Scraps!

I love making scrap quilts.  The visual texture you get from a large variety of scraps is appealing to me.  I appreciate scraps and put them to use!  I'm lucky to have scraps gifted to me from some quilt friends.  It may be a few selvages or a leftover bit or even some odd pieces.  I regularly attend two quilt guild meetings.  At one of them, I usually get a bag of scraps.  One member saves her scraps for the month ang gives them to me at the meeting.  It's like Christmas!  (Thank you Marian!).  Since I'g getting ready to teach a scrap management class at the retreat, I was talking about my method of what I call Processing my scraps.  Since I had the Bag-o-Scraps, I used them as an example.  And got a sneak peak of this month's treasures.  I kept the thought of describing my process as I drove home.  I took a few pictures as I processed this bag of scraps.

Step 1:  Dump scraps onto table.  Paw through them and ohh and ahhh!

Divide into groups.  In this case, the top left is selvages.  Moving clockwise, pieced pieces, large pieces, strips at least 2" (this is the GOLD pile!), scraps, strings. 

Selvages are put away for selvage quilts, the pieced pieces will either be unpieced or put away as larger pieces.  I will probably put them away and use further process them as needed.  Large pieces can either be cut into smaller squares or "filed" in the appropriate color bin.  Strips - these will be cut to usealbe widths (1/2" increments) and then cut into squares or used as strips.  Most of what is here was cut to 2" squares.  Scraps are pieces that are less than 2" square or a string.  Strings are strips that are larger than a generous 3/4" and smaller than 2" and are at least 3 1/2" long.  The edges do not have to be parallel. 

Althought this sounds like a lot of "rules', pickingup these pieces an tossing them into the correct pile is quite easy.  The "rules" are flexible. 

So here's how I divided this group

I cut the short strips down to useable strips and squares.  That generated more scrap.  And trash.  I do throw away the trimmings that I don't use.  I left them in the bottom left bin to show you.  The bottom middle shows scraps and that large piece of purple that I wasn't ready to cut. 

Here are all of the bins stacked.  There are 228 squares in this top bin.  When I showed the bag of scraps, a member said "I throw away stuff that small".  I understand that.  But I use stuff like that! 

I'm looking forward to seeing the quilt that Marian made with those black, white and red fabrics.  And I will remember where the fabrics came from when I use them in a future quilt.

Super Bowl Bound

Well, everything went according to plan on Sunday.  We had a nice list of things to get done before Super Bowl time.  We got up and had a quiet morning, had coffee with Mom and Dad after church.  Went to the grocery store, machine sewed the binding on the selvage quilt, brought in some Christmas decorations.  We snow-dyed another batch of fabric (pictures to folow).  We fixed some Super Bowl food (pizza, wings, nachos) and had Mom and Dad over.  My plan was to get the selvage quilt binding ready for hand-sewing during the Super Bowl. 

Here's proof that I was successful!  I got almost half of the binding hand-sewn during the Super Bowl.  I know that I can machine sew the binding by machine, but for many reasons, I like the look of a hand sewn binding much better.  And this is part of the quilt making process that I particularly like.

Tonight was a quilt guild meeting.  Tomorrow is another.  They are usually on different weeks, but a couple of times a year they end up on the same week.  I'll work on the binding this week, if I have down time.  It's a busy week, so I'm not sure when that will happen.  And I have dyed fabric waiting to be rinsed.  Life is good!

One, Two, Three... Eight, Nine!

My yard backs up to a pond and a small wooded area.  Behind that is undeveloped land and farm land.  The pond is only about an acre or less, but it sure attracts wildlife.  While preparing Super Bowl food yesterday, I looked out over the pond - DEER!  I love to see the deer.  It was about 5:30.  Still daylight, but the daylight was starting to fade.  We watched the deer, took pictures and told Cooper that he couldn't go out and play with them.  They were running back and forth behind the pond.  Even an hour later, we could still see them if we let our eyes adjust to the dark.  Here are some pictures.  You may have to click on them to make them bigger.  Enjoy!

 Quilted!  The Selvage Quilt is Quilted!

Yesterday, I purchased thread, wound bobbins and got ready for a day of quilting.  I had decided on the quilting design, except for the borders.  I had an idea for the border and that idea worked.  And it lead to the rest of the border plan.  I am very happy to say that today, I quilted the Selvage Quilt! 

Bound and determined to utilize materials in my house, I've been carefully choosing batting for each project.  I've gone through many, many pieces.  I went searching for the perfect sized pieced for this quilt.  I found pieces that were too small and pieces that were better sized for a larger quilt.  I pulled out a bag with batting and found this piece.  It was a good size, by geez, was it thick!

3/4" thick!  Like I said, I was committed to using up stuff that had been sitting around and this piece was a good size for this quilt, so I layered and pin basted it.  While doing so, I caught a glimpse of this batting's prior life. 

I see old stitching lines!  Thinking about how thick this batting is, I think I figured this out.  This batting must have been salvaged from an old comforter!  It makes sense - it is thick and has old sewing lines (sorry, I can't bring myself to call them quilting lines).  Hmmmm, how much trouble is this comforter weight batting going to cause me?  Well, I was about to find out! 

I had just finished some part of the quilt and laid it on the floor in the media room.  The media room is just outside my quilt room and has just enough floor area to display a quilt (that is, as long as you don't want to walk around it).  Just then, the dinner call was made.  I went downstairs and enjoyed leftover lasagna for dinner.  Coming back up the stairs, I was greeted with this view:

It reminded me of that THICK batting.  I will admit that the back has some folds.  I don't normally have tucks or folds in my backing.  I am reasonably certain that this is due to that thick batting.  I decided to leave it as is and not to rip out and re-do.  This is partial because I intend on keeping this quilt for myself (at least until someone claims it) and mostly because I think I'll fight this problem throughout the quilt given the fact that it has a 3/4" batting.

I spent most of the day today quilting this quilt.  I'd bet that it would have taken significantly less time with a long arm.  And I bet it would look nicer.  I can't stitch a 9" curve on my machine without stopping and adjusting my hands.  When I do that, I don't get a smooth curve.  I'd love to be able to quilt a few quilts on a long arm just to see if my theories are true!

I decided to quilt the triple swirls in the X's.  I liked the was this work out.  When you look at this quilt, you see the selvage diamonds.  The triple swirls tied the areas between them together in an X shape.  I had to modify my plan for the selvages a bit.  I had thought about a few things, but decided on a wavy line following the selvages.  That was too fussy for the thick batt.  I ended up with something between a large meander and a wavy line.  And the border?  I just quilted it like the rest of the quilt!  I brought out the quilting as if there were selvages on those blocks.  The border quilting turned out fine, and I was able to baste the edge as I quilted the border. 

 Tomorrow should be the binding.  I'm thinking about a polka dot fabric to draw from the selvages.  I was concerned about getting that sewn onto the quilt with that thick batt, however, I feel a lot better about it since I've quilted the border.  I like to machine sew my bindings to the quilt, then hand sew them to the back.  If all goes well, I'll have a nice project to keep my lap warm an my hands busy during the Super Bowl tomorrow!

Ready to Quilt!

I'm hoping that I can start quilting the Selvage Quilt tomorrow.  Actually, I'm hoping that I can FINISH quilting the Selvage quilt.  I really don't think it will take that long to do and the only other item on my agenda as of now is a bit more snow dyeing.  The studio is ready for the dyeing and I prepared some fabric the other night.  Tonight I went to Jo-Ann's and bought thread.  I was so glad that I thought about this the day before I was ready to quilt!  I bought two 250 yard spools and one 125 yard spool.  They only had two 250 yard spools.  I wound one spool onto bobbins.  Six bobbins.  Guess that means that the bobbins hold 41 yards of this thread.  Six bobbins doesn't seem like a whole lot, but it isn't a big quilt.  And only half of the top with have the turquiose thread.  I'll use white or off-white on the selvages. 

What else did I pick up while I was there?  These Snapware containers will be used for the Scrap Quilting class that I'm teaching at the guild's retreat in March.  I'm teaching the selvage quilt too.  I guess I'll be working on those classes for the next few weeks.  I also bought the backing for the RRCB Mystery quilt.  The fabric is pretty, but it has a muslin texture.  With the white printing on it.  I'll decide how much I do or don't like it once I use it.  As typical of Jo-Ann's, Snapware was 50% off, I used a 50% off coupon for the backing, thread was 50% off and I used a 50% off coupon for the needles. 

I've decided how I'm going to quilt the selvage quilt.  I used this design in the Christmas quilt that I sent to Massachusetts.  I figure that if I stitch it a zillion more times, I might get halfway decent at it.  It will be stitched in turquoise thread.  I think I'm doing a series of wavy lines parallel to the selvage strips in white or off-white thread on the selvages.

I haven't decided on the border yet.  I'll probably continue the swirls in the X shape into the border and then quilt something around the rest of the border.  I'll keep a watchful eye on the border as I'm quilting the quilt tomorrow.  Hopefully, it will talk to me.

RRCB - Repair

A 65 pound lab puppy full on energy should NOT run in the house, take a hard  right turn, putting on the brakes to jump on the couch while I'm working on a quilt on the floor!

I found a small hole in one of the green squares.  I'm glad I found it before I layered and quilted the quilt.  It didn't take long to remove the damaged fabric and replace it.

Here's the guilty party.  I gave him a scrap of batting to play with tonight.  He had lots of fun tearing it.

I'm not ready to quilt this one yet.  I need to buy backing fabric for it.  I did layer a lap quilt tonight.  I hope I will get a chance to start quilting it this weekend.

RRCB Quilt Top is Finished!

Quilt top started:  November 19, 2010

Quilt top finished:  February 1, 2011

I still need to quilt it. 

It is a very heavy quilt.  Lots of seams, lots of fabric.  Something around 3,500 pieces.  I'm going to put it away for now and think about how I want to quilt it.  I sure wish I had a long-arm!  The photo shows the quilt on a queen sized bed.  It will work well with a full or queen bed.  Hmmm, which project is next?