Scrapbusting

My scrap user system had gotten huge, and if you had asked me how long it would take to sew it up into quilts I likely would have said a couple years. Usually I'm really good about turning over the scraps regularly, but since I've had so many wedding quilts and a focus on UFO's I just wasn't using scraps like I normally do. Well, I am surprising myself on how fast my strips are being converted into quilt blocks. Granted, I am only doing easy patterns, and I haven't actually finished any quilts from this scrapbusting spree yet, but I did get the first quillow top together today. 

I've got so many piles of blocks in my sewing room, I decided I need to get some tops assembled. Tops I can put on a hanger in the closet, and basically be completely out of my way. Before I can sew up quilt tops, I have to figure out layouts. 

This looks like one big quilt in the photo, but it's actually two quillow tops on two separate design boards. The one on the right is the one I sewed into a top today. I've even laid out another on the empty design board. These look better in person than in the photo. I'm doing monochromatic tops for the quillows just because it's a quick way to bust scraps, and it busts the most scraps possible, I'm not using any background or constant, it's 100% scraps. I am specifically thinking about car use for the quillows, and you don't need anything fancy for that. These will make a fun game of I Spy though. I had so many novelty scraps, these tops have Batman, Superman, Spiderman, and Thor fabric, Air Force, Navy, and Army fabrics, multiple sports fabrics, cartoon characters, land and sea animals, holidays, lots to keep kids entertained with an I Spy game in the car. 

Blue was the most popular request for quillows. The two dark blue quillows will go to grandsons, the light blue was requested for one of my granddaughters, and I need to come up with another blue one for another granddaughter. I'm going to have to make the next blue quillow from a different sized strip though. 

I laid out the purple/pink rail fence. I think it will be a cute baby quilt. This one will not be a quillow. 

I have enough blocks sewn up for 3 blue quillows (one of which is now a top and the other two are on the design wall), 1 red, 1 pink, 2 green, and 1 purple. I also have other sized blocks sewn up for regular quilts. Today I was working on figuring out if I needed more of any blocks to have a good layout. I ended up making 1 more of one style block, and 20 more of a different style. Tomorrow my goal is to sew up at least one quilt top, and maybe figure out plans for some of my other stack of blocks, and make any more blocks for at least one of those if necessary. 

I'm still sub-cutting strips a little along. I'm finding my arm does best with short sessions of cutting and ironing, so I'm interspersing those activities throughout my day, no marathon sessions. 

It's been an eventful week, and I've had a lot of unexpected things come up, so I haven't gotten back to quilting on that UFO. I need to though, the new queen's list came out and I'm number 38 now. If the UFO Challenge stays the same as usual, I should have over a month before I am queen, but I'd like to get this quilt done and drop down to the bottom of the list long before that. The UFO I plan to quilt after this will just get meandering, so it will go a lot faster than this one.

Life has been an adventure lately, but it feels pretty good to be using up my scraps in the down times. 

Plugging Along

 My summer cold decided it was up for a round 2. The cough is back with a vengeance, but still no fever, so I'm trying to wait it out. I've had pneumonia a couple times, so if I get a fever I'll go get a chest x-ray. I still think it's likely viral, in which case antibiotics won't help anything, so rest and hydration is likely my best bet. 

Even though I'm not incredibly motivated, I am getting some mindless sewing done. The block quarters from the last post are now sewn into windmill blocks.

I have enough light blue rail fence blocks for one quillow. In this photo there weren't quite enough dark blue blocks for a quillow, but I've made more now, and I'll have enough dark blue blocks for two quillows. I made the purple/pink rail fence blocks and I have enough for a baby quilt. 

These are the smallest size rectangles I cut, and I have a big project in mind for these. In fact, after I sew up all the different colors into larger rectangles like these, I'll likely have enough large blocks for multiple quilts. 

I've been cutting up my fabrics with neutral backgrounds into the same sizes I cut the colored strips. I do plan on making some log cabin blocks eventually, with either my brown strips or black strips as the other side. I have a lot of both brown and black, so we'll see. 

For the colors I need for my Christmas quillow project, I've exhausted my 2" strip bins. I'm going to go into the 1.5" cut strips next. I'll keep cutting up my 2" strips with the ideas I've already got going, but I do need to get all the blocks done for all the quillows I need for Christmas. I'd have less sewing if I used 2.5" strips, but the colors I ran out of in 2" strips, I am also low on in 2.5" strips. If I don't have enough in 1.5" strips, I may be going to the string bins! It's all good though, the Christmas quillow project was both a scrapbusting project and a way to cut costs this Christmas. Any scraps I bust is a plus, it doesn't matter what form they are in. 

I've gotten a bit of quilting done on a UFO, but I still have 3-4 hours work left to do on it. Since I only quilt an hour per day, and I don't usually quilt when DH is home...maybe by the end of next week it will be a finish. 

My must do quilt list for 2020 is growing. 

1) A little bird told me I'm likely going to have a wedding quilt to make, but no announcements have happened yet. 

2) I've got a granddaughter turning 2 next year, and I'll try to get her big girl bed quilt done for her second birthday. That shouldn't be too difficult, because the quilt top is finished, I just need to piece a backing and baste it so it can go into the quilting queue. 

3) I just found out I've got another grandbaby on the way! That will be a fun quilt to make, and the parents already gave me an idea of what they want. 

Those are my must do quilts so far, but add to that continued work on UFO's (of which I'm adding to regularly), and busting certain fabric categories I decided I want sewn up and out of here, it's looking like 2020 may be a busy quilting year!

Last Weighted Blanket is FINISHED!!!

Here is the last weighted blanket, completely finished! Now that all the weighted blankets are done, I've looked at how many pellets I have left, and I actually have just enough to sew a young child's weighted blanket. Honestly, I'm over making these. It's a lot of stress on my arm and shoulders, and I'm just over it. 

Instead of making another weighted blanket, I found this super cute tutorial for some animal bean bags, and I am going to make these until I'm out of pellets. I bet I'll run out of pellets before I run out of grandkids to give them to. 

It's been a pretty stressful week, we had a family crisis, and then I'm still dealing with the tail end of this cold. I haven't had a lot of time in the sewing room, but I did manage some mindless sewing.

I've been sewing up all the pieces I've sub-cut over the last few weeks. I still have lots more to do, but I've been thinking of different things to do with them. It's funny, I've been sub-cutting all my cut 2" strips (1.5" finished), into appropriate sized for log cabin blocks, but so far, I've yet to make a log cabin block. I keep coming up with other ideas on how to use them.  I decided to use all the darker green and blue 5" pieces with random tan/creams and I'm going to do a rail fence quilt. I just sewed until I ran out of a color, in this case blue, and counted up how many blocks I have. 280 blocks, which I can set 14x20 blocks and end up with a quilt 63"x90". A twin sized quilt, unplanned, from scraps. I plan on setting these rail fence blocks in a staircase setting.

I took out the light greens and blues, and added the pink 5" pieces I had when I realized how many 2" strips of a certain stripe I had. 

Instead of mixing the colors, I decided I'll be using the blocks in four patches to make windmill blocks. 

I ended up having enough scraps to make 42 windmill blocks (which I haven't sewn yet, I only have the block quarters done). I'll set it 6x7, since that's works with how many blocks I can make. These blocks will finish at 9", so it would be a 54"x63" quilt, but I might decide to add sashing or a border to this one. I think I have enough of the striped fabric left to make cornerstones. I haven't looked though my stash to see if I have anything the right colors for a border. If I do, I'll probably add sashing and borders. 

Three piece rail fence blocks sew up really fast, and I don't have to think much about them. It was a good project for a stressful week. I now have piles of blocks that need to take turns being laid out on the design wall, but I don't have enough brain power for that right now. I'll just keep making blocks for now. 

If I'm making a wedding quilt, I always have a plan, and I count my pieces and all that. Sometimes though, I find it freeing to just start sewing, and not count anything, and just see what something turns out to be. It will be whatever size it ends up, based on what I had to work with. I know that would drive some people nuts, and that's OK, we are all a little different, but I find it really fun. I wouldn't want to work this way all of the time, but for a break, I find it therapeutic, kind of like cleansing your palette so you can appreciate the next complicated thing. 

Summer Cold

Colds stink any time of year, but for me, having one in the summer is especially insulting. When I'm sick I normally like soup, hot drinks,  and to curl up with a quilt, but when the temperatures are over 100 degrees outside, none of those options are quite as appealing. To be fair, I haven't had a cold for two years, so I suppose I was due for one. 

I'm not very motivated right now, as any activity leads to coughing fits, followed by lengthy sessions of nose blowing. I can't stand the idea of getting nothing done though, so even though my sewing sessions are a fraction of my normal ones, I'm still making some forward progress.

I got this weighted blanket done and mailed. The new owner should receive it today.

I finished this weighted blanket today. I was only up to filling half a blanket per day with this stupid cold, but even if it took longer, it still was finished. I have one blanket left to finish, then I'll evaluate how many pellets I have left. At first I was wondering if I had enough pellets for five blankets, but now I know I'll have extra after finishing the fifth blanket. 

My kids have been cheering me up in my cold induced stupor. Nothing like some fun pics of the grandkids to make me smile. 

Hopefully they made you smile too!