Field Trips in Fiber - Adventures in quilting, hand dyed fabric and fiber art.

Mindless sewing

You all know that I always have several projects going so that I should have something to work on no matter my mood. Wednesdays are my dyeing day. Generally I'm too tired to do much after a day in the dye studio but yesterday I was in the mood for a bit of mindless sewing. 

I think I showed you these half square triangles blocks that I've been making as leaders and enders. I cut out a bunch of HSTs with my Accuquilt Go! 4" triangle die. As I am working on other projects I sew a few of these together as leaders and enders.

I decided to put a few together into a 12" finished block and this is the arrangement I'm using putting the lights and darks into diagonal stripes.

Last night I got 4 blocks made and I think I"m going to love it when it's done. I will probably make this as a Veteran's quilt and that will require 4 blocks by 5 blocks (20 total) for a 48" x 60" quilt. The cool thing about working with value and with this block, is that I can arrange it in a number of ways. I'll keep going and maybe I can do a few blocks each Wednesday after my dye work.

Gosh I love scrap quilts, especially hand dyed scrap quilts!

Hijacked by the scraps...again

You know it's an old story with me. I finished my Blogger's BOM quilt top and started clearing up the leftover fabrics and scraps. I woke up 3 days later......

I started by sewing together the small squares, rectangles and strips into crumb blocks. It was only a few weeks ago that I said I was done with crumb blocks but I just can't throw out feedsack fabrics!

I had 20 blocks and first thought I'd make a little baby quilt but then I found a stack of old sugar sacks in my sash and I came up with this.

When finished it will be about 40" x 50". I know it probably looks just dirty to you but I think it's pretty cute with the sugar sack prints spread randomly around it. 

Here you can see some of the prints a little clearer. This one will get some sort of simple quilting like parallel lines.

When I was picking up all of the tiny cut off bits I found one more block on the floor.

So I put it with the leftover sugar sack fabric and made this little round placemat.  This little table is attached to my favorite chair. This is where I watch TV, do applique and eat about half of my meals. I decided that I should have some placemats for this little table and this is my first one. Now when I spill some of my morning smoothie I will only soil the mat.

Finally I took all of the tiny bits and fused them (with Mistyfuse) to an 18" square piece of old fabric. I quilted it all down with diagonal parallel lines. I haven't made anything with this yet but I think it's destined to become postcards or notecards.

The feedsack projects are officially done for the time being!

Why is it that these scrap projects excite me more than a brand new project?

 

Giving and Saving, part 2

I have a goal to have 4 kits cut for charity quilts by May. I want to give 2 kits to my friend, Ellen, for her church group and 2 kits for my Guild sewing day in May.  I used my Go Cutter Tumbler die to do the first kit here.

I pulled 30 more fat quarters, this time in browns and teals for another tumbler quilt.

The quilt kit is in the plastic bag. There are 200 tumbler pieces and enough 2.5" strips to make the binding. These piles are what was left from cutting.

You know I couldn't throw them out. I started with the biggest scraps and cut as many 4 1/2" square as I could. Then I cut 2 1/2" squares and sewed them into 4-patch blocks. Next I sewed a bunch of triangle wedges into blocks that were trimmed to 4 1/2". Finally I took everything that was sewable and started crazy piecing. I cut many of them into 4 1/2" squares and then made one large scrap patch that is 12 1/2" x 16 1/2". When I was done I had 84 squares! I took the leftover blue and teal bits and fused them to make a 20" square peice of confetti fabric.

I didn't have a plan and I still don't have a plan. I picked a size (4" finished) and cut and sewed until I had a bunch of things made. I have no idea what I will do with them. I could make a table runner and placemats or buy additional fabric and make these into a quilt. I could make journal covers.  I could put them in one of the donation bag or I could put them in a box and continue making 4 1/2" scrap blocks for a future very scrappy quilt. Who knows! At this point I'd bet on them winding up in a box for a while.

There was a very inexpensive teal and brown batik at Joann's a coule of weeks ago that would look great with these blocks. I'll be driving by there Sunday to get Mom so, who knows, maybe I'll stop in and see if they still have it. Because I should buy more fabric to help me reduce my stash! that sounds like some government stimulus program!

What would you do with them?

Giving and Saving

Last week I shared this quilt with you. Mom and I cut this and 2 other kits from my fabric stash to make quilt kits. We used my Go! Tumbler die and cut 200 tumblers for each quilt (13 tumblers per row and 15 rows). I think it makes a great quilt for a charity quilt. 

Today I posted at 3 Creative Studios about how I deal with news stress like the events in Japan. I have to accept that I can only do so much (donate money) to help those who are suffering. But I can use my "worry energy" in other ways to help people close to home. After all, there is always someone in need.

I decided that I would cut 4 more of these kits. Two for my Guild Chapter to sew on their community service sewing day in May and two for another group where I donate a lot of my scrap quilting fabrics. They make quilts for local, state and international charities.

The first step was to pick fabric and cut tumbler blocks. The fabrics for this kit came mostly from a single fabric line. I bought the fat quarter set at a quilt show several years ago. It has lots of bright, happy colors. You can get 6 tumbler blocks from a fat quarter. I fold and cut the fat quarter so that there is a wide middle strip left over. From those I cut 2.25" strips that they can piece together for the binding. All of this goes in a Ziplock bag for the kit. 

But there are a TON of scrap pieces left from one of these kit cutting sessions.

Since I bought the fabrics, I certainly liked them so I decided on a small project for msyelf. I sewed some of the scraps into long rows, added some hand dyed fabrics and made 4 placemats! That's a surprise, isn't it?

I already had 4 hand dyed napkins that matched.

I wanted to have some fun with the quilting. I chalked lines across the quilt for every seam line in the strip section and then quilted over the chalked lines with variegated thread. I really like these a lot and I'm glad to have a little project for myself to remind me of the fabrics.

But there were more scraps!

I pulled out the Go! Value die and cut as many 4.5" and 2.5" squares as I could. I will give these to one of the sewing groups too.

I sewed every leftover sewable piece together into 12 5.5" crumb blocks and then took every other bit of scrap and made them into 2 confetti sheets. I did these confetti sheets on a piece of old fabric and decided to make these with some thought and planning. I used all of the purple, red and dark blue pieces on an 18" square and the yellow, green and light blue on a 9 x 18 peice of fabric. For the moment they are fused in layers with Mistyfuse with a layer of tulle fused on top. Once I come up with a project I will do some decorative stitching to quilt the layers together. By doing these on fabric, instead of stiff interfacing, I have more options for how I uses these sheets later.

I don't know what I will do with the crumb blocks yet either, but at least they are not in the trash!

On to the next set of fabrics! I hope I will have a noticeable dent in my stash when these 4 kits are done.