A Scrappy Quilter

Monday, August 19, 2024

Midsummer Madness

Well a few weeks of intensity and

a lot of progress on many fronts!

First of all , look at these cherries!

A bumper crop this year even tho the

size is slightly smaller than usual, there

are loads of fruit!

We have removed 13 gallon bags

from this tree and it still looks full!

Over in the workroom,

machines have been humming,

seizing and stalling, pins have been dropped

and needles have been breaking!

Even with this bit of chaos, I have a few finishes.

The wedding quilt was delivered last week, gifted

and spread much delight.

Its twin was finished up today with a lovely scrap binding!

Yes, they are identical in all ways except the quilting and backing.

The wedding quilt has an all over serpentine and the keeper

has this lovely zig zag in each block.

One has a four patch back,

the other a piece in the middle backing.

The second is destined for my Cozy Collection but

as we've seen, those sometimes become gifts for big occasions!

To top everything off, the first of the six Stash Buster Irish chains

has been quilted and... bound! Yes a real win for me!

My organization genie really kicked in and there were many

family visits, meetings and a few lunch dates on top of bright

bursts of sewing ! What a midsummer !

Now here is the show off portion of the post!

Cherries , picked then cleaned and washed.

Some pitted , some

gifted, many eaten and 2 pies!

Tops pinned,

quilting done,

some batting to be removed

(yes, your parents were correct, haste makes waste)

and bindings made.

Finally, quilts bound up and complete!

Here's a little stash report too!

Fabric Purchased: 0 m

Used since last report 6 m

Fabric In to date: 25.5 m

Use to date 2024 : 75 m

Scraps in : 0 m

Scraps out : 0 m

Big Batch donation : 60 m (June)

Net Fabric in YTD: -3 m

Now to work on getting labels on every thing!

Happy stitching!

Linking up with:

Needle & Thread Thursday

Put Your Foot Down

Free Motion Mavericks

Finished or Not Friday

Orange quilt and Saucy binding

This first Irish chain for the Stash Buster Challenge is complete!

It fits in with the RSC color for the month and

has every thing but a label!

The large zig zag quilting was fun to do

and provided good coverage without too

many turns or dead ends.

Looking for a suitable binding lead me down a different road.

This quilt ended up with a binding accented by small blocks of

the feature color. It started off with a 60" strips of scrap

patchwork from the orange drawer.

The grey really complimented the orange top so and idea was born!

The strip wasn't long enough so out came the grey bin and

more length was cobbled up.

The bulk in the seams weren't too difficult to stitch up,

you must stay in charge and not allow the bulk to push

the needle off course.

It turned out very well!

Here is the finished quilt!

Ta da!!

Have a great week!

Stay safe and sew on !

Monday, August 12, 2024

Success & Progress!

A busy week past and another to begin!

Remember my deadline a few weeks ago?

Well, I finished with days to spare!! Yay me!

It turned out beautifully and the label is a copy

of the wedding invitation.

I like to add it to wedding quilts,

since the invites are beautiful and we usually either don't

keep them or look at them after the big day.

Angling the corners of labels has been

working out very well and decrease the frustration

felt when I tried to push out the corners.

It makes the labels a bit more interesting too!

This could be the beginning of something,

duplicate quilts every time? Two for the price of one?

Twins? I think not!!! It was almost the same amount of work

but the scrap piles only had to be com-piled

(see what I did there) once!

There were piles everywhere!

This did instigate a little organizing of bits and

squares of the rainbow colors. The separated colors worked

very well for finishing up the stash buster quilt tops!

So the stash report had a big boost today !!

I managed to finish up binding on a third quilt so I

can adjust my numbers!

Here is how I count my progress:

baby size- 3 meters

twin size- 6 meters

Queen size- 11

So, since I finished 1 twin sized quilt,

and 2 queen sized quilts, I can add 27 meters to

my fabric used this year!!! Woot woot for me!

So that will make the stash report this week :

Fabric Purchased: 0 m

Used since last report 27 m

Fabric In to date: 25.5 m

Use to date 2024 : 69 m

Scraps in : 2 m

Scraps out : 0 m

Big Batch donation : 60 m (June)

Net Fabric in YTD: 3 m

I did have a lovely lunch date today and

as often happens, I received a nice bag of

scraps ! That will add a bit to the total in

but wowzer, I do love scraps!

They are all ready cut into strips and ready for stitching!

Have a great week!

Linking up with :

Needle & Thread Thursday

Free Motion Mavericks

Finished or Not Friday

Quilts and My History

Labels, labels, labels. We get reminded

always to label our quilts but lately I

find I only label who receives the quilts,

not who made the quilt ,where ,why ,basically

the five w s that provide the whole history.

Everyone has their own way of recording

progress thru life and on our quilting road.

My BB has a detailed sheet on each of

her creations. A newly minted quilter

was so ambitious, he was labeling each

of his with a lifetime number!!

My most prolific quilting buddy and also

my morning walking partner, sends her

many donation quilt out to spread joy by

labeling them "Love From" with her name

written on a corner triangle.

My quilts get a label when they are given,

no real label when they are donated and

the ones I keep are labeled when I am forced

to label them for a show.

Recently on the Stash Buster page, I saw one

that had a number for this year, "Quilt 16".

I think that might be doable for me.

Little iron on labels are now going

on my donation quilts:

My excel tracking sheet is getting to seem like just

another chore and I'd much rather be sewing than

tracking which quilts need what. My UFO s should be

moving, or aging and becoming delightful surprise to

be discovered as a treasure on a snowy winter day.

A rethink has made me come up with a few more small

iron labels of my own.

Here is a starter list:

a quilt name, maker, year and location made.

a small iron on when the quilt is in a show,

maybe even a label if displayed at a guild

(could prevent the opps I showed it again problem!)

Have great week and label everything!

Monday, August 5, 2024

Backing up Big Time

Lots of tops ready for layering

and the first step is choosing the backings!

So, here is the line up so far!

I was gifted a bin of yardage bundles and

after a good sort, backing fabrics are almost aligned.

Six of the stash busters quilts

are ready so here are starters for their backings.

A few may be a little lacking in yardage but some

matching bits will finish them up.

The last one to be finished up was the orange.

It turned out well and used up quite a few scraps!

July's rainbow scrap color is teal/ aqua

but I am not sure if I'll get to a

teal Irish Chain on top of all the layering!

A coincidence tho, August's color is orange ! Yay!

All these lovely orange squares can get quilted up this month!

My goal is to get some quilting complete!

First will be the 2 triangle rainbow squares.

One is already on the table, and after a false start at

pinning when I positioned the backing the wrong way,

it will be ready for quilting tonight!!

I also managed to drop all the pins onto the carpet during the

repositioning of the top.

There were some handy picker uppers in my notion stash

that worked to clean up the mess.

Here is the winner !

Then I will pin up one of the Irish chains.

I haven't considered any quilting design for them yet .

There maybe some fans and concentric rings in the future!

My pinning is going even easier since my

DH came across some of my favorite clamps at the home store.

So excited that I can clamp down

all sides of the backing! My magnet tool can even pick them up!

All these great tools made for a productive weekend.

The last of the three crazy log cabins is all

quilted and bound.

The first of the rainbow string square tops is

under the needle today!

The second rainbow top is pinned up, just choosing

some thread.

The orange Irish chain is the also in the

line up. It was pinned late in the evening as

the last act of defiance before I stumbled off to bed!

There is still a bit of a backlog over in the " to be quilted" pile

but my deadline took precedence and I do love to bounce around

to many different projects!

Linking up to:

Design Wall Monday

Design Wall Friday

Show & Tell

Thank Goodness it's Finished Friday

Monday Musings

Gone Stitching

Midweek Makers

Finished or Not Friday

Wednesday Wait Loss

Beauty Pageant

Needle & Thread Thursday

Oh Scrap

Put Your Foot Down

RSC 2024

Free Motion Mavericks

Patchwork & Quilts

Sew & Tell

Stitching Stuff

Fabric Collectors

Yes, we are all collectors!!

Lately, I think we all have a bit of hoarder code in our genotype.

Looking thru my stash, I found items that are just not me

and will never be!! Adding on top of that

is the fact that we are all aging and will

someday receive the call that we need to

help destash a friend's home. Well, I've gotten that call twice.

The key is to not adopt all those goodies!

There is nothing more fun than experiencing

new fabrics but they can not all be added to our collections!

Having that in mind, here is my stash report with no added fabric!

Fabric Purchased: 0 m

Used since last report 6 m

Fabric In to date: 19.5 m

Use to date 2024 : 48 m

Scraps in : 0 m

Scraps out : 0 m

Big Batch donation : 60 m (June)

Net Fabric in YTD: 22.5 m

To show off a bit, here is a triptych of the three

crazy log cabins that moved my stash report

the last few weeks!

My To Do list is getting quite large, but I will get to it!!

It is always fun to have things to do and what is life but

one challenge/task after another strung together!

Quilt two Rainbow Strings

Quilt Orange Irish Chain

Can Grocery shop go here!?!

Make binding

Pin yellow Irish chain

I can't finish up without a picture of

the star gazer lilies in the yard.

These poor lilies have really preserved.

They regrew after a devastating year of lily beetles.

The beetles won that war and they plants ended the season as sticks.

This year they were doing great until I went on holiday

and the slugs had a staycation eating all the leaves,

The blooms are still performing so I had to give them

a chance to shine!

Have a great week stitching!

Linking up with :

Stash Report

Sunday, July 28, 2024

One Monthly Goal Finishes!!

Well, I am actually getting my finishes

into the finish link ups, yay!!!

I have made some great progress this July.

The beginning of the month saw a colorful top quilted

up and donated to the Northeast Babies.

Then, after a difficult quilting morning,

two of the crazy log cabins were quilted up.

A saucy stripy binding finished them off very well and

the " to be quilted" pile is shrinking nicely.

The backs were fun too!

The end home for these quilts is yet to be

decided but they

should be welcome where ever they go!

I started a total of four of these black background

log cabins during wild weekend of making the center

blocks that left me with lots of options for quilts!

I've made a good start on the Rainbow strip strings tops too!

A few afternoons layering up should get the

rainbow tops ready to quilt!

Stay safe and sew on into August!

Linking up with :

TGIFF

Finished or Not Friday!

Foto Friday

Put Your Foot Down

Free Motion Mavericks

Wednesday Wait Loss

Stitching Stuff