Finish #7

If you are a regular reader of my blog, you may recognize these fabrics as those I used in two different crazy quilts. When I was finished cutting out the crazy quilt blocks, I cut the remaining fabric into 2.5" strips, and I made this concentric square quilt. 

When I started working with these fabrics, I started with some half yard-one yard pieces from a line of fabric I liked, Paisley Place by Wilmington Fabrics. I didn't buy yardage of all the prints, and I purchased multiple yards of the border print. I supplemented from my stash so the end result was likely half stash and half the line of fabric. I got three quilts from that, two crazy quilts (one of which was queen sized, one throw), plus this quilt which is twin sized. All the yardage I had from the line is gone, but I happened upon a jelly roll of that fabric on clearance, and I still have that unopened. I rarely get asked for quilts with pink in them, so I had fun working with it. It seems like most of the girls and women I know are anti-pink. One of my nieces was the focus of the first quilt though, and her favorite color is pink, plus she's a huge fan of neutrals. I was stumped untl I saw that fabric line, and then I was inspired. My niece is an adult, and up until I saw this line of fabric I was afraid a pink quilt might come off as childish. I have made other quilts with hot pink and black that weren't childish at all, but since she prefers light pink I was a bit hesitant. 

My niece has her crazy quilt, and a friend of my granddaughter claimed the second crazy quilt, this one will likely be donated unless someone claims it first. It's hanging on my wall quilt rack so I can enjoy it for a bit before it moves on. 

It's mid-April and I've got 7 quilts done so far this year, so I am on schedule to get two quilts done per month this year. I know I'll have some catch-up to do later in the year, because we do have some travel planned, but currently I'm basting the quilts I made Frankenbatting for, and they are all throw sized, so once I start quilting those they should go quickly. 

One really fun thing we did this week was absolutely not quilt related. DH and I love live theater, and he bought us tickets to see the traveling Broadway version of Back to the Future-the Musical. It was on the University of Arizona campus, and since we got there early we had fun people watching for a bit, I was really surprised by the number of dogs on campus. Anyway, the show was great, it was the first show I've seen that used projectors heavily to add scenery to the stage. Between the projectors being able to make the scenery change quickly and the rotating stage, they really did manage to make the car look like it was moving fast, even though it wasn't moving much. One of my favorite things about live theater is watching the sets and seeing how they handle moving them between scenes. The car even "flies" at the end, just like in the movie. 

 

Frankenbatting Monster

 Soooooooo many batting scraps! I just finished up with the poly batting scraps! Final total? I pieced 11 battings that are matched with quilt tops. I pieced another batting that will work for a baby quilt, except I'm think I'm out of baby quilt tops, if I come across one I'll match it up. I have some misc. smallish pieces left that will work for book sleeves. I'd like to make a sleeve for my Ipad and Kindle for travel. 

When I started both of these pop up hampers were crammed full of poly batting scraps. The scraps were all compressed and it was crazy how much was in there. Not to mention all the poly batting scraps that never made it into a hamper and were just in a pile. You can't really tell in the pic, but the pile that's in there now is all fluffy and still not half full. That includes the baby quilt batting I pieced, along with the smaller scraps I want to use in small projects. 

I don't enjoy piecing poly batting, but 11 (12 counting the baby batting I don't have matched) battings basically for free? Totally worth it. I do have a tip that yields better results when piecing batting. 

I use a blind hem foot when piecing batting. If you push the straight edges towards that center blade, and use a wide zigzag, you are golden on joining the edges. Also, if you look closely, the zig zag stitches are being formed over the little finger that extends behind the needle. That makes the zig zag stitches a bit looser, and keeps the batting from bunching up on you. Of course, you still need to make sure the presser foot doesn't get caught in the batting, which is why poly batting is a pain to piece. I've never had that happen with cotton batting.

Pieced batting lying nice and flat with no bunching.

In the interest of full disclosure, I also have the skinny strips from squaring up the batting scraps. I have a lot of them.

I usually toss these, but I'm going to make a 16x38" pillow form and use these to stuff it. I think I'm going to cut the scraps up even smaller, but if you use batting scraps for stuffing and have any tips, please let me know! 

I could tackle cotton batting next, but that is not my plan. My next job is to piece backings for all the quilt tops that are matched with batting now, and baste as I can. I'm currently quilting the last quilt I had basted, so I need to baste more quilts anyway. With almost all my basting pins available, and most of the quilts needing basting just being throw sized, I should be able to baste most if not all of them. Once I'm done piecing the backings, I'll start piecing the cotton batting, whether or not the basting is done. 

When I baste those quilts, I will have scraps of batting from the Frankenbatts. What am I going to do with those? I am going to throw them away, guilt-free. I made myself a deal a long time ago, that if I make Frankebatts to save money, then I could toss any scraps from the Frankenbatting. It's worth it to me to piece larger pieces of batting, it is not worth it to me to piece very small pieces, which is what I'll have since I was making batting the right sizes for quilt tops I had. Sure, some might end up in a pillow, but if some ends up in the trash, I'm ok with that, after all, I'll have a dozen quilts that have batting saved from the trash. 

Oh, and the fabric scraps I showed in my last post, that were from the tote of fabric given to me? It did just take two evenings to cut it into scrap user system sizes. I've got something new I'm working on in the evenings now, but I'll tell you about that later 😉

Finish #6

 

It took me a while before this quilt became my main focus. DH retired the beginning of last year, and I didn't get his scrub top quilt finished until late March this year. Our anniversary is March 30, so I really wanted it finished by then, and once it was my main project, it came together pretty quickly. The pattern is called Chapel Glass. Of course it would look more like stained glass with different fabric choices (I'd like to make it again with a black background and batiks), but there were a lot of scrub tops with black in them, so I opted for a gray background instead. The size of the main unit worked well with the scale of most of the novelty prints. This pattern would be easier with non-directional fabrics, I really had to pay attention to which corner I was adding sew and flip corners to. I found it a bit funny that I was cutting apart scrub tops I had made him, then making him a quilt from the same fabric. Usually when I'm working with men's shirts, I didn't sew the shirt in the first place, but this time I did! 

I did get to give him the quilt for our anniversary. His anniversary gift to me will happen in April. He bought us tickets to see the Broadway version of Back to the Future the Musical. I love live theater, and when a good Broadway show comes to town I'm always game for it. It's been a while since we saw a Broadway show, so I'm thrilled we are going! It's hard to believe we've been married 42 years already! I'd still choose him, and I'm pretty sure he'd still choose me. 

My standard quilting goal is to get two quilts finished per month. With six quilts finished so far this year, I'm right at that goal. I've already started quilting the next quilt, and both that and another need to be finished in April, so hopefully all of that will get done, and I'll stay on track.

I have already started working through my batting scraps to make Frankenbatting. I'm starting with the poly batting, because I don't like piecing it. Cotton batting is much easier to piece. So far I've made three battings to match with three quilt tops. I've got SO many quilt tops right now, I'm just matching up similar sized batting scraps, sewing those together, and then checking to see if I have a quilt top about that size. I know I'll have more batting scraps after a basting spree, and I'll deal with that later. I'm mostly piecing batting for throw sized quilts. If it's twin or larger I prefer to use batting off the roll. Speaking of rolls of batting, I just finished off another roll of batting too, so the Frankenbatting sessions are well timed. I'm going to try cutting up the smallest batting scraps into very small pieces, and make some pillow forms from them. The cost of pillow forms is getting crazy, and I have a couple pillow patterns I'd like to make.

Oh, I went through the tote of fabric I was given, and the wideback fabric was put away, the yardage is on minibolts and put away, and the fat quarter-1 yard pieces are folded and put away. 

There were a few odd shaped pieces I decided to cut up and add to my scrap user system. Compared to how much I had to cut before, this isn't much, and I'm thinking no more than a week before it's all processed. I'd say just two or three days, but with Easter coming up we've got family stuff going on, so there may be days I don't cut at all. I'm only working on scraps in the evening, am most nights for an hour or so, but since it all needs to be pressed before it's cut, it takes a little longer. At any rate, the fabric tote I showed in the last post is empty, and now that those fabrics are integrated into my stash they will get used much faster.