It's a Flimsy! Scared Shirtless

 It's a flimsy!

Scared Shirtless

67 x 80

It's a pattern called "For the Boys" in Jen Kingwell's book Quilt Lovely. Her version is 67 x 67 but I added a couple of rows to make it longer. 

I started this in September 2017. It is made of men's shirts. I wanted to get this to flimsy stage so I could see how much shirt fabric was left over.   Now that I know I can continue on with my vintage inspired quilt that has no name yet but I'm leaning toward Shirts and Grins or Shirts and Giggles or Shirts and Skirts.  More on that quilt later after I make a round of Flying Geese. 

Moving forward!

It's a Finish! Salsa Dancing

 Salsa Dancing

72 x 90

I made it for my husband because he loves growing most of the ingredients for salsa (peppers, tomatoes, garlic, onions, cilantro), canning it and eating it fresh or from the jar.

 I think I made it a little too big for his recliner, darn it. He's a tall guy - over six feet -  but I'll bet I could have stopped at 3 x 4 blocks which would have been a quilt 54 x 72. I'll put it on the quilt rack in the living room and it's there if he wants to use it. With these record setting low temps our house has been drafty and cold and I've had a quilt wrapped around my shoulders and on my lap. 

 It's too long for the clothesline so here's a view of the bottom row. 

 I used salsa ingredient fabrics in the block centers and warm solids or tone on tones for the "stars". 

 I hand quilted it with a variety of colors (green, yellow, terracotta)  of perle #12. 

 I used an eggplant colored sheet on the back. I had to take out the top and bottom and side hems to make it big enough.  All the hand quilting shows up nicely on the back. 

I can't believe I did that hand quilting!  It looks pretty darned good if I do say so myself. 

This was my goal #18

for

Q1 Finish-Along

It was also my OMG (One Monthly Goal) for February. 

at

Elm Street Quilts

#109

 I think I previously mentioned that the Stashbuster Yahoo Group  has a Random Numbers game to help move forward UFOs. I have not participated in the past but this year I decided to give it a try. My UFOs are numbered and I just wait for two numbers to be drawn each month. One number is always between 1-12 and the second is between 13-100 (I think).  If I have more than 100 UFOs (I do) then I can add 100 to the first number drawn and have a third number.   Then I simply work on the numbers drawn (or not) during the month.  

Numbers drawn this month are 9 and 49 and since I have over 100 UFOs then 109 is my third number. 

And that brings me to my UFO #109.  (More on 9 and 49 later). 

My #109 is House Party from the book Adding Layers by Kathy Doughty of Material Obsession that you see above.   My quilt will not have borders and will have one extra row to make it rectangular. At various times I've called my quilt Garden Party, Grandma's Garden, The Farm and now I'm thinking Home Grown.  I've been using garden and farm themed fabrics. 

When I pulled out the UFO a couple of days ago I had 52 of these block pieces. 

 I made 28 more and now I have a total of 80 and have moved on to block assembly. 

I have several larger print garden themed fabrics with yellow background I have now decided to use for the block centers and connectors.  Since I rarely pull all fabrics for a quilt before  I start I had a difficult time deciding what to use for those centers.  Next step is to assemble 20 blocks like above with 4 Y seams in each block.  That's part of the reason this is a UFO.  I was not looking forward to those Y seams. But my test block above was not really as much of a pain to assemble as I was thinking it would be.   In fact I went from thinking yuck to yahoo in a matter of a few minutes. I know I won't get this finished this month but I do hope to have a flimsy before month end.  And if I don't...I don't.  That's okay too... 

because I'm moving forward!!! 

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

One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish

 One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish...

Crumb Fish

36 x 52

It's finished! 

Ready for giving or gifting. 

 Last year I was on a mission to sew up my crumbs each month in the Rainbow Scrap Challenge color of the month. One of the blocks I made was this fish block. To make this block I sewed crumbs into a strip 4 inches wide. Then I cut a 4 inch square and a 1.5 x 4 inch tail.  Sometimes I just cut the tail from a 1.5 inch scrap and didn't use crumb fabric for it.  I added 1.5 inch squares of  solid or tone on tone flippy corners to the 4 inch square and tail. I then added 1.5 inch strips of blue "water" scraps all around. 

See the Catfish? 

See the Porcupinefish and Angelfish? 

Within that four inch square you can tell how small some of the crumbs were. 

 I arranged them with the lightest blue "water" on top and...

 ...the darkest blue "water" on the bottom. 

 It just so happened that I had partial spools of different colors of blue  and variegated blue machine quilting thread as well as partial bobbins of the same so I tried to use lightest threads on top and darkest on bottom and the rest in between.   I quilted in waves and bubbles on my DSM. 

 I had enough of this solid blue for backing and binding. I was nervous about using it because I am thinking I had it set aside to use with a UFO but I'll cross that UFO bridge when I get to it. 

This was my goal #9

for

Q1 Finish-Along

Oh Scrap! at Quilting is More Fun Than Housework

Yellow Scraps

Yellow Cats

Yellow is the February Rainbow Scrap Challenge color of the month. 

 I sort most of my scraps by size and not by color.  That's what works for me.  This week I dug into the 3.5 inch scrap bin and pulled out some yellow scraps to make some cats.  I want to make at least four cats per month and so if I don't have enough 3.5 inch scraps (as so happened with red) then I cut a 3.5 inch pieces off of a chunk scrap.   I've been using gray or black/white scraps for the background. 

 The next thing I do with 3.5 inch scraps is cut sixteen 3.5 inch squares to make sixteen patches with stars. 

 Then I pair up the yellows with another color of my choosing to make HSTs and then make Broken Dishes blocks. 

I was kind of surprised I had so many yellow scraps in the 3.5 inch bin. I usually don't have many yellow scraps in any size.  

 Since I still had yellow scraps left in the bin I decided to cut 1.5 x 3.5 pieces for my little rail fence blocks.   Those pieces were made into the Rails on the left. Since I usually cut Rails from 1.5 inch scraps I decided to also  go get yellow scraps from the 1.5 inch scrap bin and cut and make Rails which are on the right.   This is the third year of making little Rails from scraps so maybe at the end of this year I'll have enough for a big and very scrappy quilt.  

Then while I was in the 1.5 inch scrap bin I cut my Bit Coin pieces (1.5 x 2.5) for the block on the left.  I usually don't like to repeat fabrics in a block but I didn't have much to choose from in the 1.5 inch scrap bin. After I use scraps from the 1.5 inch bin in my RSC projects they go into the Spider Web project box.   I'm aiming for a big quilt and this is my third year of making them so I'm not going to be picky about repeats anymore.  Then I decided to look into the 2.5 inch scrap bin.  I should have looked there before I made the block on the left because as you can see from the block made on the right I had lots of different yellow 2.5 x 1.5 scraps. 

Anything left in the 3.5 inch bin that was less than a square went into a strip instead of into the crumb bin.   I've been doing this for a couple of years too so I probably have enough for a Chinese Coin rainbow or a rainbow border. 

Earlier this week I started making Church Window Hexagon Variation blocks from 3.5 inch scraps and made my red and yellow blocks. 

So that completes my yellow blocks from the 3.5 inch scrap bin and the 1.5 inch scrap bin.  That leaves me with the yellow scraps in the 2 inch and 4.5 inch scrap bins to use the rest of the month. 

Rainbow Scrap Challenge ScrapHappy Saturday

What's in the Hoop?

 What's in the hoop? 

Salsa Dancing is in the hoop! 

72 x 90

It's an Anna Maria Horner free pattern she calls Spinning Stars. 

I think this block is traditionally called Wagon Wheel. 

 I've been hand quilting it with a variety of colors of perle #12.  I have about five blocks left to finish quilting in the center "salsa" areas. 

 Where the blocks meet a star is formed and those are all quilted now. 

 In those center areas I've been quilting five  concentric rings around. 

I need to get moving. February is a short month and I'm going to declare getting this quilt completely finished as my OMG (One Monthly Goal at Elm Street Quilts). 

In the meantime I'll party at the Peacock Party going on at Wendy's Quilts and More.