CUTTING SCRAPS, PART 2

Well, this is cutting scraps again, but with a difference.  This morning I cut 28 light and 28 dark 4" x 8" pieces from odds 'n ends out of the stash.  A lot of it came from the quilt I made a while ago for DD#2 and her husband.  I've forgotten the name of that quilt, but here's the photo:

These were just the right colours for the pinwheel blocks.

                          

But this time, instead of tossing the scraps into that drawer, I dealt with them immediately.  I cut the 4" x 8s" from a strip and then, if there was not a lot of fabric left (and quite often there wasn't) I immediately cut the remnant into useable squares.

They went into the appropriate piles on the pressing table.  

Later in the day I emptied the drawer of the mess of scraps left, placing them in a tray for cutting later this week, and set the separate piles of 2", 2 1/2" etc. squares neatly into the drawer and put them away.

So lovely!  So neat and organized!  This just delights me.

Half of the pinwheel blocks are made.  The other half are ready to go, just in case the weather is as cold and blustery tomorrow as it was today.  My walking partner phoned around noon and we both agreed, "It is NOT a day to be outside!"

COOKIES

When the kids were little I baked oodles of cookies.  Each year before we went camping I prepared a few bread bags full of cookies to take along for snacks.  Jim is fond of chocolate chip cookies and I've been buying them, a dozen for $4.99.  I decided to start baking cookies again, and this evening I made a batch of 38 chocolate chip cookies.  They turned out very well!

I figure we got three dozen for the price of one dozen from the store.  And they are good!

SCRAPS

I got up around 2:45 a.m.--not an unusual occurrence for me.  By 3 a.m. I was in my sewing room, thinking I'd finish the last two 4 by 4's that I started over the weekend.  That would make the 28 blocks of 4 x 4's that I need for a lap quilt I'm working on.  I pulled out a scrap drawer looking for some pieces of material for the pinwheels that come next for that quilt.  Here's what was in the drawer:

It's one of those see through drawers that are stackable.  When I set up my sewing room here I bought a 4' x 8' sheet of melamine and had the lumber yard cut it into two 2' x 7' pieces.  One is set up on six of these drawers, three to a side, and that's my sewing table.  Pretty much the right height.  The other is the cutting table, set up on three of the big drawers with two smaller drawers on top, and under the other side are four medium drawers with two smaller drawer on top.  You can see the set up in this photo:

                         

The bottom drawer held "orphan blocks" which I gave away last week.  The empty space above it is where the scrap drawer was.  Above the empty space is the highest large drawer, another big drawer full of batik pieces.  One smaller drawer above that holds a variety of scotch tapes, and the smaller drawer on the right holds circular knitting needles.  To the right of the drawers is a stack of boxes that hold trimmed scraps: 2", 2 1/2", 3", 3 1/2", and 4"+.  The blue containers in front of the boxes (there are two) hold dark trimmed scraps, one for 2 1/2" and one for 3", and the white containers (also two) hold light trimmed scraps, also one for 2 1/2" and one for 3".  These are ready to be made into a "Split Nine Patch".  That's not the whole of the scraps I have.  In the closet is a very large zippered bag full of unsorted scraps.  These are remnants from cutting out quilts.  It's amazing how they pile up.

I found only three scraps big enough for pinwheels, but I started sorting and cutting scraps into useable sizes.  That's how I spent my whole day, from 3 a.m. to 1 p.m., with breaks for breakfast and coffee time.  Here's the result.  You can't really see how nice and tall these stacks are.  Most are cut squares, but there are also some stacks of strips in each size.

It wasn't what I had planned to do today, but once I started I got in the swing of it and was determined to finish the whole drawerful.

It didn't happen!  This is what's left, and it actually looks worse than it is, because the photo was taken looking down at the drawer.  Tomorrow morning I'll be able to finish.

Most of Saturday's snow has melted.  Because it came down sideways, we don't really know how much we got.  The whole week is supposed to be cold and rainy, snowy.  Good quilting weather!

PLAYING WITH FABRIC

It snowed all day from about 3 a.m. until around 6 p.m.  It was dark, windy and snowy.  Obviously not a day for planting potatoes or going for a walk!  So I gave myself permission to start a new quilt.  There were only 15 more Disappearing Four Patch blocks to finish for the quilt I'm working on, but I am bored of making D4P blocks.

I've been wanting to make a lap quilt in the same pattern as the quilt on our bed and that's what I decided to do today.  I took out my 2" square box and picked out many squares.  I need 224 dark 2" squares and 224 light 2" squares.  I had to cut some additional before there were enough.

The first step was to sew a dark and light together:

Next Step: arrange the pairs into four by four blocks.  There are six blocks here, just not sewed together yet.  I'll do them tomorrow.

Here are eight blocks already sewed together, eight out of 14.  The next fourteen have to start with a dark square in the upper left-hand corner.  

 I know I could turn these around a quarter turn and have what I need, but the pressing would be off.  So I'll go through this same process again, and then everything will nest nicely.

The first hour long instalment of "Les Miz" comes on PBS at 9 tonight and I want to watch that, so it's time to leave the sewing machine, get a snack ready and go turn on the t.v.  Actually, I do feel as if there's been plenty of sewing today!

BIGGER, FATTER FLAKES

We're really in business here!  The snow has not only continued to fall, but now we are getting bigger, fatter flakes.  It's building up on the landscape, the balcony, the railing.  I wonder how deep this will become.

Jim had to go out to water the plants in the greenhouses.  That's actually tricky when it's cold and snowy.  The plants need water, but because it isn't sunny and warm they won't take up so much water.  They need some, but don't drown them!

OH, YUCK!!!

They told us this was coming!  Makes it a good weekend for quilting, doesn't it?

TWO BEAUTIFUL LOAVES

This morning's baking:

NUMBER SEVEN!

Just now I finished sewing the binding on quilt #7.  That's seven quilts completed since February 10, a real record for me.  Of course, they are all lap quilts, not a bed-sized quilt among them.

This quilt was begun years and years ago, as a way of using of remnants.  I had made a king-sized quilt for our daughter about twelve years ago.  The black background fabric in this quilt was some of the leftovers from that quilt.  Now and then I made a star block out of these fabrics.  In line with trying to finish up old projects I took this out of the cupboard, made two more blocks and put them together.  So this did not take a whole lot of sewing to finish.

I really like how this turned out--and am somewhat tickled by the one block with a pink background.  I think that keeps the whole quilt from becoming boring!

Last post I mentioned that I should someday make a Disappearing Four Patch with some darker colours rather than the brights and white that I commonly use.  It surprised me to discover that I had recently started just such a quilt.  In March I did a "demo" day at quilt club for the Disappearing Four Patch.  I had made up a method whereby all the seams nested and even all the seams that meet when the blocks are sewed together will nest.  For that demo I had cut squares from my stash of odds and ends, and they were all in darker shades and combined them with various beiges.  I have enough squares cut to make 42 blocks, for a six by seven setting, just like the D4P in the last post.  So this will definitely be the next old (just by a month or two) project that I work on next.

AND ANOTHER

I'm living a very quilty life lately!  Mainly because of the quilt show coming up next Tuesday.  That's our year-end gala at the local quilt club, and I want to finish the quilts I've been working on in time to put them on display at the show.  So here's the large lap quilt I've just finished:

I've used this pattern several times and like it a lot.  Next time I should try it in a different colour-way.

I always spray-baste my quilts together with 505 and this time I did things a bit differently, for which I was sorry later.  My usual method is to spread the batting out on the floor in my sewing room, then smooth the backing over it, fold the backing back in half and spray the 505 on the wrong side of the backing.  Then I gradually unroll the folded backing over the batting, smoothing it carefully as I go.  When the backing is finished I turn the piece over and do the same with the quilt top.  

This time I sprayed the 505 on the batting and then smoothed the backing over it, and did the same with the quilt top.  I'm not happy with how that turned out: the layers did not stick together nearly as well as when the spray is applied to the backing and the top, not the batting.  I won't do it that way again.

The other thing I did differently was that when I did the machine quilting I did not outline the squares, but did a serpentine stitch diagonally through the blocks. 

Instead of complementing the quilt design it added a different dimension.  I don't care much for this.  That way of machine quilting, combined with the way I spray-basted resulted in a rather puffy quilt.  

It's still a very nice quilt and will be donated to a nearby old age home that has asked our club for a set of lap quilts for its residents.  I'm sure it will be welcome and hopefully, will provide some cheer to someone in his/her last years.

FIFTH FINISH

I know this quilt has been shown on the blog before now, but now it is completely finished.  It's been a lot of fun and I think it's very cute.

There are two more tops to quilt.  The backs and battings are ready.  I just need to spray baste them together and do the machine quilting.  I want to finish them before next week Tuesday as that is when our local quilt club has a year-end "Show and Tell."  We invite anyone who might be interested to come to the Drop In Center and see the quilts we've made this year that we haven't given away and serve snacks.  So if you're local, please come on Tuesday, April 23, (2 p.m. to 4:30) to the CommUnity Centre and join us in some fun.

ANOTHER NICE SURPRISE

When we picked up the mail this afternoon there was an envelope for me from the Red Deer Quilt Show.  This was in the envelope:

Also in the envelope was a check for $100.  The comment sheet was most welcome, and the check was a very lovely surprise.  Guess what I'll spend it on!  Three guesses and the first two don't count!  (Something we used to say when I was young.)

TWO NICE DAYS AND A SURPRISE

The last two days were devoted to quilting.  Thursday I spent the day at Shirl's Girls, making Disappearing Four Patch Blocks.  I had some, five I think, from a demo day at Pieceful Stitchers, and wanted to continue making some, eventually enough for a large lap quilt.  That was the first time I made it to Shirl's Girls this year.  I want to keep in touch with that group of women.  It was a good day.

Friday I went to the Red Deer Quilt Show with Shirley and Dena Adams.  What an enjoyable day that was!  I've gone with those two women for maybe three years now, and always enjoy their company very much.

The Red Deer Quilt Show is always very good.  There are lots and lots of quilts entered, and around 40 merchants have booths around the edge of the Centrum.  Lots of wonderful quilts on display, lots and lots of tempting merchandise for sale.  I bought a variety of things: a good glue (a drop will hold down a corner of fabric for you), some good machine needles, some rotary cutter blades, a pattern, two groups of fat quarters, five in each to use with a pattern, Bermuda Sunrise, that I bought a few years ago, and some superior gold thread for machine quilting.  That will add some real "pizzazz" to some future quilt!

I do have a quilt started in the Bermuda Sunrise pattern, in blacks and whites with a deep red accent square.  The pattern was actually designed for batiks, so now I have the basic batiks for that quilt.  But I need to finish the black/white/red quilt top first.  It's in the "line up."

And then I was told by friends that the Jacob's Ladder quilt I had submitted won a ribbon! I was so surprised!  I didn't expect that at all.  So here I am with the winning quilt:

Sharon J. kindly took a picture with her cell phone and emailed it to me.  What a pleasant surprise that ribbon was!

TWO FINISHES

I've been working on a few quilts simultaneously and this morning I managed to finish two of them.  One was just waiting for the purchase of a spool of thread in the right colour to sew down the binding on the right side.  This is a "Picket Fence" quilt.  The pattern was in a 1994 issue of "Quiltmaker" magazine.  This is the 3rd or 4th quilt I've made from the very easy pattern.

This quilt was begun by making blocks at a "Demonstration Day" last year.  It was nearly finished when I picked it up again this spring.

The second finish is one of the "3D Pinwheels" that I began this spring.  Pat had taken a quilt to our local club in this pattern, although the pinwheels were just prairie points.  Some time ago I had experimented with a 3D pinwheel and decided to use that for this quilt.

The background and border are fabrics that I bought this spring and the purples were all from my fabric stash.  I wanted the pinwheels to be really 3D, so I sprayed the folded edge with some "Best Press" and stuffed a bit of fabric into the fold:

When the folds dry, they stand up very nicely:

Of course, each time the quilt is washed this will have to be done again.

I really, really like both of these quilts.  I think the 3D Pinwheel baby quilt is one of the cutest I have ever made.  Lots and lots of fun!

I will write out the directions for how to make the 3D pinwheels and put them on the blog in the next few days, maybe next week.  Tomorrow I'm going to our other local quilting group and on Friday some of us are going together to the Red Deer Quilt Show.  That's always a winner--a full day of examining quilts, visiting merchants and attending demonstrations.  See you next week.