Color Placement

 I'm often playing around with color placement, and I look for different options on color placement in photos online and in magazine. I've noticed there are blocks called different things, but the only thing really different is the color placement. 

There are some patterns I make over and over and over again.

This is a good example of one of my go-to patterns. I love how the secondary pattern occurs when you put the blocks together. 

When I was cutting up my 3.5" strips, I decided to play around with that, and instead of using a background, I'd just use two contrasting colors in each block.

I'll be making three throws from the blocks I made. This one had mostly autumn colors in it. You really can't see the secondary pattern at all. Even though it doesn't look like the first quilt at all, I don't dislike it. It still has a modern-ish feel to it, and I like that it is all scraps, with no yardage being used at all. That being said, if I had known how it would come out, I would have used a different construction method that would have been much faster. 

Here's the second throw. All of these blocks have blue in them. It has a bit of secondary pattern showing, but nothing as striking as the first one I made last year. Again, the fact it was all scraps is a plus, but I could have used the easier construction method. 

Both of those are sewn into quilt tops, neither will be getting borders. The third one isn't sewn up yet, because I had an odd number of blocks, so I'll be making a few more blocks to have it come out a good size. That's not on my immediate to do list, I'll probably just work on those blocks as I'm processing scraps from other projects, since I've already cut up all my 3.5" strips. 

I do have another quilt I will working on soon with the same pattern. It will be closer to the first quilt, the background is scrappy creams, and the main pattern will be scrappy autumn colors. It will give me a chance to use all scraps, but in a much more controlled background. Since this next one will be all scrappy, using the all HST method I used in all the quilts above makes sense. 

I've been crazy busy, trying to clean up my sewing spaces. Here's some of my progress. 

The ironing station is usable! My Studio cutter isn't buried anymore either, a huge win there! 

Yeah, there is still stuff stacked on the countertop under the window, but I hadn't seen any of the countertop in about a year, so it's actually much better. 

Again, still a bunch of stuff on my dressers that store fat quarter- 1yard fabrics, but there's no long a risk of avalanche. 

Am I done? Nope, far from it, but it's better, and that's where I want to be headed, towards better!  

Memory Projects Done!

The last of the memory projects are finished. The large pillow shams went to DD#2's MIL, as it was her father who passed away. I had two extra small Dresdens from the ties, so I made the two small pillows for our mutual grandsons. 

I also got February's murder mystery blocks finished.

The quilt for my great niece on the way is finished too! This one is made from leftover border pieces from the crazy quilt, and I added the white background fabric from stash. I really wanted butterfly fabric for the border, and the only one I had in stash that was a large enough piece for the border was that purple tonal. I knew I wanted narrow strips separating the piano keys from the white, and I wanted a fresher look than the typical purple/pink girl combo. That peach was just what I was looking for, and again it was from stash. The white has different sized polka dots in a lot of the colors that are in the piano keys.  I wanted to use minky as the backing, but I couldn't find any purple that was a good match to the front. I wanted a smooth minky, not the one with bumps on it as I personally don't like the way that one looks quilted. I could have gotten the one with bumps in a peach that matched, but I wouldn't do it. After much searching, I found a purple fleece with butterflies that matched well enough for the backing. That ended up being the only purchase for this quilt. 

I've been sewing long hours this week, but aside from these things have little to show for it. I've got a couple quilts into rows, but haven't finished a quilt top. I'm working on some misc quilt blocks that were already cut, but I haven't finished all of those either. I really want to baste a couple more quilts, but didn't do that, and I haven't quilted the other four pillow shams I need to make. I started cutting out a deadline quilt I need for June, but that's not done either. I decided to make two of those, and I've got the focus fabrics cut out for both of them, I just need to cut borders, sashing and accent pieces for them. I'm only using three different fabrics for those parts, so it won't take that long. Next weeks goals are to finish what I didn't get done this week. If I can do that, I'll be happy. 

Once those things are done, I'll be changing gears, and going back into sewing up the scraps mode. 

Two More Finishes

My sewing room is seeing a lot of action these days. I finished the two memory quilts I was making.

I only had seven shirts for each quilt. Some shirts had stuff both front and back, so that helped, but I still had to add quite a bit. I used some novelty fabrics that reflected the grandfather's interests to get the quilts up to a throw size. I was worried about quilting the baseball jersey on the bottom quilt, but as long as I took it slow and kept smoothing the fabric so it didn't stretch, all was well. 

Now I'm working on the last of memory items, some pillows. Once those are done, that huge memory project is off my to do list! 

I have some other pillow shams I need to make too, so those will be next after the memory ones. 

The baby quilt I needed is quilted, but I've not trimmed or bound it yet. It's funny, I've been trying to baste a quilt every other day or so, but since I've already quilted three of them, my pile of basted quilts is not going up very quickly. I think I've got four stacked up right now. My arm can use a bit of break, so quilting pillow shams is a good use of my quilting time over the next week or so. Small projects put a lot less stress on my arm. 

The Ruby Jubilee mystery quilt is coming along. Two more seams and the center is done. I'd like to get a few more quilt tops assembled in February, and at least a couple more quilts basted. Besides the pillow shams I doubt I'll quilt any more this month. I've got a lot going on and something's got to give. If I have several quilts basted than I can jump right back into my FMQ an hour per day as soon as things calm down. I decided the quilts I was going to make for birthdays will be for Christmas instead, which gives me some extra time. As far as I know I don't need any wedding quilts this year, so that's helpful. 

I've been trying to spend some time cleaning up as I can. I'm just so tired of my sewing and fabric rooms looking like such a disaster! I don't want to just shove things in closets though, I want to really deal with what I have, and a lot of that is prioritizing what I will work on. If I get all the pillow shams done, it gets a bunch of pieces and pillow forms out of my space, but compared to sewing a quilt start to finish isn't that time consuming. Sometimes knocking several short projects off the list is a good way to jumpstart things. 

Maybe next week I'll have more photos! 

First Finishes of 2023

 I may be working on several things at once, but I did finish two quilts this week, both UFO's. 

This one is a fun one I made with leftover stripsets from a big bargello quilt I made a few years ago. Even with the black spacers the quilt was too narrow, so I got creative and only added pieced borders to the sides. I did put that narrow strip of black on the top and bottom, but I couldn't add too much or it would be too narrow again. This is a throw sized quilt.

This is just a baby sized quilt, but again, a quilt made with leftovers from another quilt. 

I've been working on assembling quilts this week too.

I made this using the Studio 10" Crazy Quilt block die. Let me tell you, there will be more of these in my future! That die was a dream to use, and it sewed up so easily! I wanted a 30 block quilt with lots of variety, so I took 30 fat quarters from stash. My Studio cutter can cut 10 layers of fabric at once, so it only took three passes to cut out the blocks. I took all the remaining fabric and cut it all in 2.5" strips. I had enough to make the border for this quilt, and I'm making another quilt with rows of the same border strips. I only need to sew borders on that one, so I should be able to show it to you next week.

I had just enough of this fabric in stash to back the crazy quilt. Is that a good match or what? I basted the crazy quilt this morning, but it's not next in line for quilting.

I did baste both the memory quilts this week, and I'm half done quilting the first one of those. Trying to adequately FMQ without sewing through the paint on the t-shirts is an adventure.  Some t-shirts you can get away with quilting through it, but others you'll crack the design and/or shred your thread. The silk screens ones usually do OK, the vinyl transfers not so much. 

I didn't end up basting in the living room. I'm just basting on my cutting table. Something came up and having two tables in the living room wasn't going to work out. I usually baste several quilts per day when I baste in the living room, but since I'm having to cut things too, I'm just basting one quilt per day, and then I have use of my cutting table part of the day. 

The Ruby Jubilee Mystery quilt I showed on the design wall last week is moving along. I've got all the spacer pieces cut now, and I think I have enough pieces for the piano key border. I'm opting to not do the HST border. The HST border looks fantastic in the original quilt, I'm just not feeling like making that many HST's right now, which would all have to be cut.  I think I've only got three chunks left to assemble then I can start putting the top together. The inner border is supposed to be one fabric, but since I'm using men's shirts for the quilt, I have to piece it too, one shirt isn't enough fabric. I'm just piecing different fabric strips together until I have enough. 

I'm working on bits that need to be done so I can assemble more quilts too. I've been piecing borders, piecing sashing, piecing backings. My sewing room is looking a bit better as I get some things assembled, but my fabric room is looking worse. I haven't been taking the time to deal with the cut offs from backings and batting as I baste quilts, so those are just piling up. 

I did finish the January column for my Temperature quilt. It's easy to see January ended cooler than it began. 

One good thing about staying so busy, I've had no desire to buy any fabric, I'm too busy sewing it up!