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 2)

Part 1 of this post can be found here. 

After getting the squares all sewn together in (hopefully) the right direction (!), I thought about what I could use for a border.

After auditioning several fabrics, I chose a light green grunge fabric for the borders.  At this point my quilt top measured about 76" square. 

Then, as I searched through my stash for some fabric for the back, I came across this yummy piece of Kaffe Fassett.  It was not quite wide enough for this quilt back.  But it was long enough so I decided to start with the KF fabric, and add to it.

More strip-piecing came to the rescue!!  I knew that I needed to add about 15" on each side of the KF fabric to make it wide enough for the backing.  I found some unbleached muslin that was just the right size for a foundation, so I started some more stripping!

Adding strips to the muslin fabric, and then pressing each strip down.

This is one of the long strips that I sewed to add to the backing fabric.  I made two of these strips, one for each side of the quilt back.

As I'm sewing along on this project of scraps, it's really interesting to "travel along memory lane" as I come to fabrics that I have used in the past for other projects.  Some are real favorites.  Here are a few.

This is some wonderful "bread fabric" that I found and used for aprons at TwoFish Baking Company.

The pretty blue floral here was the main fabric for my President's Quilt.

The green print in the center is some of HarmonyArt's organic cotton.  Along with a favorite 

orange-ish gingko leaf batik.

And here you can see a glimpse of the green fabric that I used to make "potholders" for Christmas gifts last year!

The beautiful green floral in the center is a lovely fabric, a smooth and silky cotton, reminiscent of a Liberty of London fabric.

Below is another pretty pink HarmonyArt fabric, alongside some Winnie The Pooh fabric that I used to make a quilt for GranddaughterStitches quite a few years ago. 

The purple grape fabric is from some table napkins that I made a long time ago, and the green pea fabric is from a baby quilt that I made for BabyStitches just three years ago.

Looking through your fabrics can be a walk down Memory Lane!

Progress On My Curves and Strips Quilt

I am making some progress on my quilt from Louisa Smith's class at Asilomar.  Yes, I know there is a big hole right in the middle!  

That block is down below in this picture.  It is placed on my cutting mat and I'm in the process of figuring out to make the cuts I need to make.  I must have left the "scene" very quickly, for this block to not have been finished!

The squares are really looking much nicer now that they are getting sewn together, rather than being held on the design wall by pins.  

I now have 13 of the 20 squares completed.  They really are not that hard to piece together.

If you know how to piece curves, then there's no problem.  But there are those mathematical, geometrical shapes to be fitted together.  If I'm having trouble figuring out where to make a cut, I just keep trying different cutting templates until I find the one where the seam lines will line up correctly.

And yes, I know that once I get all of these blocks sewn, then I will have to make them line up with each other perfectly so that they will all fit.  Sewing curves is not a problem for me, but making the squares all square might just be a little harder!

I'll keep you posted.

Sewing Fabric Baskets

This past week at my quilting group, our friend Margie Binker was kind enough to show us how to make these wonderful fabric baskets. The previous time we had gotten together to "do our own thing," Margie was sewing baskets, and we all wanted to learn, so she taught us how.

This basket is what I ended up with! I'm actually quite pleased with it. And it was super-fun to make.

It starts out with regular old clothesline

rope, available in lots of hardware stores, and probably craft stores, too. This was on our materials list for this "mini-workshop," along with cotton fabric cut into 3/4" strips. Those are the only basic materials.

There is a certain knack to beginning the basket, to start wrapping the fabric around the clothesline, but after a couple tries, I got it!

Then we formed a little coil with the fabric-covered cord, and began zig-zagging it together to shape the basket.

I forgot to take photos at the very beginning, but the photo above shows my basket as I'm sewing the fabric-wrapped cord to the previous cord in order to form my basket. I have already started to form the bowl shape by just supporting the basket with my left hand as I sew on the next cord.

Here is a closer photo. It shows how I had the presser foot centered right between the two cords, so that the needle would catch parts of each cord as it went left to right. We used the stretch zig-zag, which has three little stitches to the left, then three little stitches to the right. That holds the cords together real well.

These are some of the baskets that Margie has made and brought to show us. One of them even has a lid on it! And she encouraged us to embellish our baskets with anything: buttons, beads, shells, fabric flowers, whatever...

This photo shows her wonderful storage bin overflowing with 3/4" strips of fabric!

The great thing about this craft is that you can use "ugly" fabric. Now I know that ugly fabric is a relative term. Fabric that my friend turns her nose up at, I absolutely love. But if you have a piece of fabric that just doesn't float your boat anymore, it would probably be a great candidate for cutting into strips and making a basket.

I had recently acquired a piece of fabric at a Quilt Guild party, which I didn't particularly like; the print just was not anything that I would want to use. So I cut it into strips. At 3/4" wide not much of that offending print was recognizable!

And from that unwanted print came a basket that I really like! I added a couple of other fabrics that coordinated with my main fabric, to add some stripes.

I think I will add some fabric flowers to my bowl.

The possibilities stretch out before me endlessly! Christmas bowls, Halloween bowls, boy bowls and girl bowls, gift bowls to go with different decors, baskets to hold things (like maybe more fabric!?!). I wonderful if I could sew one completely flat mat, without curving it into a bowl, and make it big enough to be a rug. What do you think?