Scrappy Strippy Star Quilt (Part 3 the final)

It's finished!!

Binding, hanging sleeve, label, everything!!

Part 1 of this blog post is here.  And the second part is here.

 It was a windy day, so it's not an optimal photo.  But MisterStitches did a valiant job of holding up the quilt in the gale.  And it shows the quilt!  I'm really happy with this quilt.

Here you can see some of the (minimal) quilting.  I just meandered across the quilt in long undulating curvy lines.  Super simple.  I didn't want dense quilting, because I don't want the quilt to be too "stiff."

When I got to the border I wanted to do something different, so I chose another wiggly design, which almost (but not quite) looks like grass. 

Here is a close-up.  As you can see, almost (but not really!) grass.

And here is the back of the quilt.  The Kaffe Fassett fabric is in the center, with more strip-pieced scraps on the sides.

Isn't this KF fabric pretty!  Now that I've used it, I'm almost sorry that I put it on the back of the quilt, instead of using it for a front of a quilt.  But, on the other hand, I really like to have pretty quilt backs, and this one is very pretty, I think.

Since the quilt is so big, I made a split sleeve for it.  Now I just have to find a dowel that is long enough for it!

I've named it "Scrappy String Star Quilt."  I know.  Not very elegant or creative!  

But it does the job.

Git 'er done!

Scrappy Strip-Pieced Star Quilt (Part 1)

 I've always wanted to do a strip-pieced quilt to use up my odds and ends of strips.  What got me in gear was cleaning/sorting things in my studio.  I came across my strip bin.  Which contains very well-sorted and labeled strips of fabric.  I had one baggie for 1 1/2" strips, one for 2" strips, one for 2 1/4" strips (because you can make these into scrappy quilt binding), and on and on.  Very. Well. Sorted.

So I took all those strips and divided them into only two categories: lights and darks.  And I started on my squares.  I used some tissue paper that I had on hand.  The roll is 18" wide, so I cut 18" squares.  I drew one diagonal line on the square and took off from there.  Some blocks were all darks, some were all lights, and some were half and half.

An all-dark square.

A half-dark, half-light square.

And here I changed the photo colors to black and white to check out my judgment of lights and darks.  After I saw this photo I switched a few strips to a different bin! 

Here I've put 12 of the 16 squares on a design wall and looked at them in black and white.

With all sixteen squares finished, I started laying them out on the floor.  I had to stand on a chair to take this picture!  Obviously, they are not laid out in the correct order, but you get the idea.

Sewed the squares together, then started the laborious, tv-intensive job of taking out the tissue paper.   (And a significant mess on the floor, I might add!)  Next time I will use un-fused Pellon, I think, so I don't have to tear out all that paper.  I thought about using muslin squares for my background, but I thought it might be too stretchy, as I was sewing on the bias.  Now, after the fact, I don't think that would have been a problem.  So, next time muslin or Pellon.

* * *

At this point, I want to make an observation.  And pose a question to you.  When you make a scrappy project, for example using only red scraps to make squares, do you experience the phenomenon of not having made a dent in your scraps?  I sure do!  When I got all these squares sewn, the strip bins did not seem very much emptier at all.  I recently did some scrappy blue hand-appliqued squares, but I still have a ton of blue pieces in my scrap bins! 

I wonder if there is a scientific principle to explain this. 

***

Check back to see my next post about finishing this quilt!

Scrap Block Quilt Number Two

Way back here I showed you a quilt that I made from some fabric squares I had been given.  And I sewed it up really fast.  There were still squares left from that project, so I thought I'd better make another quilt.

And here it is!

(I was having some trouble with the wind outside, making it a little bit difficult to photograph this quilt!)

It turned out to be exactly 10 squares by 10 squares.  I had no idea there was such a perfect number of squares left, as I had never counted them.

I decided to make Quilt Number Two a little bit bigger, so I added on a green inner border and a larger, outer border from purple grape fabric.  (A friend of mine said she thought the grape fabric would make it sell well.  I can only hope!)  BTW, I'm not receiving any money for this quilt; the money will go to my guild and Gualala Arts Center.

Here is the pieced back I made for the quilt, using some more of that same grape fabric, and a little bit of a light blue print, from my friend Harmony of Harmony Arts.  The rest of it was a light green.

 I tried out a few free motion quilting motifs when it came to quilting this quilt.  Above you can see some swirly designs.  I took a lot of photos of the quilting, but none of the designs showed up very well against the very randomly-colored quilt top.

So I took some photos of the back of the quilt.  Please be kind, as I consider myself a 

"constantly improving free motion quilter."  That is my optimism speaking!

In the first, smaller border I did a little vine-y or leafy pattern.  I kind of liked doing it.  Gave me some good practice with travel stitching.

In the larger border I quilted these over-lapping circles.  My inspiration for this was that SisterStitches used this design on a quilt that she quilted for me.  This design was actually easier than I thought it would be, and a lot of fun to do.  I'll definitely be using this design again!

I used some more of my scrappy, leftover binding pieces to finish it off.  Sometimes quilts are just so darn easy to make, aren't they!?!

Maybe My Fastest Quilt Ever?!

I think this might just be the fastest quilt I've ever made!

                                     

On a Friday I was given a bag full of pre-cut squares.  They were about 4 1/2" square.  And I was told to make a quilt to sell at our annual Festival of the Trees at Gualala Arts Center.  Every year our quilt guild has a booth there and raises a lot of money for the Art Center and for us.

So I separated lights and darks into two stacks.  Then I proceeded to make them into 9-patches.  I always put the dark patches on the outside, as that pile was higher than the pile of light patches.

All of the nine-patches got sewn together, then basted with batting and backing.

I used a large-ish overall stippling to quilt this, and now I think I can really, honestly say that stippling is one of my least favorite designs to quilt.  I used to think that was just my opinion because I couldn't do it very well.  But this one came out pretty good.  I just--plain and simple--don't like sewing this type of design!

I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.  The nine-patches don't show up a lot, but they are there, and give it just a slight bit of order.

For the backing I chose a light pink/green/blue stripe.  This quilt turned out to be just a tiny bit wider than 44", and this particular piece of fabric was a little wider, too.  So no piecing!

I even had one 9-patch left over so I used it as the label on the back.

And I couldn't possibly do anything but a scrappy binding on this scrap quilt!  We quilters are often hoarders, aren't we.  I have a collection of leftover bits of binding.  Whenever I had a piece left over after binding a quilt, I would throw it in a bag.  So I sewed several of them together to bind this quilt.  I knew I was saving them for a reason!

So after receiving the blocks on Friday, this nice lap-size quilt was finished the following Wednesday.  I'm sure that's a record for me!

Blue Scrap Quilt--Finally Finished!

I finally finished my blue scrappy quilt!  I blogged about it previously here.  Many thanks to Elizabeth at Oh Fransson for the instructions.  These blocks were so much fun to make.  I'm sure I'll make more, as it is a good way to use up scraps.

Twelve blocks put together.

But the blocks I made were too small to be a good quilt size.  I needed to add some borders.  I determined that I needed like 8" of borders on each side, which is a lot for just one piece of fabric.  Trouble was, I really liked having the quilt outlined--framed--with the blue fabric.  I just couldn't see making the whole eight-inch-wide border out of the blue.  

So I made up a narrow, 2" strip of more scrappiness.  Then to the quilt I added a blue border, the narrow scrappy border, then another blue border.  That did the trick!

I liked this look!

Unfortunately, I didn't have enough of the pretty starry fabric for the binding, so I used some plain blue fabric instead. 

Sewing strips together to make one long binding strip.

And here is the finished quilt being held by a couple of my friends.  (Thanks, Gail and Joyce!)  This quilt is destined to be a Quilt of Valor, given to a wounded veteran.  Our guild makes at least 25 of these each year to take to a nearby veterans hospital.

I didn't get a photo of the back of the quilt before I gave it away, but I made it up of about five different blue fabrics.  I decided that a scrappy quilt should have a scrappy back!  They were some fabrics that I had a nice amount of, like a yard, or maybe a little less. The biggest piece was a real nice light blue organic cotton from Harmony Art Organic Fabrics.