Asian-Inspired

I've got all the blocks done for one Asian-inspired wedding quilt. I spent quite a bit of time cutting all the sashing, cornerstones, and setting triangles, but my design wall isn't large enough to put the sashing and setting triangles all up with the blocks. 

There is one setting triangle stuck up on the wall, but basically, the blocks will have all the color, and everything else is solid black. The sashing, cornerstones, setting triangles and border all all just black. I think all the black will really let the Asian fabrics shine. 

I have a couple other Asian-inspired quilts planned. Neither of those will have as much black. I don't have a big stash of Asian-inspired fabrics. I bought a bunch of fat quarters for some specific quilts, and I'm hoping I have enough to make the quilts I wanted to make. If I have any fabric leftover, I'll just incorporate it into my stash.

I rarely store collections of fabrics separately. The main exception to that is 1930's reproduction fabrics. I think only a couple fat quarters and scraps have ever made it into my main stash. I really love 1930's prints, but I don't want a huge stash of them. I like making 30's only quilts, so I have one plastic container with 30's fabrics, it's not even a plastic tote, it's smaller than that. I buy enough to make a project, store it in that bin, and any decent size pieces leftover stay in that bin until I make the next project, which I have to buy for. 

I do have a stack of Civil War reproduction fat eighths set aside to make an English Paper pieced project. I've bought Civil War reproduction fabrics several times, but I've never made a quilt with only Civil War prints. The English paper pieced project will be the exception to that, so that's why those are separate from the rest of the stash. If you look through my fat quarters you'll find Civil War mixed in with everything else, because mostly when I choose fabrics for a quilt I'm only looking at color, not at the theme of the fabric. 

The Up! themed baby quilt is basted and ready to quilt. I also have a couple swaddling blankets ready to sew. 

I have a bunch of projects I need to make progress on, but it all takes time. I have lines drawn on squares for sew and flip corners for four different quilts, and now I'm drawing lines on squares for yet another quilt. Doing quilt prep is as important as every other step, and I like to stuff like that done ahead of time, so when I want to get down to sewing it's ready to go. 

I've spent quite a bit of time designing quilts lately too, so I've been figuring out cutting requirements for some new starts that will be coming up. 

I had another big fling and gave all my Christmas fabrics to someone who would use them faster than I would. The Christmas fabrics I had were leftover from my scrub top making days. I rarely make holiday quilting projects, and the couple Christmas quilts I have made didn't use Christmas fabrics. I've made dozens of stockings, and never used Christmas fabric for them. I do want to make a new Christmas tree skirt for my tree, but I have a jelly roll I want to use for that. I use hundreds of yards of fabric per year, but sometimes, realizing there is fabric you aren't likely to use and passing that to someone who will use it is a pretty nice feeling. 

Ready to Baste

I made some changes along the way, but the Up! inspired quilt is ready to baste. 

I decided my original balloons were too small, and switched to 2" cut squares, which will finish at 1.5". I think the scale is better. The balloons have a bit of an I Spy thing going on. I made sure there were several fun squares to point out. I hope to add some fun details in when I quilt it, and I hope my FMQ skills are up to the task. I'm always more willing to try fancy stuff on smaller quilts. 

The backing needed to be just a bit wider than WOF, so I pieced in a fun strip.

My plan is to get this basted today. I don't think I'll be quilting it for a bit, but just having it basted will be a win. 

I'm close to having all the blocks done for one of the wedding quilts. I should finish the last blocks today or tomorrow. I need to cut sashing and setting triangles before any assembly occurs. I won't be basting any wedding quilts until I have all three tops done. I still have a pile of UFO's basted and ready to quilt. 

Slow Week

We had a houseful of company over the weekend, and I was thrilled to be spending time with kids and grandkids. I was not lamenting the loss of sewing time, just enjoying my family. Now that the house has cleaned out, I'm back to sewing.

I made lots of Asian Inspired four patches. Just over half of these will be used in a wedding quilt, the rest will be used for another quilt. For one quilt the four patches will be framed, for the other they will get 'shadows'.

I also started the quilt for the next grandbaby due. His nursery will be themed from the movie UP! I've seen some awesome appliqued quilts with an UP! theme, but I'm not a big fan of applique, so I'm doing a pixelated version and piecing it all. I will be adding some details with the quilting. I'm hoping to have this quilt top finished by the end of next week. The rest of the sky will be quick to piece, it's the massive number of balloons that will take a while. I'm using 1.5" squares so each "balloon" will finish at 1 inch square. 

If you've never seen the movie, here is what the house looks like, and it gets lifted into the air by thousands of balloons.

I actually used a Perler bead pattern for my pixelated version. If you want to make a pixelated quilt, check for Perler bead patterns or cross-stitch and needlepoint patterns online for whatever design you are looking for. Paper piecing or applique would have given me a more accurate version, but I'm happy with what I'm doing. I don't think the baby will critique me too hard ;-)

One thing that really makes me happy about this baby quilt is how much of it is from my scrap user system. The sky is yardage, and the border will be as well. The roof fabric was a fat quarter, but all of the rest was from my scrap user system. I didn't want to cut into yardage for most of this, and that's why I fudged on the colors a bit. No worries, I think it will be fine in the end. 

That's all I've gotten done this week!

Busy Lady

My to do list is very long these days, and never seems to get any shorter, but I have been busy, and I am finishing stuff!

I've got two of my kids coming into town this weekend, and I had two project going for one of them. I needed to make a weighted blanket for one grandson, and finish a quilt for a guest bed. 

Here's the weighted blanket all finished. I heard he snagged his mama's weighted blanket and sleeps with it every night, so I had to make him one so she got hers back. 

Here's the quilt for their guest bed, started last year, so it's a UFO finish! The pattern is Strip Twist by Bonnie Hunter. I love how this quilt looks like it's set on point, but it's not. It's an easy quilt to make. 

I also got the bright version of Allietare into a quilt top.

Here it is folded into fourths. I'll take a better photo once it's quilted. This one has been claimed for my youngest granddaughter, so it will likely go in the next basting spree. The purple background is actually a re-purposed cotton duvet cover. I'm glad I had enough of it left to make a wide border, which helps calm the bright center down a bit. I think I'm going to cut up all of the remaining bits of duvet cover into squares to use for large Flying Geese corners, then use the bonus HST's for a small quilt. I really like to use it all whenever possible. 

I had a big pile of scraps from the last basting spree I hadn't dealt with, and I found some fabrics in a tote that needed to be cut up for my scrap user system as well. Since I have the big Christmas project coming up that will use a lot of scraps from the scrap user system, it's best to deal with all the scraps first, so I have more to choose from.

My original pile of scraps was at least twice this big, maybe even three times as large.

Here is my final result of dealing with the fabrics. The largest pile on the left is for a specific project, and the rest are just normal sizes I save. Why no 1.5" squares? I do save 1.5" squares, and in fact will be using a bunch in the quilt I'm starting next week. I find cutting 1.5" squares from scraps tedious though, so the smallest I'll cut from scraps is a 2" square. Anything smaller gets thrown into a box of crumbs. All of the 1.5" squares I have are left from working with 1.5" strips. If I'm sub-cutting strips anyway, I find it easy to cut the remaining bit into squares if it's a short piece and not likely to be used in anything else. 

I also have a big fling to my sister going on. I had a bunch of poly/cottons I had no plans for, and she had a plan that suited poly/cottons just fine. It just made sense to pass those to her.

Two big totes will be leaving the house this weekend. She's coming to visit since I'll have four of my five kids together for a meal on Saturday. I've actually added to her pile a bit, trying to pass stuff I have no plans for to someone who can use it. 

Yes, I think I've been a pretty busy lady!