"Crock Pot" quilt project...

Happy Monday!  I've been slowly finishing these Blackbird Design hand-appliqued baskets.  This is my "CROCK POT" project - it is a SLOW COOKER!!!  (get it?!?)  This quilt was inspired by the book "When the Cold Wind Blows" from Blackbird Designs.  I keep a number of the blocks prepped and ready to go in my magic box, along with thread, scissors, etc.  I work on them in meetings, in the car waiting for my daughter, and in small cracks of time.  The finished ones were piling up, so I decided it was time to soak the glue out, press them dry, and trim to the final unfinished size of the block, 5.5 inches...

...and COUNT them...

...I've finished 126.  I don't really know how many I am going to make.  I am going to make a bed-sized quilt.  I think the one in the book has about 300 blocks in it.  I'm encouraged that I had to fill my tables more than twice to photograph all of them.  I've been at this a while, and I will be at it a bit longer, it seems...

I am using only reproduction fabrics - basket fabrics appearing only once, each neutral featured more than once.  I started out cutting brown baskets, then gold/cheddar baskets, then black ones, then red ones, then green.  I've got more red, green and black ones prepped, then I will start cutting out blue baskets, then maybe the pinks and double pinks.

The quilt in the book only featured gold/cheddar, brown and black baskets, but I thought I would expand the pallet a bit.

I so love the fabrics!  I figure this quilt will be a snapshot of my repro fabric stash at this moment in time.  I love scrappy...it ALL works and I don't have to make any fabric decisions.

Thank you for all your suggestions on the free-pieced scrappy hearts that I posted about last time.  I've had a little computer trouble and not responded to your comments...I hope to do that soon now that things are working again.  I hope to devote an evening this week to putting the hearts together with my log cabin blocks to birth a completed quilt top.

I've also been making more blocks of the scrappy bright and black flip-and-sew project.  Don't you just love the fabric with the woman's head on it??  I think that was a Jo Morton fabric...

And "Boxer Rebellion" (a.k.a. the underwear quilt) is nearly completely hand quilted! 

Baby steps...

Lots of baby steps...on EVERYTHING!  Quilt projects, stronger lungs/health every day, return to the walking program and weight loss, original quilt pattern drafting...it's a good thing I am a patient person, in for the long haul.  Nothing in my life is accomplished quickly these days.

As much as I love the holidays, they are difficult on many levels.  There is a lot of need for fabric therapy in my life right now with the Christmas season and some difficult issues ongoing in my extended family.  But I'm sure I'm not alone and the only one thinking this way.  I'm trying to focus this December on the things about the holidays that make me smile...children singing, outdoor Christmas lights, handmade ornaments, jingle bells, seasonal music, candlelight, random acts of kindness, hot homemade soup, my daughter and husband, and my cat scheming to get the ornament with the peacock feather on it (I won't be smiling if he climbs the Christmas tree to get it...).  Me-OW!!

In stitches,
Teresa   :o)

Be still my crazy-patched heart...

Well, I've been messing around with strippy, free-pieced hearts.  I have 120 green/neutral scrappy log cabin blocks that I am putting into a quilt for our bed.  I thought adding hearts would personalize it a bit so it wouldn't be just another log cabin quilt.  And, after all, it is a gift for my better half.  (And no...not an apology for the snarky underwear wall hanging...)  The blocks are 4 inches square and will finish 3.5 x 3.5.

I like the idea that they are scrappy and haphazard at best.  Sort of reminds me of the human heart...our hearts are constantly broken and re-made as we go through life, stronger and stronger as we grow older.

                

Have you seen the movie "How to Make an American Quilt?"  When making a block to represent 'where love resides' in her life, Marianna made a crazy-patched heart and talked about love being represented by a "multitude of patches."  I loved that...

These are a little doinky and pointy on the sides, but once they are seamed in, that will 'round' them up a bit.

The thought of making enough of these to go around a queen/king quilt doesn't appeal to me.  So I made 18 hearts- one for every year we've been married.  Now I just need to figure out how to incorporate them into the design.

I'm thinking I will arrange them vertically, nine on the top left, nine on the bottom right...need to think more on that.  I need to piece those 120 blocks together...ugh.  I think that is my least favorite part of quilt-making...sewing all the blocks together into the top.  Because they are scrappy, I need to lay the the log cabins out and make sure I like the distribution of the scraps.  That takes up a lot of space, and this is going to be a HUGE quilt.

The first Valentine's Day card Steve ever gave me had a saying that I really liked and kept all these years..."Very fine is my Valentine...very fine and very mine."  I'll have to put that on the label.  (Or maybe letters in the borders????  I may NEVER finish this quilt as I add more and more stuff!)

In stitches (and still in love...),
Teresa  :o)

Thanksgiving stitches...

I am very excited to get back to the sewing machine and my scrappy blocks this week, but we went to Swarthmore, PA for Thanksgiving (near Philadelphia) to spend time with Steve's family so I was separated from my project.

I took this little wall hanging quilt along in hopes that I would get to work on it.  The hand-quilting of Boxer Rebellion is going well and I am very close to being finished...I hope to finish it this week!  This old threadbare underwear needles like butter!  My Steve is a really good sport...

I am quilting little details...like the "6-pack" abs, etc...ha-ha-ha!

It was a little awkward, explaining this quilt to my husband's mother...there I was, chatting with her while putting stitches through her son's underwear.  I'm sure it's not the first time I have seemed strange to his family...

Then I remember that my daughter is an only child...what will she think of this some day when we are gone and she is faced with a mountain of quilts, with this one on top??  It is a part of my quilt legacy.  I suppose I should put some thought into the label for this quilt...I should make sure I explain the story of how the quilt came to be.  Every quilt deserves that, but especially one with such a 'tongue in cheek' origin...

I hope you got some stitching done over the long holiday weekend!

In stitches,
Teresa  :o)

Strippy, scrappy, flippy, happy, happy, HAPPY...

Welcome to "part 2" of the current scrapbusting project.  I started this while sick, thinking that the mindless chain-piecing of the scraps would distract my cough.  Well, it worked!  (It also succeeded in keeping me from packing and getting ready for our trip to the Philadelphia area...)  This initial portion reminds me of the fret board on the neck of a guitar.

The initial pieced strip of short, stubby chunks constitutes the central, diagonal portion of the 8.5 inch square.  Then I "contained" this strip set with black strips on either side.  Now, the fun continues as I just fill out the square on either side.

Each added strip needs to be shorter than the last, and I just roughly center the strip as I sew it on.  As I work, I have my 8.5 inch square ruler close so that I can check myself to make sure I am covering enough real estate with each strip.

I really do have a 100% cotton addiction...as I grab strips and chain-piece, I am like a kid in a candy store, trying to decide which piece to try next!  Yum-YUM!

I keep checking myself with my ruler as I go merrily along...

Eventually, I end up with these funky blobs of strippy, colorful eye candy.  I have been looking forward to playing around with all these scrappy, bright strips and chunks for so long! 

I like working with the bold bright scraps...I feel like there are no rules as to how they should go together.  It is very liberating to work with no rules, no pattern, no paper, etc.  I am usually trying to be so perfect, so precise.  I guess my only "rule" is that I insist on pressing well as I go so these wild and crazy beauties will lie absolutely flat and true.

As I work and handle each piece, I remember the project the scrap came from or the person that gave me the scrap...isn't that wacky??  Mary J and Barb F...do you see some of your fabrics??

Initially, I did try this as a paper-piecing project, but I quickly got lazy and realized that I could do this just as well without the paper, as long as I keep rulers close and check myself from time to time to make sure I am completely covering enough area to cleanly cut out my block when I've finished adding all the strips.  I only had to remove the paper from one blob to realize that I didn't want to do THAT over and over!

Next, using my Brooklyn Revolver (one of my favorite tools!), I carefully trimmed the fabric blobs down to perfect little 8.5 inch squares.  This is a rotary mat with a "lazy Susan" base.  It allows me to trim one side, carefully turn 90 degrees and trim, then continue turning and trimming until a square appears. 

Ta da!

So far I have 24 blocks ready to lay out and see how things will look.

Me likey!

When chain-piecing the "blobs" and adding the last small corner chunks, I did try and not use too skinny a strip.  That way when I start piecing all the squares together, I won't have seam allowances too close to the intersection of four blocks.

I'm going to play with the setting some...I wasn't real careful here, just wanting to see how all the blocks play together.

After our Thanksgiving trip, I can't wait to dive into this box of strips and chunks and make more blocks!  They are so quick and fun to make!  I was definitely tempted to play hookie from Thanksgiving and stay home and make more blocks.  I am looking forward to seeing Steve's parents and sister, and even looking forward to doing all the cooking in a strange kitchen, but this project is so FUN!!  It makes my heart sing!

(**added later**)  Here are 2 finished quilts using these fabulous blocks...

Happy Thanksgiving and I hope your heart is getting to sing a little bit on this long, holiday weekend!  I am so thankful for family and friends, and I am totally grateful to have a hobby that challenges and delights me, and occasionally torments me!

In stitches,
Teresa  :o)

Adventures in fabric therapy...

When I was on my anti-cough campaign a few days ago, I did some mindless chain-piecing of bright and novelty scrappy strips and chunks.  REAL fabric therapy!  I've had an idea for a scrappy string-like quilt for a long time.  I was looking at a guitar a few weeks ago and noticed the fretboard structure of the guitar neck.

When I look at these scrappy strip sets, I see each strip as a fret board on a guitar neck (once a musician, always a musician...).

Instead of just doing the basic "piecing strings on the diagonal" block idea, I knew I could come up with some way to make and use these "fabric fret boards" in a bigger block.  These little stubby strips were really piling up in the quilt cave, and it seemed like a good way to use them up without too much handling and re-processing of them.

I didn't take time to trim them...just kept grabbing pieces that were approximately the same length.  With some of the novelty pieces, I tried sort of "fussy-piecing" them so that I would end up with the desired little picture in place once I trimmed the strip set down to the final width (this will give the finished project the additional whimsical surprise of an "I spy" quilt that I love...).

I settled on a a final block design that would feature this strip set centered on the diagonal of a finished 8 inch block, and the strip set would be about 3 inches wide.  I'm sure someone else has done something like this before...

I decided to set this diagonal strip apart from the remaining block components with scrappy black strips on each side.  This will be the one unifying feature for the top, and help contain all that scrappy, crazy loveliness.  The first strip was easy...I just lined it up and sewed it down.  When I was chain-piecing the initial skinny scrap strips, I pressed all seams in one direction.  As I sew on the black scrappy strips, I sew in the direction of those pressed seams so that everything will press nice and flat as I go.  Since there will be so many pieces in each block, it is important to do neat seam pressing maintenance as I go so that the top will lie really flat and nice for either hand or machine quilting.

After sewing the strip down, I trimmed away the leftover edge of the strip set.  If that strip was wide enough (and it usually was after sewing down the SECOND black strip), I actually SAVED IT thinking I could do something funky with the leftovers later...am I a nut, or WHAT?!?  I just trimmed with scissors instead of the rotary cutter.

Then I pressed the strip to the outside.  As I work, I have a 8.5 x 8.5 square ruler handy to make sure that what I am doing will "cover" enough fabric real estate to be able to trim the resulting mess down to an 8.5 x 8.5 block.  I'm paper-piecing without the paper!

Then, I "eyeball" where the second black strip should be placed in order to end up with the skinny strip sets  between the black strips measuring about 3 inches.  I was intentionally a little loosey-goosey with this 3 inch measurement.  I want the finished product to look a little accidental, or liberated.

I use my ruler just as a guide only, since I'm not looking for accuracy here.  This is really a liberated, or pattern-less project.  "Wonky" and "inconsistent" are key elements of liberated quiltmaking.

As I prepare to sew down this next black strip, look at that nice, FAT leftover strip I will cut off...I will definitely save THAT for later consideration...

(some of THIS leftover pieced strip is too skinny to keep...bummer!)

So I end up with a nice diagonal piece for my final block puzzle.

I'll show the next step of this adventure on Friday.  Happy Thanksgiving!

In stitches,
Teresa  :o)