Almost 20 years...and finally done!

Most of the blocks in this quilt were made in a row by row swap with my small quilt group in about 1998.  We each put together a basket of coordinating fabrics. Each month the baskets circulated to a different member.  Each person chose a block design to make 5 blocks from each basket. One person chose stars, another nose gays etc.  

Funny thing is these were not my blocks. 

These are my friend Esther's

 blocks.  In about 2014 Esther decided to clean out her stash and move on to other hobbies.  

She gave me a big box of stuff to donate to the guild.

Of course I got first pick.

I found these blocks partly sewn together with some companion fabrics and so I finished the top.

The house blocks were my original contributions.  I made a few more and added some trees with the leftover fabrics so I could add an extra row to make it a better shape for a lap quilt. About 54" x 60".

When I finished the top I put it away for awhile...Well 3 years, LOL!

I finally got it out and quilted it recently.

I pieced the back.

A great stash buster! I'm trying to do that with all my quilts now.

Some of the quilting made really fun patterns on the back.  It's nice when that works!

Sometimes orphan blocks just get to looking to dated to bother with.  But I think these fabrics still look fresh and appealing!

I think this quilt might make a good donation to Hospice for their auction?!

Almost 20 years but worth the rescue!

What's your favorite block rescue?

cheers, CW

A Top Finished!

  In 2014 we remodeled and winterized our little cabin in Washington state.  Prior to that the cabin was just for summer use and it would get pretty musty over the winter so I never left quilts there during the winter for fear they too would get smelly.  But after the remodel I figured it was time to make some quilts for the cabin because we'd be going there more often and with insulation we could even go in the winter!
I have accumulated a lot of flannel scraps and I thought what better way to use them than to make a                                                                      Log Cabin quilt!
OK, the blocks are a little wonky but I just took the strips as they came and I had a lot more darks than lights so I added extra darks where I needed them in order to make the right size for the blocks, a'la Amish style.

 I sewed and I sewed and I made 64- 9" blocks in a short period of time.  I thought that would be big enough for our queen size bed at the cabin.  But when I got it on the design wall I realized it was just not big enough! Grrrrr!
But the problem with making a big quilt is if you want to increase the size by one or two rows;  that's a lot of Blocks!!  36 to be exact!  That is more than half-again as many as I had already made.  And that is where the project stalled out.  I've worked on it intermittently since 2015 but then this Winter I really Felt the need for a proper quilt for our cabin bed and that got me sewing again.

Last week I finished all the blocks.  As I started to lay them out I wonder about which way to do it.  Light sides on the edge...

Or dark sides?

I decided on the dark side (no Star Wars innuendo intended).

It just "looks" better.

Now the quilt is about 90" square.  A decent size for a queen size bed!

Here is the final iteration!

Yeah!  Another scrappy adventure draws to a scrappy happy conclusion!

Have a great week!

Claire W.

Thank You for the Thank You Blocks!

Thank you one and all who made these fabulous Churn Dash blocks for me!  They are going to be so much fun to sew together.  I just quickly put them on my design wall so you could see what a great effect they have when put side by side! There are so many fun prints mixed in here and so many great color combos.  Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!

And for those of you in blog land who are wondering what all this is about....One of the best parts about being the Block of the Month person (and various other Board positions) for my local guild is that at the end of our biz year we give out Thank You blocks to all concerned!  This year I asked for churn dash blocks with the Dash in solid fab and the background to be printed.

This is a nod to the first BOM I made for PVQA in June 2015 where I proposed a sailboat block with solid fab boats and print backgrounds.  Read about that here.  That led to a conversation with Lynn over at http://kleinmeisjequilts.blogspot.com/ about any block with a solid in the foreground and a print in the background and how that is generally a very cool effect!  And Lynn has made a whole series of quilts with that idea in mind.  I thought I would revisit that idea in my request for Thank You Blocks.  I'm very happy I did.  I think with a little juggling of colors and maybe a few more rows these blocks will make a really fun quilt!

After chores this will be a sew day for me! Yipee!

Thanks again to all my fellow guild members who made these great block!

Happy Thurs!

Claire W.

Two for the road...

I have been trying to focus on getting some of these charitable tops finished so I can send them on. I've decided not to whine about bindings anymore, just put on a good movie and get them done!

This first quilt, I'm not even sure I ever posted pix of the top. It's was a little experiment involving a handful of Cotton and Steel fat quarters. I was trying to come up with a method of putting to fat quarters face to face, sewing them and cutting them to create a different grid pattern. Thus the odd shaped rectangles in the middle.  I'm not sure it was worth the effort but it's different?!

It's fun to quilt these little quilts.  I just kind of doodle around each section with a different doodle.  No stress, just play! 

 The backing is this wonderfully soft flannel plaid.  Of course it was not quite wide enough thus the extra strips in the middle.  And I bound it with a dark blue flannel that is so soft it is a delight to touch!

I posted pix of this second quilt in April when I finished the top but now it's really finished! 

Two months turn around from top to finished is pretty good for me!                    

Once again I kept the quilting really simple; wavey parallel lines through all the patches from top to bottom except for the 'focal point'.

I backed this quilt with an indigo ikat fab I've probably had for 20 years.  It makes a nice calm counter point for the bright front.

These quilts will be going to the Wheel Chair Bound Vets program (lap quilts 36" x 48").  I generally like to give them quilts in batches of 3 so I have one more to finish before they hit the road.  As I said in my last post I am very behind in my goals on my charitable donations so I'm really focusing on getting that 3rd one done this week!

We shall see...

Have a great week!

cheers, Claire W.

Free Scraps, Leftovers and Orphans Blocks, Whoopeee!

 At the end of our local Guild Quilt Fair on Sunday after 2:00 PM everything left in the Bargain Garden aka Flea Market is Free!!!  I managed to Glean a rather substantial bag of Scraps, Leftovers and Orphan blocks for myself at this shopping spree!  These fabric bits 'n bobs make excellent starters for charitable quilts!
More recently we made a trip to our family cabin where I generally get in some real quality sewing time so I brought the above mentioned bag of fabric fun with me to see what I could whip up!  I had a lot of fun sorting out the various possibilities and then I got to work.
There were a fair number of yellow, white, grey and black scraps in the mix so I pulled them out and got the beginnings of an abstract thingy sewn.

Here's the pile I started with.  I pretty much used them all up so I'm going to have to supplement or go searching for some more scraps.  I was thinking maybe a checkerboard border of some kind?!

Next up I sorted out a whole pile of these leftover Triangle units.  I separated the dark bottoms from the light and paired them up and this little top popped right out!

The fabrics are really pretty but since they all have about the same scale print there's something kind of busy about the over all effect?!  But it will make a nice lap quilt.

Next up were these sunflower print strips.  There were already some of these stripy units made.  I figured "why fight it?"  

So I gathered up the rest of the strips and assembled the rest! There were also a bunch of big pieces of sunflower fabric so I cut those into big squares and threw those into the mix as well.  At first I thought the result was toooo busy, but on second viewing I think it's OK?!

Last but not least were these long patchy units.  With a few switches so's not to have two similar patches side by side I was able to put them together in no time!

This one will definitely need a couple of borders to get it big enough to be a lap size but it's not like I don't have enough fabric in my stash to accommodate?! Snicker, Snicker!

I will try to get these done quickly.  I am woefully behind on my charitable work.

These will all go to the Wheelchair bound Vets project.

I love these kinds of projects!  I can do serious sewing when pressed to the task but for fun vacation sewing nothing beats a bag of scraps!

Happy Wednesday!

Cheers, Claire W.