pop, my take

I was cruising the web a while ago and was on Fons and Porter's You-Tube site, Quilting Quickly. I saw a quilt they called Pop and immediately thought; this would be a good scrap quilt.

The blocks are 8-inches square, finished.  Four 4 1/2" by 2 1/2" scrap strips and two 8 1/2" by 2 1/2" background (white) strips.  I used black for the two borders.  To make the inside border that is black and white you need some 8 1/2" strips of white and black; the corners will need four 10 1/2" strips of black.

The two borders make the center look like it is floating.  I used about 2/3 yards of black, 1 2/3 yards of white, 1 1/3 yards of assorted prints, 1/2 yard of binding fabric and 2 1/2 yards of backing fabric. 

I used stitch-in-the-ditch for the body of the quilt and a back-n-forth-boxy look for the border. You know I just realized this makes the third quilt; I have used a boxy look for the fill-in quilting.  I must be channeling some Cubist or something!  I used the blue seersucker again for the backing.  I had some trouble with puckers on the back this time. I had to do some picking and re-smooth the fabric to get it to lay flat. Blah!

I made my standard 48" by 72" quilt.  I dug around in the binding drawer and found an off-white from Mother's stash that was just the right length.  I had twelve inches of excess leftover.  Yeah!

I had trouble with the bobbin thread breaking.  I think I replaced that one corner three or four times!  I quit when it looked this good even though I should of picked it out, again, and tried to hit the previous stitching better.  Maybe, next time!

Well the label is on.  I hope everybody is having a great day!

Judy

hearts and baskets quilt

This quilt is one out of my 'I'm so frustrated, I don't know what to do with it' tub.  I was rooting around through the tubs-n-dressers of fabric, looking for an idea for a wedding quilt and found a bunch of pre-printed blocks.  I found large ones, small one and some borders.  I sorted out the large ones and started to quilt them up as individual blocks all the while ruminating about what to do with the smaller blocks.  As I was quilting the larger blocks in this quilt, I had an epiphany.

The basket border strips had the same colors as the basket blocks.  Plus, the hearts-n-Dresden plate block had the same background and colors as the basket blocks.  And, what do you know, the grays in the house block match the other three.  Look at that, the colors in those little heart blocks match everything.  If I put them all together, they would make a nice looking little quilt.

So, I started measuring the layout and setting little blocks together, sewing chunks there and strips here, adding them to the already quilted blocks.  All the time trying to figure out how I was going to add the center strip.  I quilted the strips on the right side.  I didn't like how I quilted them, couldn't think of good, easy way to add the center strip if I quilted the left side.  So I threw the whole thing in the tub and walked away to let it simmer a while.  Like over a year-n-a-half!

Well, I got real tired of looking at that tub of unfinished projects setting on that dresser so I pulled out the easiest one (the half-hexie one) and finished it.  This quilt was the next one.

What to do, what to do?  The most prudent thing to do was get the seam ripper out and start picking. Sigh!  I picked the quilting out of the Dresden block did some fancy pinning-n-sewing and got the rest of top and backing added on.  I tried a new idea for quilting the strips of baskets and hearts on the left side.  I liked it so well; I cheerfully picked all the quilting for the strips of baskets and hearts on the right side, out and re-quilted them.

I went through Mother's stash of leftover bindings and found a couple of pieces I though would work for this quilt.  In hindsight, I think the pink gingham looks the best on this quilt.  The little floral print would have looked better if I had added a border of some sort, because there is not enough contrast between the background fabric and the floral binding.  Based on the measurement of this quilt (43"x68") that was probably the original game plan, because I like these little quilts to be 48"x72".

I finished using up all my scrap pieces of batting in this quilt so the next quilt will be with one big piece of batting. Yeah!

Well the label is on.

I hope each of you is having a good day!

Judy

floating half-hexagon quilt, my take

Remember this quilt top?

I finally finished it!  This idea for a quilt came from the Missouri Star Quilt You-Tube Channel.  I'm always looking for ideas to use my closet/dressers full of fabric.

The finished block measures 5.75” x 4", sashing strips are 1.5" and cornerstones are 1.5 square.  The quilt is my usual 48" x 72" afghan/lap quilt/toddler bed quilt. I made 72 blocks, 8 across, and 9 down.  I could have made the quilt 10 down but I decided I wanted more border.  So, I eliminated one row, split the top and bottom borders with a half-inch wide strip of color in the middle.

I didn't have a half-hexagon ruler to cut the hexi block pieces with.  I dug through some quilting templates from Mother's stash, marked one with some tape and used it.

I didn't use 5" charm packs but scrapes from another projects.  It takes two, 2 1/2" x 9" strips to make a block. After you cut the background fabric into half-hexies; then cut the half-hexies in half (quarter-hexies?).  Sew the background pieces to the colored prints and then sew the two halves together.

I choose to stitch in the ditch and then triangles in the centers of the hexagons. The extra quilting was two-fold.  I thought it would look good and I used scrap batting.  When you use scraps of batting you, want the quilting closer together so the edges don't shift as you wash it.  I used straight line quilting about 3/4" apart for the borders.

One of the reasons this quilt took so long to finish was because I couldn't decide what I wanted to use for the backing.  I dug around in the fabric stable (It's too big to be a stash!) and found a huge piece of blue seersucker I forgot I had.  After washing the quilt, this seersucker is as soft as flannel against your skin.  I am going to keep that in mind when doing baby quilts.

I used what I had of that shade of yellow for the binding and had just barely enough.  Yeah!

Well the label is on, so it is time to hit the publish button!

I hope everyone is having a good day.

Judy