72


If you've followed my blog you have probably seen me doing a little scrap processing over the years.  One of the last things I do with leftover strip after I make blocks with it is to cut squares or if there is less than a square I sew the pieces into strips by width that I always said would be made into a Chinese Coins quilt someday.  Over the years those little strips have filled up a little box so I decided it was time to sew them together in April of this year. 

I quilted it very simply on my DSM with vertical lines in a caramel colored thread. 


The binding is an orange batik. 


The backing is striped.  It was a little short in width so I added an orange scrap to one side. 


And sew on...




 

Friday, September 15, 2023

It's A Finish!

It's a finish!
Warm Bits and Pieces
40 x 58

I participate in the Rainbow Scrap Challenge (RSC) and each month after I make my blocks out of scraps I cut the remaining pieces of scraps into squares or if less than a square I sew pieces into strips. After a few years of this I had a box full of strips in all colors and widths.

In this quilt I used the warm colors.  I previously posted about the finish of the one with cooler colors. 

I quilted it with red thread with simple lines each side of the vertical seams. 

The red binding came out of the box of backing trimmings. ( I put wider pieces of backing trimmings into a box to be used as bindings and narrower pieces of backing trimmings usually goes into the string box.)

The back is the cat's meow (if you know what I mean). 

And sew on...


 

Sunday, April 23, 2023

The Last Hurrah

Chinese Coins 
made of selvages
41 x 60



For this one I tried to use mostly wider and bright selvages without much writing. 

And I had just enough of a black fabric with multicolor dots to use for sashing between the blocks. 


The Last Hurrah!

In my sewing room the theme for April has been Strings, Selvages, Crumbs and Orphans. I haven't even made it to the boxes of orphan blocks nor will I this month.  Sewing crumbs, strings and selvages together is pretty labor intensive and sure uses a lot of thread. And I haven't really even emptied that many bags or boxes of scraps - just mostly made shorter strings or selvages. Even though I have made nine comfort quilt tops this month from selvages, crumbs and strings I don't feel like I've accomplished much.  I'm tired of this month's theme now so moving forward a little early to May's "free range" theme. I'm allowed to do that because the monthly theme is my own game with my own rules.  So from now on through May I'm going to feel free to move about the sewing room AND the gardens. "Free range"!

So, this Chinese Coins quilt top (#9 for the month) is the Last Hurrah   last flimsy for April made of strings, selvages or crumbs. 


And sew on...


 

Saturday, April 22, 2023

Warm And Cold Jots, Iotas, Smidgens, Whits and Orts

Two Flimsies
Each 41 x 60

(I had to hook them together  at bottom with a clothespin to keep them from blowing so much in the wind)

I blogged about a larger top yesterday that had all colors of strips of itty bits mixed together.   For a number of years I have been making little strips with leftover scraps less than a square.  And for a number of years I've been making blocks from scraps in the Rainbow Scrap Challenge (RSC) color of the month. Well, those scraps leftover from scraps that were less than a square went into little strips that were all the same color and they then were stored in a separate little box from the all color little strips I used in the top yesterday. 

I think it was more difficult to use the little strips in all one color than it was to use the strips with colors all mixed up. I started out thinking I would make a larger quilt with the columns of strips in colors of the rainbow order.  Then it got to be too much thinking and math about how wide and long to make it, how many and how long were each color of strip...anyway, too much thinking and I just wanted to sew the strips together and make a top. 

Well, in the end no matter how much I tried to avoid it I did have to do a little bit of thinking and math just to sew a little box of  scrap strips together.  And I still have little strips left - blacks, pinks, whites, browns, aquas and a few strips of rainbow colors too. For now I'll set them aside to maybe use with orphan blocks one of these days. 


The warm colors - red, orange, yellow. 



I had very few orange scraps and more yellow than I thought I had. 


The cool colors - green, blue, violet.


I had very few violet scraps and more greens than blues. 

And sew on...






 

Saturday, February 18, 2023

A Parade of Pink

Pink is the Rainbow Scrap Challenge (RSC) color of the month so I've been using up lots of pink scraps and I think now this is the end of the pink scraps although I do have some larger scrap chunks that are more than a 6 inch strip and less than a fat quarter (FQ) that will go back in the drawer for now. 

Above are my parts for another Kid Row quilt. This one will contain 3 rows of Kids (9 x 12 inch blocks) and two rows of 9 inch Ohio Stars (fav block of friend who passed away in December) and two rows of 3 inch Snowballs. The background is gray and the colors of scraps used in this one will be pinks, reds, aquas and purples. I figured how many of blocks of each color I need and these are the pink blocks. 

Old Italian (aka X blocks) that finish at 3 inches.

These start with 5 inch squares and I use the tutorial at My Joyful Journey. These are made as a stack, cut, shuffle type of block. I start with a set of 6 squares and alternate the RSC color of the month with other colors so I had a stack of pink and blue, pink and red and light pink and dark pink. I want to make a big quilt so I'll probably be making these 3 inch blocks for a couple of years. I started them last October and have been using 5 inch squares I've cut from scraps over the years as well as a couple of charm packs I've won or been given. 


10 inch Monkey Wrench Blocks

I make these with 4.5 inch and 2.5 inch scraps and have been making them since about the middle of last year. It's also the block I make when sorting scraps or have leftovers if I come across scraps enough in those sizes of pieces to make them.   In about October of next year I'll make all the blocks into donation quilts. 

Monkey Wrench Blocks 
7.5 inches

I'm making Monkey Wrench blocks from scraps in three different sizes 10 inch, 7.5 inch and 5 inch. 

Turning smaller blocks into bigger ones. 

Then I worked on my big pile (300+ ) of 3 inch finished of Square in Square blocks made in past RSC years. I turned some of the pink ones into 6 inch Stars and some into 6 inch Happy Blocks.  I was thinking I would make two separate quilts but then I saw how they looked together so decided I could probably make at least 2 twin sized quilts and maybe a smaller one with the blocks alternating. 

I've also been cleaning out some boxes of HST pieces and parts and using them as leader/enders. With some of the 2 inch HSTs I've made little 3 inch Broken Dishes blocks. Now I'm turning those little Broken Dishes blocks into some scrappy 7.5 inch Squared Away blocks. 

Then I turned some 4 inch Four Patch blocks into 6 inch Economy Blocks.  Most of the Four Patches were in the Parts Department - some given to me and some I've made in the past. 

For the side pieces I cut two 4 inch squares on the diagonal.  I'm using red and blue Four Patches in a red, white and blue quilt so I guess most of the rest of the colors of Four Patches will go into this quilt - yellow, orange, aqua, purple like in the mixed color floral fabric.  I'll do something different someday with the green, black and brown ones. 

Then there's some Indian Hatchet blocks (4 inch), a couple of Broken Dishes (3 inch for maybe another Squared Away block in the future), Windmills (4 inch), Snowballs with white corners (3 inch) to be the alternate block to some light cornered 3 inch Nine Patches that have been around for ages.   And then any 2 inch and 3.5 inch pieces less than a square were made into Chinese Coin strips. 

3 inch Bow Ties and oops one needs to be fixed. (Can't believe I ironed it like that). 
 Some miscellaneous 2.5 inch HSTs for the Parts Dept. and a 4.5 inch Chinese Coin strip. 

And finally some squares for my bins of squares - sets of four 2.5 and 2 inch squares go into the Monkey Wrench workbox. The five inch squares will be used in the future to make more Old Italian blocks. The 1.5 x 2.5 rectangles go into the Lego workbox. 

And sew on...