Kaleidoscope of Strings Finish!

Kaleidoscope of Strings

It's a finish!

60 x 80

Last year I emptied a big box of strings and made several different string quilt tops. 

This top was finished back in October 2021.

I've made quite a few different Kaleidoscope quilts but had never made one with strings oriented lengthwise in the wedges. I used red for the background and all block corners were blues and yellows. I tried to keep with polka dots for the corners but when those ran out I added a few stripes. 

I quilted it on my DSM (Brother PQ1500SL) with swirls in a yellow and red variegated thread.  I made a scrappy binding of blues and yellows. 

If there's a next time I'll have to remember not to use strings the same color of the background! 

It's amazing that a big old pile of strings can play so nicely together in a quilt. I do not cut fabrics specifically for a string quilt. Strings around here just happen - quilt back trimmings, fabric ends, wonky cuts, odd widths given to me and so on. When my box is overflowing I get to work and make a few quilts. That's always a fun task for me. 

This will go into the donation/gift quilt pile.  When the granddaughters were younger I would get a pile of six twin/throw sized donation quilts and let them decide on four quilts to donate and they each then could pick one to keep in their "hope chest" for when they set up households. Now one granddaughter is deceased and the other has moved away and I don't see her or my grandson very often. I'm thinking this would have been a "hope chest" choice for one of them who liked Kaleidoscopes as much as I do.

The back.

And sew on...

Finished or Not Finished Friday at Alycia Quilts

Peacock Party at Wendy's Quilts and More

 

What's In The Box?

I've been processing a flat of 2 inch width scraps. Some scraps were given to me. Some were from leftovers. Some I sorted out of one of my boxes of stuff I swept off of the cutting mat. Some were 4 inch scraps I cut lengthwise. 

Well, anyway, what was in that box?

I started with the longest pieces and made four 6 x 9 Zip blocks.

Then if a piece was long enough to cut 8 HSTs with the Easy Angle ruler then that is what I did. I used them as the corners on 4 inch finished Indian Hatchet blocks.  I have a little box of sets of four 2.5 inch squares that I also use to make these blocks.  These were inspired by a vintage quilt. 

Then while the Easy Angle ruler was out I cut some HSTs and made Broken Dishes blocks. With this batch I now have 105 of them. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with these little 3 inch blocks. Maybe I will combine them with squares for donation quilts.  For now I just make them and they are in the Parts Department. 

Then I made 3 inch bow ties. With this batch I now have 520 of them. I'm thinking I need 900 of them for a BIG quilt. 

Then I cut squares. From L to R - stacks of single 2 inch squares; stack of pairs of 2 inch squares; stack of 4 identical 2 inch squares that will go into the Monkey Wrench workbox to be used with 3.5 inch HSTs whenever I get around to making them. 

The neutral pieces will go into the little drawer of neutral scraps. 

Anything less than a 2 inch square and greater than 1/2 inch was sewn into strips for a future Chinese Coin quilt. 

And sew on...

 

Long May She Wave

It's a flimsy!

Long May She Wave

A Patriotic Mystery 

from Alycia at Alycia Quilts

I've participated in quite a few of Alycia's mysteries but was going to skip this one because most of my patriotic prints are now just very small scraps.   But then I decided to go scrappy and use some civil war reproduction fabric scraps and muslin. 

This mystery has a very happy ending! 

Thank you, Alycia! 

 

Smoothing Iron or Minnie's Stars or Road to Florida -- It's a Finish!

It's a finish!

83 x 90

The top was finished back in October 2019. 

 This quilt was inspired by a vintage quilt made by Minnie Lee Deakins and is a Quiltfolk pattern called Minnie's Stars.  (At one point Quiltfolk had a monthly pattern subscription for a surprise vintage pattern but that only lasted a few months. I think they now sell the patterns online?)

 Anonymous previously left me a blog comment that mentioned the block is known as Road to Florida and also lately named Smoothing Iron.  I can see how it could be called Smoothing Iron, a name I really like, but not sure about the road to Florida as a block name. There seems to be a lot of vintage blocks that start with "road to..."  

I started the quilt because I had quite a few small chunks of blue TOTs (tone on tone fabrics) I wanted to  use up. I decided on blues for the triangles and warm colors for the triangle centers. I was going to just make the quilt in reds, blues and yellows but soon found I had to add some oranges and pinks for the center triangles.  I didn't have enough of my blue chunks to finish the blocks either and soon after I blogged that I would need to purchase fabric to continue a quilty friend sent me a surprise package of blue TOTs.  That had me calling the quilt "Out of the Blue". 

I quilted it on my DSM (Brother PQ1500SL) with blue thread. 

I used a few different blue TOTs for the binding. 

The back.

Quilting Is More Fun Than Housework

 

Vintage Inspired

Most of this year I've been working on Four Patches (4P) of Quarter Square Triangles (QSTs) as a Rainbow Scrap Challenge (RSC) project. The blocks will alternate with some old 4P blocks left over from some other quilt.  I was inspired by the vintage quilt in the photo above. 

I have now finished the last 19 QST 4P blocks and have now reached my goal of 65 blocks. 

So now I have another complete block set that will go into the Some Assembly Required (SAR) box to be assembled at a later date. I need to get some of my backlog of tops quilted and finished before I assemble any more tops.   

And sew on...

Now I can check another RSC project off the list! This one does not need to continue into 2023! 

RSC ScrapHappy Saturday

 

 

Hearts

Here's the latest batch of 4 inch Hearts for a quilt in memory of my granddaughter who passed away suddenly from "probable cardiac arrhythmia". 

The last time I blogged about the hearts a kind lady commented she could send me a few red, pink and white scraps. Never one to refuse a scrap I took her up on her offer. Gosh, she sure has the loveliest "scraps"!  Thank you, Penny!

And sew on...

 

Wishing Rings - A Finish!

Wishing Rings

It's a finish! 

84 x 91

620 blocks that finish at 3.5 inches.

Inspired by a c. 1825 - 1875 Church Window Hexagon variation quilt. 

I started making blocks back in January 2019. Temecula Quilt Company was having a quilt along. 

I made my blocks a different way than they did at Temecula and they were a Rainbow Scrap Challenge block for me for a couple of years. 

I finished the top back in February 2021.

I quilted it on my DSM. The quilt has a lot of seams in it and I didn't want to cross over all those flippy corners so I decided to quilt it with crazy eights somewhat following the outer ring. I didn't even try to make perfectly spaced eights because I knew that would be impossible for me to do while quilting such a big quilt on my DSM. So I just took it easy, didn't stress about it and the quilting was finished in no time. 

I pieced together a couple of pieces of muslin for the back and the binding was also muslin. A big bed quilt doesn't require anything fancy on back. 

And sew on...

Finished or Not Finished Friday at Alycia Quilts