Two Color Quilt???

One of the wedding quilts I'm making was requested to be blue and white. A two color quilt, pretty common, right? I'm a scrappy girl, it's what I like best, so when I make a two color quilt, I'm not sure it actually counts as two colors.

I finished this quilt top today. To me, this is a two color quilt. In fact, I only used one white! Are there more than two colors in it? Well, yes, but the fabrics I chose read as blue as a whole. 

Here is a closer look at some of the fabrics. I see a scooter, Thor, mice, a lighthouse, fans, a Navy ship, Superman, Little Mermaid, bees, cats, dolphins, frogs, Santa, strawberries, even part of the USS Enterprise from Star Trek. Some of the fabrics have more blue than others, but from a few feet away, it's blue. 

I've been having a lot of neck and shoulder pain, so instead of sewing like a mad woman trying to get these quilt tops assembled, I've been having to vary my activities. I ended up cutting out three of the four weighted blankets I need to make. I pieced those tops as leaders/enders while assembling the blue and white quilt. 

Right now I've just got the weighted blanket tops lying across the guest bed. I'm not sure when I'll be finishing these, but at least the tops are done. 

Here's a pic of that gluten-free Apple Custard Pie I talked about in the last blog post. It was very good, and I'm definitely making that recipe again. 

I have two more quilt tops I need to finish, so even though I'll be piecing into October, when I wanted to only be quilting in October, that's what needs to happen. One of the quilt tops I need to finish is the Bargello, which I haven't worked on at all lately, and the other just needs assembly, all the blocks are done. Oh, on the purple/white Strip Twist that I decided to make bigger, I'm almost done the extra blocks for it, but probably will set it aside to get these other quilts finished. 

Overall, once I get these last two quilt tops finished, I'm in a good starting place for the other quilts I did set aside. I either got the blocks done, or I got the top done before I put it aside in a container with all the parts and necessary fabrics. I went through stash today and chose a couple backing fabrics for the kids guest beds. I may not have finished my September goals in September, but I'm close! I even got a few things started on Christmas gift front, so being a bit behind on the quilts may be OK, since I've got a head start on my November goals. 

I refuse to get myself fretting about things. I'm having a great time watching projects come together. I'd prefer not being so far behind on gift quilts, but that's OK too. I am blessed with a great, big family, and that just gives me lots of reasons to make more quilts. 

Three Quilt Tops

I am still plugging along on assembling quilt tops. I finished the second quilt top for the kids guest room. I decided to set it differently from the first one.

The quilts for the guest rooms will be some of the first I quilt with my Tin Lizzie. It doesn't feel like fall here, it's still in the 90's, but it will get cooler eventually. I don't have any quilts for any of the three guest beds in the house, so getting those done comes before the gift quilts. 

I mentioned I had never counted the HST's I cut from men's shirts. Well, I never did count them, but I counted how many I had left after making two twin sized quilt tops. I had 48 HST's left, which, if set 6x8, left me with a 36x48 inch quilt. I consider that too small for a baby quilt, but, it would work perfectly for DD#2's pet corgi. She's been wanting me to make her dog a quilt, because that dog is obsessed with quilts. If there is a quilt in the room, that's where you can find that dog. I could have made more HST's to make a people quilt, but I don't need any extra projects right now. I could have set the blocks aside for now, but I didn't want to do that either, so here is Navi the Corgi's quilt top.

I didn't have a lot of variety left after making two quilts from the HST's, but I don't think the dog will care much. I think Navi's quilt will be the first I quilt on the Tin Lizzie, the dog won't complain if my quilting is a bit wobbly. 

The third quilt top I made is from a failed border. I cut the brown triangles with a pieced border in mind, but once I pieced a few blocks, I decided it wasn't working for me. Instead of sticking it aside and taking a chance I wouldn't do anything with the pieces, I cut some more triangles from two other fabrics, and came up with this.

It's nothing fancy, but I kind of like it. It's got a lot of motion to it. It's funny, the HST's with blue really bring out the blue flowers in the brown fabric, and the HST's with the peach really bring out the peach flowers. Before I assembled the quilt, it looked like I had used two different brown fabrics. This is a good throw sized quilt, nice for napping. 

I laid out the blue king sized quilt today. I don't have enough space to lay out a quilt that large at one time. The quilt has 12 rows, so I laid out six rows, labeled them and pinned them together. I put aside rows 1-5, and only pieced row six. Once I had that row together, I put it down and then figured out the rest of the quilt. 

I've been piecing on three other quilts as leaders/enders while I'm assembling quilts. One of the quilts I've come to an impasse on. I never figured a layout for the quilt, I just have a bunch of various blocks. I may actually put that one aside for now, though overall, I've been trying not to do that. I think it has the potential to be a really great quilt, and I don't want to hurry it so much I don't bring it to it's potential. 

The purple/white Strip Twist I was working on has a slight problem. I must have cut two of the blocks in the incorrect direction, so now I need to make at least a couple more blocks. I looked through my stash for a border fabric, but couldn't decide on one, so I'm opting to make a bunch more blocks instead, and make it into a borderless quilt. I've already pulled the fabrics to do that, along with the fabrics I need for a couple Christmas projects. My plan is to spend tomorrow cutting. Unfortunately, I also need to cut another Drunkard's Path block for another project, because as I was sewing the blocks, I somehow lost a couple pieces, or cut the wrong amount originally. I never put fabrics back in the stash until I've finished the quilt top, so I still have the fabric out that I need. So, tomorrow is a big cutting day for me! 

On the non-quilting front, DH has been home a lot lately, which cuts into my sewing time, but is nice to see him more all at once. What really cuts into my sewing time is the fact I've been having to COOK since he's home! Up until a couple weeks ago I was only cooking dinner a couple days a week, and I was eating sandwiches or cereal for dinner. DH works 12 hour shifts and isn't home for lunch or dinner, and I'm not going to waste sewing time cooking for just me. For the foreseeable future, he's home four days a week, which is crazy compared to his normal schedule. Tomorrow it's cutting, making lasagna, and making an apple custard pie from a new gluten-free recipe I want to try. DH is gluten-free, and it's amazing how much better he feels being GF. I tried going GF, and noticed no difference after 5 months of being GF, so I eat mostly GF at home, but eat whatever I like if we go out. I need to find the "perfect" GF pie crust before Thanksgiving, so DH has to "suffer" through some pie experiments. I've already tried several GF pie crusts, but altering my regular pie crust recipe has been what he's liked best so far. The one I'm trying tomorrow has sour cream in the crust, and I'm intrigued. So many recipes, so little time...

Tin LIzzie is Ready to Go!

I'm trying to stick to my plan, which means I'm not currently quilting on my Tin Lizzie, but I am anxious to. Right now my plan is:

September- finish as many quilt tops as I can
October- Quilt as many quilts as I can
November and December- work on Christmas gifts
January- back to quilting

It's hard to stick with finishing quilt tops when I've got a brand new Tin Lizzie to play with, but I know in the long run this is the best option. I had WAY too many projects going at once, and I need to get those cleaned up before I start on Christmas presents. The best way to clean up quilt pieces is to at least get them into quilt tops. I use skirt hangers, and hang all my pressed quilt tops in a closet in the guest room. They will be ready to quilt whenever I get to them, with a minimum amount of pressing to do. If I've pieced a back for the quilt, it gets hung with the quilt top.  

Last weekend, I moved my Bernina into the living room, and set myself up a sewing corner.

I replaced some of the plastic drawers that left with my kids, and now my scrap user system is readily available again. Having it in totes shoved into closets was not working for me at all. Drawers are much easier access, both when using the scrap user system and putting away scraps I've cut to the sizes I save. The drawers that were empty in this photo are now full of thread cones. I decided now that I'll be quilting more regularly, having my thread cones easily available instead of in a tote under the stairs was a good idea. 

I spied this cabinet at Hobby Lobby and fell in love. A scrappy bunch of drawers, how can a scrappy quilter resist that? This is now just to the right of my Bernina cabinet in the living room, and holding all my other sewing threads that aren't big cones. I had another cabinet for threads that I also got at Hobby Lobby a couple years ago, but now I'll be storing quilting rulers and templates in it. I'm hoping to expand my quilting template now that I have a long arm. 

Here is my Tin Lizzie in the Arrow Quilty cabinet. I am still using a set of shelves to the left of the cabinet to keep the quilts from falling off the cabinet. I like quilting in a corner, because if the quilt can't fall off the cabinet, there is a lot less drag when you are maneuvering the quilt. I still have quite a bit to do to get this set up the way I want it. I haven't put the accessories I want readily available in the drawer, or cleaned up all the quilt parts on the set of black shelves. I told you, too many projects, and now I need to sew like crazy to get as many as I can into quilt tops, just to clean things up a bit. 

The throat or harp space (whichever term you prefer) is 7.5 inches x 4.5 inches. The harp space on my Tin Lizzie is 18 inches by 6 inches. You want to see what kind of difference that actually is?

I took several measurements, and cut the green paper the exact size and shape of my Bernina 440 harp. Can you see how much more space I'll have quilting on the Tin Lizzie? This should make things so much easier. I'm sure I will still get sore quilting, I make a lot of king sized quilts and they get heavy, but not having to cram a king sized quilt through that tiny space? Amazing!

I've been sewing quilts into rows, and I have three ready to sew the rows together and finish assembly. I've been using the hundreds of 3" nine patches I need for DD#3's wedding quilt as my leader/enders while assembling. I have over half of the tiny nine patches done now. Next blog post I hope to have at least three quilt tops to show you!

A Swing and a Miss

If you've been quilting very long, you've very likely had the problem I have right now. I made a quilt top, but I don't like it. It was going to be a gift, but I'm starting a new quilt for that gift. Quilting may improve the quilt, but not enough to want to gift it. I'll show you some photos of my quilting strike out, but do know that I cannot get the colors to photograph correctly, and the quilt is really peach, rust, brown and blue. 

The pattern is fine, my fabric choices were not. I was basing my color selection on colors in the fabric I wanted to use as the border. These colors match that fabric, but don't work in the quilt. 

Here is 1/4 the quilt, so you can see the pattern better. I don't like making quilts with so few fabrics, partly because I find them boring, and partly because it is much easier to make a mistake choosing fabric. I think I'll make this pattern again, but instead make a scrappy green background with white trails...or maybe a scrappy purple background with silver trails...

I took all the leftovers from this quilt top, added one fabric that doesn't really match the colors but somehow works anyway, and made a throw sized quilt top.

I like this one better than the original. I used all of that one added fabric that I had, so no hoping it will redeem the other quilt center. 

I managed to get one more quilt center together too, one of the quilts that will go in the grandkid guest room.

This is all men's shirts, and the other quilt for that room will be too. I'm going to use a different setting for the other quilt though. This quilt top I really like, and I think it will be a fun addition to the grandkid room. 

I have several other quilt tops I need to assemble, and I'm almost done all the blocks for a couple more on top of those. I find myself using borders less and less these days. A couple of the quilts I'm making will have borders, but I think over half will not. 

Oh, my custom insert for the Tin Lizzie arrived today, so when we get a chance, we can get it set up now! I'm thinking that won't be until late next week, but we'll see. Tomorrow I hope to go buy new plastic drawers to store my Scrap User System. I tried using totes, but it doesn't work for me, and I much preferred using drawers to store it. I have a couple quilts I need to start that will be mostly pulled from the Scrap User System, so having it where I can get to it is important. 

I've moved all my quilt tops to one closet, and I've got quite the collection of quilt tops waiting for quilting. I'm hoping the Tin Lizzie helps me catch up!