Now What's in the Hoop?

Garden Mosaic aka Totally Demented aka Fractured Rainbows 

96 x 96

I finally have it pin basted! And it's in the hoop ready for hand quilting. I prefer using my square PVC hoop but that would be too dinky for this quilt.  My 18 inch wood hoop kind of disappears into the quilt. 

 I would prefer to do some big stitching in perle #8 or #12 but I don't have enough of any color of those threads on hand. I have some white hand quilting threads I will use in the white squares and probably use brown through the colored squares.  Might as well use what I have on hand. 

I hardly had enough space on the floor so I had to pin baste it in quarter sections. That's a lot of crawling around for this old lady.  I don't put in a lot of pins when I hand quilt so that made it go a little quicker. Even though the quilting will be simple I was not about to try wrestling this through my sewing machine.  And anyway...my main machine, a Brother Simplicity,  has to go to the repair guy again. It will not pick up the bobbin thread and make any stitches just like when I took it in last November. For the cost of continual repairs I'm tempted to buy a simple cheapie and just throw it away when it has a problem. 

I would direct you to the free online pattern but it doesn't exist anymore. It was a FreeSpirit Denyse Schmidt pattern called Garden Mosaic. Gayle, Sally and I started making it and referred to it as Totally Demented.  I only used scraps in rainbow colors so refer to mine as Fractured Rainbows. 

The Totally Demented part was making 2096 HSTs that finish at 1.5 inches.  Sally is not really all that demented. She has finished her quilt and she didn't make a single HST. She has revealed her secret method today with a tutorial. 

Monday Making at Love  Laugh Quilt

Moving it Forward Monday at Em's Scrapbag

A Flimsy and A Smiley Face!

Fractured Rainbows

96 x 96

It's a flimsy!

This quilt was released as a free FreeSpirit pattern called Garden Mosaic.  I used just rainbow colors so changed the name to suit my quilt. 

This quilt has also lovingly been referred to as Totally Demented by Sally who previously finished a quilt top maybe because she used bat wings and eye of newt, and Gayle , the original temptress who sent us a link with photo of the quilt and who still has a work in process.  Thanks, Gayle!

 The Totally Demented Garden Mosaic with Fractured Rainbows consists of 2048 two inch unfinished HSTs. 

 At the beginning of the process I didn't really have many 2 inch scraps ready to use. That's not a size I usually save in a bin because I have made very few quilts that use that size of pieces. So I went through my scrap chunks to find scraps to use.  I think that took me longer to sort and cut scraps than to actually make all the HSTs.   I used an Easy Angle ruler to cut pieces for my HSTs.   I used muslin as the neutral. I was going to use scrappy neutrals but when I skimmed the instructions I saw that it required 7.5 yards (if I remember correctly) of background fabric I decided I didn't want to use my quickly dwindling supply of neutrals on such small pieces so I used muslin that I had on hand instead. 

My OMG (One Monthly Goal) for September was to finish up sewing together the rows on eight 24 inch blocks.  I mentioned in that post that I'd give myself a smiley face bonus if I completed the top. 

😊😊😊😊😊

I really wasn't sure I could make this one! 

September OMG (One Monthly Goal)

A pile of 8 twenty-four inch blocks consisting of 2 inch HSTs and squares webbed together. 

Now I need to sew all those rows together. That's one of the things I don't really like to do with all that pinning and HST point matching.  So I will make it my goal for September to turn this pile into...

...into a pile like this - the  eight 24 inch blocks already all nicely sewn together. 

I'm going to give myself a smiley face bonus if I actually get the 96 inch square top finished. 

I'd give a link to the free pattern download; however, since Coats sold Free Spirit the link no longer exists. 

One Monthly Goal (OMG) at Elm Street Quilts

Still Working on It

I've added four more 24 inch blocks to my collection. That means I have half the blocks I need for a quilt I'm calling Fractured Rainbows since I'm only using rainbow colors (plus muslin). 

The quilt is inspired by Denyse Schmidt's quilt Garden Mosaic. I see the link to the pattern no longer exists.  No matter...we really don't need it.

If you want to see what the quilt is supposed to look like then I will refer you to Sally's top which she already has together. She made hers with the "bat wing" method way. 

Gayle started us down this Totally Demented road.  She is the temptress that sent the link to me and Sally. Totally Demented is the name we lovingly use for the quilt composed of 2048 two inch HSTs.  

Gayle is using the "twosie, foursie, eightsie, sixteensie" method to make her quilt. 

There is no method to my madness. 

This, That and The Other Thing- Machine Piecing

 I don't just work on one quilt at a time from start to finish. I like to work on a variety of quilts and things at one time in short bursts of time throughout the day.  That includes gardening tasks, household chores, reading, genealogy research, scrapbooking and internet surfing not just quilting.  Normally I make separate blog posts as I finish some blocks, a flimsy, a quilt and don't show everything from a week all in one post.   

Above are the four Vintage Thingamajigs I finished last week. This is the only project where I actually keep track of the sewing time of 20 minutes each day because our Stashbuster Yahoo Group issued the challenge to start a project July 1 and sew on it for 20 minutes a day.  I chose the above blocks based on vintage blocks I saw online.   Now you may say four blocks isn't that many for a week of sewing 20 minutes a day- 140 minutes.  But when you consider that each six inch block contains 29 pieces and those pieces need to be cut, matched up, sewn into units, ironed then I'll take four blocks.  I now have 18 blocks out of a target of 224 which means I also have more than enough for one row of fourteen blocks and the target is 16 rows. 

But I also have a lot of working parts for this week's 20 minute sewing sessions. My process is also to cut some, then sew some units, cut some then sew some blocks.  I don't really like cutting. 

And speaking of cutting...when I cut the hourglass pieces with the Easy Angle Companion for the Vintage Thingamajigs I also cut the ends into HSTs with the Easy Angle so I don't waste that little bit at the beginning and end of the strip.   Last week  (also in short sewing sessions of 20 - 25 minutes) I used some of those little HSTs (1 inch finished) and combined them with other scraps from the 1.5 and 2.5 inch scrap bins to make 19 four inch blocks which brings my total to 33.  I'm calling this quilt Gallimaufry (stew or hash made from anything on hand) and it is inspired by a vintage quilt c. 1890. 

Also last week I made my fifth block for Garden Mosaic  (I'm calling mine Fractured Rainbows). Only 11 more to go!!  

 But I have all 2048 HSTs made and those pieces sewn into various parts - a "webbed" block, and some four patches.   The part that took the longest time in making this was sorting through scraps to cut since my 2 inch scrap bin was small and not very full.  

 And then since I had gotten into the habit of making a few HSTs for Fractured Rainbows each day I dug out my Ocean Waves UFO and figured out what I needed to bring that to flimsy stage. I have 12 blocks and I think I'll need 25 sixteen inch blocks.   I had 30s reproduction 2.5 inch scraps set aside to use for these so I dug in and made HSTs for 5 blocks which are now webbed into quarter sections for the big blocks.  I like to make the quarter sections and mix and match them to make the entire block. That's basically hoping that all of the same fabrics don't end up in a block. 

An Ocean Wave block. 

Moving it Forward Monday at Em's Scrapbag

Monday Making at Love Laugh Quilt

The Sum of Its Parts

No, it's not a picture of four small quilts but it is a picture of four large (24 inch) blocks...

 ...that look like this. When there are 16 blocks I'll have a quilt that will look similar to Denyse Schmidt's Garden Mosaic. 

Where some of the blocks meet stars are formed. 

 At other junctures a square in square forms. 

 My June One Monthly Goal (OMG) was to make at least 400 more (I had 427 at goal making time) - two inch HSTs.  According to my tally sheet I met that goal on June 10 by making just a few HSTs each day.  So I celebrated by making a four (of total sixteen) blocks. 

And as of today, June 26, I have 1460 two inch HSTs. I need 2048 to complete the quilt. 

So, June OMG was met and exceeded. 

One Monthly Goal at Elm Street Quilts

June OMG (One Monthly Goal)

I'm working on a FreeSpirit pattern by Denyse Schmidt called Garden Mosaic (I'm calling my quilt Fractured Rainbows).  It calls for 2048 - two inch HSTs.  So far within two months I've made 427 toward that goal.  I'm going to up my game. My June goal is to make at least 400 - two inch HSTs.  That means that on June 30 I should hopefully have at least 827 HSTs. 

June OMG at Elm Street Quilts