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. 

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

324 Down; 1724 To Go

I have 324  - 2 inch HSTs. 

I need 2048 to make Garden Mosaic (aka Totally Demented)

Gayle of Mangofeet challenged me and Sally of The Objects of Design to make what she calls a Totally Demented quilt.  I find it interesting that we have all approached the making of the quilt in different ways.   I'm going to make all the HSTs first, then the four patch units and then the blocks.  So far I have made HSTs out of the 2 inch scrap pieces I had in a bin.  Now I have to cut some 2 inch strips from scrap chunks. 

Update on the HST count will occur next month around this time.  Hopefully the count will more than double. Time will tell. 

And, yes, I enjoy the lost art of addition with scrap paper and pencil! 

Foothills Quilt Along Blocks 2 - 5

Foothills QAL blocks 2 - 5

Mary Elizabeth Kinch Foothills Quilt Along

Inspired by a vintage Bar and Chain quilt

I'm using patriotic fabrics but have a difficult time choosing all the fabrics for each block before I start making it.  (I always have a difficult time choosing fabrics for blocks and that's why I like using scraps - the choosing is done for me!) 

So my method? (Or madness?)  I start with the large HSTs. I choose 2 fabrics and make them.  Then I decide on fabrics for the Flying Geese. I'm not using the cutting instructions given for block instructions on the QAL page but using specialty rulers instead to cut my pieces. The geese use a 2 inch piece of fabric so I first look through some old patriotic scraps I have that are 2 inches to see if any scraps look good with the HSTs I've made. If not I go to the patriotic fabric box and look for something.  Above you can see I have the HSTS paired up with fabrics I chose for the Flying Geese. 

As I mentioned I use special rulers to cut the Flying Geese bodies and wings. 

After I sew together all the Flying Geese I go ahead and sew them to the HSTs and see how it all looks. 

Next I look through my scraps to see if I have something to use for the cross bars and if I don't have scraps that look good I go back to the patriotic fabric box and look for something. After cross bar fabrics are chosen and cut I decide finally on fabrics for hourglass centers.  I cut those from 2 inch strips so, again, I go look through the 2 inch scraps to see if there's anything I could use. 

And that's how I ended up with the blocks that started this post if I made any sense and wasn't rambling on too much. 

One more thing...when I cut the Flying Geese bodies and the hourglass pieces with the Easy Angle Companion ruler I also cut HST pieces before and after the Geese bodies.  That way the leftover fabric scrap stays square and I don't waste the fabric at the beginning because I can make an HST. 

I cut some muslin and made those into twenty eight 2 inch HSTs right away.  And I tucked them into a new project bag.  That darned Gayle (Mangofeet) is a temptress of the worst kind. She sent me a link to a new project that requires 2048 - two inch HSTs and then some.   We are calling it Totally Demented.