Finishes #15 and 16

So far so good on my goal of averaging two finishes per month. If I can manage to stay home (as in not travel) the rest of this year, I'm hoping to far surpass that goal, but we'll see. Family is more important than any quilting goals I have, and there are things going on that may require more travel this year. 

For now, I'm at home and working away at UFO's. I finished two more quilts, and I realized that so far this year, all of my finishes have been UFO's, which is pretty great. I do have some quilt requests for Christmas, which will all be be new starts, but I'll see how I do on that front. I am starting to plan those out, and even do a little bit of cutting, but time will tell if I actually get those requested quilts finished in time. 

I have some other non-quilt related sewing I need to do this year too, some for DH's scooter rally, some for non-quilty Christmas presents. I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed about Christmas this year, and it's only August! Sometimes I end up having to ditch my Christmas sewing plans when life gets super busy, and I know that may happen this year. For now I'll just see what I can do without making myself crazy.

As for my finishes?

I made this from a layer cake. I have no idea where I got the layer cake, it's not really my style, but I managed to use the whole layer cake with no background fabric necessary. I think it looks like a picnic quilt. 

This quilt started out from some jelly roll strips I was given. It was only part of a jelly roll, so I added some strips from my scrap user system, as well as some background fabric. I really liked this quilt pattern, and I plan to use it again. You need one 1.5" cut WOF  background strip for each jelly roll strip. If you had a print jelly roll and a solid honeybun, you could do it, but you'd have to find a different border fabric whereas I used the background fabric for my border too. 

I'm already quilting another quilt, and the stack of basted quilts I had to work on when I got home is going down quickly. The quilts I have basted are mostly throws or kids quilts, so they quilt up fast. It won't be too long before I'll need to baste some more quilts!

Time for an Upgrade...Bernina Style

 I am a spoiled quilter, and I recognize that fact. I am very thankful we are in a position to afford some fun stuff for both of our hobbies. That said, DH and I are both thoughtful shoppers. We'll wait for sales, buy used, sell stuff to aren't using to fund what we want, etc...

I think I'm not alone in the search for the perfect sewing machine. I started sewing on a vintage Singer, straight stitch only, that I was borrowing from a family member. I made all my maternity clothes with it, as well as lots of baby clothes and home decor items. I gave the vintage machine back when my parents bought me a sewing machine for Christmas one year. It was a Montgomery Ward badged machine and I had it over 20 years. I made countless items of clothing on it, made my first foray into quilting on it, and so many curtains, pillows and such. When my stitch selector broke, and we had no sew and vac guys around to repair it, I went to a Brother from a big box store. I liked it well enough that when I wore it out, I bought another, but I was frustrated by the plastic gears and how quickly they wore out. I had started seriously quilting by now, and the small throat space was also a problem.

I did a bunch of research, and I bought a Bernina 1080 used. That was a quality machine! I used the heck out of that machine, and that was the machine I started quilting my own quilts on. Up until this point I was tying them. 

In the search for a larger throat space, I bought a Juki TL98. I tried it on a frame first, but I had nothing but tension issues. Sold the frame, and the Juki sewed just fine. I crosshatched a lot of quilts with the walking foot at this time with that machine. The thing is, I hated the Juki walking foot, and I found changing the bobbin to be quite awkward. I still had the Bernina 1080, and I just liked it better. 

I started researching a Bernina with a larger throat space, and I decided I wanted a Bernina 440. I didn't want to pay for a Bernina 440, so I kept putting off the purchase. Then I found out they were discontinuing the Bernina 440, so I went and bought the floor model at my local Bernina shop. I got it for half price, and I sold both the Juki and my Bernina 1080 to help offset the cost. 

As kids moved out and I had more space, I discovered I really preferred to have more than one machine set up at all times. One to piece on, one for the actual quilting, and if I can have three, one for everything else, like garment sewing. I started collecting vintage machines, larger throat, best for accuracy in 1/4" seams if it's a straight stitch only machine.

I make a lot of big quilts, and although I have quilted king sized quilts on the Bernina 440, it's still a bit of a wrestling match. In the search for a larger throat space, I bought a Tin Lizzie sit down long arm. The throat space was fantastic, the machine, meh. I traded it in for the Janome M7. It was my first and only Janome. I LOVED the dual feed, and the amount of accessories that came with that machine was crazy! The fact it came with two walking feet, a regular one and a 1/4" one, was amazing. I had the Janome for 6 years, and for five of those years, it did great. This last year it's been in the shop more than not. This last time, I told them do everything to it, because I'm going to sell it. I don't want to sell a bad machine, so I had them fix everything that was even questionable. 

What was I going to replace the Janome with? I decided I really wanted a larger Bernina. After all, I loved my 440 so much, I bought a second one used so I'd have a backup. I was looking at Berninas, and decided I wanted a 735, but you know what? They are discontinuing that model, so I went to the store, bought the floor model, and saved about 40%. I sold the Janome with the cabinet it was in, because that cabinet was too tall for me, and ergonomically just didn't work. I had that cabinet for about 8 years, and every time I used it, my shoulders hurt. 

I looked at cabinets, decided on the Christa cabinet by Arrow, which is the same height as the other cabinet I have that I do like. I found the Christa cabinet on sale for about 40% off. I didn't realize it was backordered when I ordered it, so it actually came while I was out of town. Thankfully, I managed to have it delivered to my daughters house, and she and my SIL assembled it for me while I was out of town. So now I am back home, and can quilt on my new Bernina 735 in my Christa Cabinet!

With all the extensions up, I've got a ton of flat surface to support the quilt. If I drop all the extensions, including the back extension it's footprint is drastically reduced. I've already been quilting on it, and I've already noticed I get better results with poly thread when FMQ, though if I use the walking foot or bind, it likes cotton thread just fine. The cabinet height is working much better for me. 

Could I have purchased a Bernina with a larger throat? Yes. Did I think I needed one? No. I have a few queen/king quilts already started, and those I do plan on quilting myself. The throat space on this is smaller than the Janome, but still more than adequate to quilt a large quilt. The main reason is, I've already decided than any queen/king quilts I start from this point onward, I will pay to have longarmed. If I can't pay to have it longarmed, I won't be making it. My RSI really acts up when I'm quilting the huge quilts, and I've decided the pain isn't worth it anymore. My RSI doesn't really bother me on twin sized and smaller quilts. 

Besides the price break on the 735 since it's being discontinued, the other thing I really liked about it was all the presser feet I have for my 440's will work on it. I didn't have to start buying new presser feet, and Bernina presser feet are expensive. If I had gone with a 900 series machine, I would have had to buy all new presser feet, which added to the increased base cost really wasn't in my budget. 

I never thought I'd be brand specific quilter, but after sewing on several other branded machines at this point, I really do prefer Berninas. I still love my vintage machines, though I have thinned the herd of those due to space. Vintage machines, the heavy, all metal, weigh as much as a boat anchor, are almost all better than the cheap plastic stuff you can get from a big box store, but for higher end modern machines, I've discovered I am indeed a Bernina girl.

Traveling

 I scheduled blog posts to post while I was gone, so you were unlikely to notice that I had been out of town. I'm back now, but what a trip it was! 

We went almost 9,000 miles, through 25 states. We went to two scooter rallies, multiple scooter shops, all for DH's business (He publishes The Scooter 'Zine) We saw our three out of state kids and their families, we spent a couple weeks with my parents, trying to improve their situation a bit. We went to five national parks, and two Civil War battlefields. We went on two covered bridge driving tours, one in Vermont and one in Indiana. We avoided interstate highways as much as possible, I think less than 500 miles were done on the interstate. 

Since we were on the backroads, we got to see lots of wildlife. So many wild turkeys, deer, elk, pronghorn, even a bear right on the side of the road just watching the cars go by. We saw lots of free range chickens, even a flock that was wearing clothes! I looked it up and I saw that sometimes they put clothes on chickens to protect them from roosters who claw them while mating. I saw several options for that online but these looked homemade, they even had flowers appliqued on them! Of course we saw the usual assortment of farm animals, horses, cows, goats, pigs, donkeys, a few emus, and even some alpacas. 

So much happened over the eight weeks we were gone, I won't bore you with a ton of photos, but I will give you a couple highlights. 

One of the many elk we saw in Great Smokey Mountains National Park.

Views from the Blue Ridge Parkway

Deer in Shenandoah National Park

Acadia National Park in Maine

A covered bridge in Vermont that was built in 1833, it has a pedestrian section and a section to drive on. You can still drive on that almost 200 year old bridge, and we did.

Waterfall in Vermont

Waterfall in New York

Covered Bridge in Indiana

We were in Indiana for my birthday, But DH got me a couple roses for the hotel room, red because he loves me, yellow because we are friends. His soda bottle made an adequate vase!

Now that we are home again, it's time to get back into a normal routine. I really did a lot of quilting prep before I left, so now that everything from the trip is put away, I can get right back into sewing. Goodness knows, I've got lots of sewing to do!

A Couple Items For ME!

I don't know about you, but I rarely sew anything for myself. I mostly give away everything I make. I really wanted a couple book sleeves, and I found a great tutorial here.

Now, I haven't read a paper book in ages aside from cook books and quilting books. If it's fiction, I read on my kindle, and I read A LOT. I wanted book sleeves for my ipad, kindle and a notebook or two. I have cases on my ipad and kindle, but when traveling I keep those in my backpack, which I always crammed full. I've had things slip between the cover and the body of the case, which drains my battery. I figured a book sleeve would prevent that.  I was given some fabric that I love, and as soon as I saw it, I decided it was going to be my book sleeve.

I also had some find a word fabric with sewing words that I had purchased, and I thought it would be a fun sleeve too. 

Here are the flip sides of the cases, where the pocket is. You may have noticed that one has the button closure on the pocket side and the other has it on the plain side. That was my mistake, but even though I caught the mistake earlier enough to fix it, it didn't bother me enough to take the time to actually fix it. Another plus of sewing for myself, if I don't mind, mistakes don't matter.  

I ended up using the find a word case for my EPP project, which is already in a zipper pouch, but I put the pouch in the main pocket, and my neck light in the front pocket. I only work on my EPP project when we are travelling, and hotels usually have lousy lighting. 

I made the largest size, but if I were to make them again, I'd add an inch in each direction. I used scraps of regular fleece instead of fusible fleece or batting, and it's nicely padded, but a bit bulky so the bag is a little smaller than I wanted. I'm always at a loss on how to use scrap fleece. For years I cut it all into squares and made weighted blankets, but I'm pretty much over making those now. I have enough pellets left to make one more weighted blanket, and eventually I probably will make that, but who knows, maybe I'll have DH make some cornhole boards and use the pellets in bean bags instead. If the fleece scraps are WOF, I'll piece them into a backing, but fleece seams are thick, so I don't like doing too much piecing on a fleece backing. I'll see DD#1 later this year, so I'll show these to her and see if she'd like something similar for her country store. If I make multiple sizes I could use up a lot of fleece scraps. I could even use orphan blocks on the pockets. 

I'm already thinking about Christmas, and I thought I could make book sleeves and buy a book to put in them, and that should be a decent gift. I could make a game of it, and give myself bonus points if the sleeve matches the book. I've seen some great book fabric too, but I'd have to buy that, and I'm trying to stay low buy this year. We'll see. I still have a little time before I need to be in full blown Christmas mode. 

Two Finishes for July!

 I took a tip from my June quilting, and worked on two quilts that could be quilted with the same color of thread, and bound the same as well. 

I really love these super bright batiks I was given. I did add some of my own batiks to the mix, but I made three quilt tops from the fabrics I was given. This is the first one finished, and quilt number 13 for the year. It's a larger throw. The other two are not the same pattern.

You've seen these blocks before! I made three quilt tops from these black/neutral log cabin blocks. The other two are twin sized, and I may or may not have finished those, I honestly can't remember. At any rate, I do remember this is the smallest of the three, it's a large baby sized or kid quilt. 

I used a black thread on both of these quilts, and just did a simple meander. The black thread was very fine, so it doesn't show up much, even on the light areas. 

July is the seventh month, and I've got 14 quilts done, so right on target. I'm actually hoping the second half of the year is even more productive, because I've got so much prepped and ready to go. I've still got 9 quilts basted, I've got multiple quilts cut out, and how's this for leader/enders?

This tote is completely filled with blocks that are easy to use as leader/enders. All Civil War reproduction fabrics, so it's going towards my busting those fabrics goal too! 

I took these fabric scraps from my latest basting spree and processed those before they even hit my scrap bin. My scrap user system is outgrowing its designated area again, so when I get a few of the projects I have cut out sewn, I'll be looking for an idea to use up some of those strips. The thing about sewing a lot is, the more you sew, the more scraps you have, so you sew more scraps, but make more scraps. Good thing I enjoy working with scraps! I had a bunch of bird fabric scraps, so I'm thinking I'll make a bird quilt (or two), and I had a very large scale print of African animals, that I used most of on the back of a quilt, but I think I have enough left to be the focus in another quilt. The bird fabrics and the animal fabrics were not all cut to the same sizes. I've been wanting to do something more improv lately, and if I go through my orphan blocks and scraps to make more units, I think I can add to the multi-sized blocks and come up with some fun quilts. I haven't done anything like that for a while, and it sounds like fun!

Sticker Shock or My Guide to Cheaper Quilting

 Quilting supplies, like almost everything else these days are going up. I look around at my stash, and I know I wouldn't have most of this if I had to start over at today's prices. Sure, I would have what was given to me by sewists who could no longer sew, but what I've purchased? I wouldn't have bought much at today's prices. 

This is a great example, I bought a small fat quarter bundle (six fat quarters) three years ago for $7.49. The same company still sells the exact same bundle. Price? $21.59 It's the exact same bundle! Somehow, three years later the same company thinks the outdated bundle is worth three times the price??? This isn't a new line of fabric, it's not made differently than what I bought three years ago, and I suspect what they are selling now came in three years ago and just hasn't sold. 

It doesn't help that the options of where to buy supplies are dwindling. I remember always checking out the remnants at Hancock's Fabrics (not to be confused with Hancock's of Paducah, which is different), because they marked all the remnants down to $2 a yard, no matter what kind of fabric it was. The Hancock's chain went out of business. I used to find great deals on batting at Ben Franklin stores, until they went under too. We had a great local fabric shop. They sold every kind of fabric, from chiffon to leather, and all kinds of trims and notions. They went out of business too. Then, of course, we lost JoAnn fabrics too. My favorite quilt shop closed, though I thankfully live in a large enough place that there are a few more of those. 

My sister and I have a "sister date" once a week. I'm a quilter, she does all the other crafts, so a stop by a craft store is a regular for us. We've just been blown away by the change in prices. It seems like the prices change every week. Places that used to offer coupons, often don't now. Remnants that used to be half off or more, now aren't being marked down as much. We wonder what it must be like to want to start quilting in today's world. 

We raised five kids on one income, and I homeschooled as well. One thing I learned to do well is shop, not because I enjoy shopping, because I don't. I learned to shop well because we always had to make the budget stretch. I know young people say it's harder now, and that may be true, but it wasn't easy then either. 

If you are a beginner quilter, or a quilter who is struggling financially, I'm going to give you some tips on how to stretch the crafting budget, if there are any quilt police reading this, turn away now, you've been warned. 

Sewing Machine

Let's say you don't have a sewing machine, I'm here to tell you that lots of quilts have been made without one. In fact, some quilts, like one that is all small hexagons, are easier to hand sew than to sew with a sewing machine. If I were a mom who has to sit in the school pick up line every day, I'd be hand piecing during the wait. 

What if you want a sewing machine? If you have a very tight budget, my advice is to skip Walmart and go vintage.

I bought this Singer 201 at a thrift shop. It cost me $50 and had just been serviced. Sure, it's straight stitch only, but for quilting, that's all you need. The space between the needle and vertical of the machine is much larger than you find in a cheap plastic machine, which really comes in handy if you quilt your own quilts. More advantages to vintage? Watch a few YouTube videos and you can do a lot of servicing yourself, and this machine will still be sewing 50 years from now, where my new computerized machines will be in a landfill. I love to piece on a vintage machine, straight stitch only machines sew the most accurate 1/4" seams.

Fabric

A large portion of my fabric has been purchased at thrift stores, some of it as just fabric, sometimes a bag of scraps, but even whole bolts of fabric. Some of the fabric is upcycled from sheets, clothes, curtains, duvet covers. I prefer 100% cotton, but I have made quilts from other materials as well. 

This quilt was made from all men's shirts that I thrifted.

The purple background and borders of this quilt are from a duvet cover.

The focus fabric from this quilt are from some curtains I made, then when we were done with them, I turned them into a quilt. 

Some other things to look for at thrift stores? Fleece blankets, they make great backings and you can skip the batting if you want. Any blanket can be batting, as well as mattress pads. I've found thread at thrift stores too. I've seen people use towels as batting in table runner. No one will know what's on the inside of a quilt.

If you are lucky enough to have a Goodwill Outlet anywhere within day trip range, it's worth the trip. My sister and I just went there, and these are the current prices at ours.

So you can pick up clothes for $1.89 a pound, and that's any clothes, want to make a denim quilt, grab a bunch of jeans. Do you enjoy making t-shirt quilts? Look for any interesting ones. I usually stick with 100% woven cotton, usually men's shirts, but I've also picked up womens skirts, pajama pants, even a hospital gown that looked new. 

And the 99 cents a pound for linens? That's your sheets, which I've used for backgrounds, as well as backings, and duvet covers, and curtains, and blankets etc... I've even found yardage in the linen bins.

Maybe you don't have any local options for thrift stores, did you know Goodwill has an online auction site? You can bid on boxes full of fabrics, thread, or sewing machines. Have you been wanting a fabric die cutter? You can snag an Accuquilt die cutter with dies for a fraction of what it costs new. You can also try Etsy or eBay, though professional resellers are jacking up prices there.

I'm a big proponent of buying things secondhand. I think it's easier on the environment and on the wallet. Remember you can check out yard sales, estate sales, local auctions, Facebook Marketplace, Freecycle and local "buy nothing" groups. Just think of how many people bought the supplies for a project and never got around to making it because life got in the way. There's a lot of perfectly good supplies already out there. 

Prefer to buy new? Every quilt shop I've ever been in has a sale section. Big box stores that sell fabric have remnant bins. Check out the clearance section in the linens department. Don't have any local options?

For novelty fabrics, you can't beat 4my3boyz.com. She's got some $1 fat quarters! Lots of fabric panels too, and a fabric panel is the cheapest way to make a themed quilt. Buy a panel, surround it with blocks made from fabrics you already have in complementary colors, and you've got it! 

For every type of quilting fabric and batting, my go to is Marshall Dry Goods. Their quilting basics run about $5 per yard, but if you buy the same fabric by the bolt, you can get it for around $3 a yard on the wholesale side of their site. You do not need to be a business to buy wholesale, you just have to be willing to buy bulk.

If you really love pre-cuts, check out jellyrollfabric.net

Thread

I've found lots of thread at thrift shops, including brand new thread in the wrapper. My vintage machines will usually sew with any thread I've tried. Modern machines can be picky, and in my experience, the more expensive the machine, the pickier it seems to be. Most of my machines will sew with most threads if I'm piecing or walking foot quilting. I may have to adjust tension, but I can make it work. FMQ is where preferences really show up. The biggest area I've seen preferences in is fiber content. I have machines that only want to FMQ with cotton and never poly, no matter which brand, and I have machines that only want to FMQ with poly, never cotton, no matter which brand. Sometimes I do encounter brand preferences, one of my Bernina 440's will sew with anything, one absolutely will not sew with Gutterman, and if it's Auriful it needs to be 40 wt, 50 wt just breaks. Since I have two of the exact same machine, I am very familiar with adjusting tension on the top and bobbin, but one is just pickier than the other. 

If you are blessed to have a machine that is not picky, the cheapest place I know of to buy thread is Thread Art. This is Chinese thread, not European fine threads. Would I quilt a quilt for a quilt show with it, absolutely not. Would I make a quilt for a five year old with it? Absolutely. They have all kinds of thread, and I've had pretty good luck with it. Since I don't make quilts for quilt shows, I'll use just about any of their threads in most quilts. My favorite thread is Aurifil, and for a queen sized or larger quilt, that's what I'm likely to use, but for almost everything else, these work fine as long as my machine likes it. I have a few other brands of thread I like too, but I only buy thread on sale, including my beloved Aurifil. 

Patterns

I'm going to be pretty ruthless here. If you are struggling financially, don't buy patterns, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of free patterns online. You can also check out quilting books from your local library. 

Notions

The best advice I can give on notions is watch for sales. Buy sewing machine needles in bulk, you'd be shocked at the cost per needle in a 100 pack versus a five pack. Rulers have really gone up in price, and this is one thing I wouldn't buy used. A well used ruler is likely not that accurate anymore. They do wear out. Buy brand name rulers from reputable sellers. I know Amazon has had a lot of problems with pirated rulers that aren't accurate. Rotary blades I've had good luck with on Amazon. Did you know that if you go to the google home page, you can put in a specific item and press the shopping tab under the search bar, and they will do comparison shopping for you? Also, make sure to go back to google if you are going to make an online purchase, type in the name of the shop you are buying from along with the words coupon code, for example, Connecting Threads coupon code. You might find coupon codes for free shipping or percentage off coupons, but either way, it's worth a quick search. Local quilt shops have sales too, and they need business to stay open. 

Learn to Finish Your Own Quilts

I was chatting with a woman at a quilt shop, and she was shocked I quilt my own quilts. She has always used a longarmer. Longarmers are great, and I have had a few quilts finished that way. I could not make nearly as many quilts as I do if I paid a longarmer to quilt them all. My first quilts were tied. (Try a curved needle for this, it's easier) You can easily look up how to do that. My kids still used quilts I tied over 20 years ago, and they are holding up just fine! 

I went from tying quilts to using a walking foot, and I still use a walking foot now and then to do some simple crosshatching on a quilt. Pair a vintage sewing machine and a walking foot and you can quilt a king sized quilt. There are lots of books (think library here) and YouTube videos on some incredible quilting with a walking foot. 

I learned to FMQ because I wanted to, not because I had to. There is nothing wrong with tying a quilt, and there are some great walking foot quilting designs you can do. That said, YouTube and library books can get you started if you want to learn to FMQ. 

I know the quilting snobs likely haven't made it this far through the blog post. I've heard all of the, "you should only ever use quilt shop quality fabric and brand X of thread, and brand Y batting is all I'd ever use" comments I'd ever care to hear. The first two bed quilts I made for two of my daughters were made from our families old jeans, and backed with a set of sheets I bought in the clearance section at Kmart. DD#2 still uses that quilt, and if she's sick it's her favorite. 

The argument I really don't get it the your quilt won't last 50 or even 100 years if you don't use such and such. I would rather have a kid drag around a quilt I made them, and have them wear it out in five years making blanket forts and wrapping the dog in it, than have it sit in a closet unused because no one wants it to get ruined. The kid that wears out a quilt has memories with that quilt. Sure, the quilt may have worn out, but the memory of it won't. The quilt in the closet may be pristine, but no one cares about it, no one has memories of it, that, in my mind, is a waste of fabric and time. As long as I'm alive and able, wear out the quilt, I'll make you another one. 

Proof of Concept- Part 2

 If you made last week's blocks, or if you are thinking about it, and you want to know what the rest of the story is before you commit, here it is!

Before I show you, I want to let you in on a secret. If your quilt only has one block, what size they finish at doesn't matter. What does matter, is that they are all the same size! 

Last week's big block measured 18" finished, made up of four 9" finished block quarters. Today we'll be using those bonus HST's to make a different quilt. Now, when I used the specialty ruler for the sew and flip corners, I did not trim up the bonus HST's, I simply sewed a 1/4" seam on the diagonal. Each of these bonus HST's are a block quarter for our new quilt. You'll get two block quarters for quilt two, from each block quarter from block one. Remember we did two sew and flip corners on each block quarter? That really comes into play here, because out new blocks will be smaller than last week's, but you'll get two of them for each big block from last week.

And our new block is....

Four bonus HST's give you this block, and mine is measuring 10 7/8 unfinished. so it will be 10 3/8 finished. Is it a weird size? Yes, it is. Do I care? No I don't, because all my blocks measure this, and I'm not adding any other units to the quilt. 

How do a bunch of these look together?

It's a completely different look compared to the last quilt, but I still like it quite well. You can turn the blocks quarters differently to make a different block, and you can in the first quilt as well, but I liked the versions I did best. Both of these are now sewn into quilt tops and I'm not adding borders, I think a good contrasting binding will be a fine finish. 

It did not take me long to make both of these quilt tops. If you need two quilts in a hurry, this would be a good option. Although I think it could work in a lot of fabric combinations, the fact it looks good in men's shirts made me think this would be a great way to make two memory quilts from a loved ones clothes. You don't need a lot of extra fabric, and you get two quilt tops fast. Quilt #1 is larger, but not by a huge amount.

The only fabric waste is the dog ears from the bonus HST's. 

Will I try it in novelty prints? Maybe, but because the blocks get turned directional fabrics could be tricky, also, you'd really have to watch scale of the prints because not all the pieces end up being large. 

I think the next time I play around with this idea, I'm going to go much smaller, so there are a lot more repeats over the surface of the quilt. Changing the width of the framing strips will also change the quilts pretty drastically. I have some neon green fabric, and lot of black and white prints. What if I used the green for the framing strips and the black and white fabrics for the squares????

There's my concept and the resulting blocks on the design wall. It's probably been done before by someone, but not that I've seen. I did figure out how to make quilt #1 without bonus HST's, so there would be no quilt #2, but by doing it this way, the cutting is really easy, the sewing is easy, and you get an extra quilt. That's a huge win in my book!

Proof of Concept-Part 1

It's my birthday week, and to celebrate, I want to give you something. This is actually first of a two part idea.

I don't know about you, but I do a lot of google image searches for quilts. If someone asks me for a specific kind of quilt, I'm going to do a google image search to help me decide how I might want to tackle their request. Sometimes I come across new techniques, and sometimes a photo will spark a new idea in my mind. For example, I saw a photo of Migrating Geese, and when I looked at the technique, I came up with a way to do it that appealed to me more. You can find that post here. Notice that my version gives me bonus HST's. I never consider these waste, they are a bonus. This is important for the direction I'm going now.

I saw a random photo of a quilt online, and I didn't save the photo, I don't know where I found it. The quilt had a lot of movement in it, and I have no idea how close my quilt is to the original, because it was months between when I saw the photo, and when I tried to come up with a plan, that would result in two different quilts from one technique. I did not see a quilt like the second quilt you'll get.

Now when I'm experimenting, I don't want to use my best fabrics. Time to turn to my men's shirts stash. I also needed an accent fabric, and I just grabbed a cream solid, because I had a bolt of it.

This is more of a technique than a pattern, but I'll give you the sizes I used for my experiment. 

I cut a bunch of men's shirts into 6.5" squares. Why that size? Because I cut my novelty scraps into that size, and I thought that I might someday try this with novelty prints. The size of the square doesn't matter. In fact, I think I might do this again with 3.5" squares. For each block quarter, you need three squares, so 12 squares for one big block.

Now we need to frame the square.

Here's where that accent fabric came in, each square gets framed with the SAME accent fabric. What width your frame is can vary to your taste, since this was my first attempt, I just decided to cut two pieces 2 x 6.5", and two pieces 2 x 9.5" Since each of these is a quarter of a block, the big blocks finish at 18". 

Now we need to add some sew and flip corners, just two per square. I'm going to be honest here, for these you do NOT want to overcut and trim everything. Accuracy does matter, but it's not hard. I do a LOT of sew and flip corners, and I used to draw lines, and that will totally work here. If you want to draw diagonal lines to do your sew and flip corners, you need to draw two lines, one corner to the opposite diagonal corner, and one 1/2" away from that. These need to be accurate, because we won't be trimming.

I did not draw lines for these. I used this ruler.

I also have the Folded Corner Clipper Ruler which I love, but it was too small for 6 inch squares.  If you are unfamiliar with these type of rulers, here is one video of many that show you how to use them. In this particular video, she doesn't cut as accurately as you should for this project, because we will absolutely be making the bonus HST's. If the video doesn't make sense to you, the blog post I linked above above migrating geese a use the Folded Corner Clipper Ruler and gave step by step photos, and you use it the same way you use the Simple Folded Corners ruler.

One thing I prefer about using these rulers, is when piecing, I prefer to use a screw in seam guide on the bed of my machine. If I'm following a diagonal line, I can't use a screw in seam guide, because it would bunch up the fabric and make it inaccurate. Once you cut with this ruler, you are simply sewing a 1/4 inch seam on the main block, then grabbing the part you cut off, and sewing a 1/4" seam on that bonus HST too. 

When I said we are doing two sew and flip corners, this is what I meant -opposite diagonal corners. We want to sew opposite diagonal corners on each quarter block. Remember, we are only using one size of square here, so since my main square was cut 6.5", so are my corner squares. Each time I sewed the diagonal on the main sew and flip corner, I would immediately sew the diagonal on the bonus HST we cut off. You'll get less shifting if you just sew it all right away. 

I want you to put the bonus HST's aside, we'll deal with those next week. Right now we are making the main block. 

Four quarter blocks can be turned to make this big block. I want you to notice where the point that we are matching actually is. Where the sew and flip corners come together, are actually the inside point of the star that is created when we sew four block quarters together. If you do some aggressive trimming, the odds of trimming every block exactly the same are slim, and that point is not at the halfway point so to would be hard to trim exactly and have the points match up. So basically, unlike a lot of blocks that may need trimming, in this case if you trim you are MORE likely to lose your points. 

What happens if you start putting these big blocks together?

The stars come out! You end up with a quilt with a great diagonal lattice, a field of stars, and you didn't do any difficult sewing! I want to try this again with 3.5" squares, and either 1.5" or 1" wide framing strips. 1" wide would finish at 1/2", so they would be tiny stars! 

This is quilt #1, and next week we'll make quilt number two. 

Cotton Frankenbatting and Two Finishes!

 I was pretty sure I could sew up all the cotton batting scraps in a day, and I did! I pieced two twin/full battings, and two large throws. My SIL wants a table runner for a 10 foot table, and I pieced two battings for that, plus I pieced all the shorter strips with table runners in mind, since I use two layers of cotton batting in every table runner. 

Lest you think I haven't done any quilting, I have two finishes to show you! 

The quilt I was basting a couple weeks ago is finished. I used a cream colored thread to quilt it, and I realized I had another quilt where cream would work nicely, so rather than binding this quilt immediately, I put it aside, and quilted this one.

When both quilts were quilted, then I sewed the binding on both in a day! My two finishes for June were finished on the same day! 

The quilt in autumn colors at the top of this post, DD#1 wants me to put aside for her country store. She'll take all the table runners I care to make too, for the store as well. Her store isn't open yet, right now they are doing farmers markets instead, but the goal is to rehab an old store on their property, and make it into a store once again. I'm glad they aren't ready to open it yet, because it gives me time to just make things for the store now and then, in between other projects. When they are ready, I'll bring her whatever I have made, and we'll work out the details. 

Tackling the Cotton Batting Scraps

I don't have nearly as many cotton batting scraps as I had poly batting scraps. It's definitely not because I use cotton batting less, I actually use cotton batting more often. I don't mind piecing cotton batting scraps, and I use a lot of the scraps up in small project like potholders or table runners. In fact, I had a few table runners started, and I put them up on my design wall to evaluate which needed borders, and how much cotton batting I needed to make them, I wanted to only use scraps. 

I had six table runners started, I ended up adding borders to four of these. The brown ones I left as is, the rest got borders. 

The first thing I did with the cotton batting scraps is pull out my largest scraps. When I want to make heat resistant table runners, I use two layers of cotton batting and one layer of Insulbrite. Is that overkill, maybe, but I don't want to tell someone -yes, they can put hot pans from the oven on it, then have great-granny's antique table damaged. We want to protect the table at all costs, and three layers of batting works. 

I ended up having large enough scraps that I basted five of the runners without piecing any batting, even though I had made four of these larger with borders. For the sixth runner, I took the odd sized smaller scraps, and pieced those together. So now all the runners are basted and ready to quilt.

Next I pulled out the strips of batting that were 4" wide or less. If any scrap is narrower than 2.5" it goes into the trash immediately, and never goes into my batting scraps. All of these strips I cut into 2.5" wide, and rolled them up like a Bosal batting roll. I can use them for jelly roll rugs, baskets, or any other project that uses that technique. Oftentimes, my sister does projects like that, so I give them to her if she needs them before I do.

I ended up with three good sized rolls of 2.5" wide batting strips. 

Next I cut the sides of all the larger scraps straight. I just piled them up on my ironing station. These are folded multiple times so it looks like more than it is. 

Now they are all sorted roughly by length. I do have some shorter strips off to the side, that you can't see, but I'll deal with those last, because depending how these sew up, I may sew the shorter strips end to end to make longer strips, or I might sew them next to each other with another table runner in mind. The seams to sew these together will be long, but cotton batting is easy to work with. I've got a lot of plates spinning right now, so I think it will likely take me two or three days to piece all this, but honestly, if I dedicated one day and only did this, I could probably finish in a day. It might be a long day, but I think I could.

I still do have some pins left, because I've been reclaiming pins during my one hour per day of FMQ, but I haven't decided if I'm going to be matching these battings to quilt tops right away, or if I'll just label each Frankenbatting with the size it finished at and use them later. I still have a big stack of stuff basted, so I'm leaning towards just labeling the cotton Frankenbattings and dealing with them a little later, when I'm not quite so busy with other things. 

Managing a Large Fabric Stash

 Are you like me and read all the blog posts talking about scrap management, or how people store their stash of fabric? I watch all the YouTube videos on those subjects as well. YouTube quilt studio tours, I watch every one I can find! 

At this point, I've been a serious quilter for almost 20 years, and I've tried a lot of different methods for sorting my stash. Over those 20 years, I've not always had a dedicated sewing room. In fact, over those 20 years my sewing room has been in six different rooms in our house, with multiple times where I had no sewing room at all. It always depended on how many people were living with us at the time. Before I started seriously quilting, I was sewing on commision, and I never had a sewing room at that time, I didn't even have a sewing table, I had to do everything on the kitchen table, then move it all for meals and homeschooling. 

The times I didn't have a sewing room, my fabric was always in totes, usually stuffed into a closet somewhere. At one point, all the totes were under a bed. I think totes are one of the worst ways to store fabric to keep it usable, but you do what you have to do at the time. The reason I don't like totes is even if you are diligent about keeping you fabrics divided, say knits in one tote, and wovens in another, you have to dig through the tote every time you need fabric, and when it's hard to find, and hard to look through, you forget what you have. 

Now that we are empty nesters, I actually have a fabric room, that has my fabric, a huge cutting table and an ironing station, and I have a sewing room, where I have three sewing machines set up at all times. The sewing room is where my design wall is. I'm spoiled, and I know it. I also know that someday we are likely to move and I'll have to downsize my sewing area again, but being the planner I am, I'm already considering how I would do that. We have a tri-level house, so eventually, we are likely to move to single story. 

For those of you who are interesting in stash management, this post is for you, and I'm not only going to go over how I store each stage of fabric in my stash, but I'm also going to tell you why. What I do may not work for you, but my stash management absolutely works for me. 

If you are new to the blog, know that I am a dedicated pre-cutter when it comes to scraps. I can totally understand why someone with a small stash or someone who does a lot of applique may prefer to sort scraps by color and not pre-cut, but with a large stash if I don't pre-cut, there is always a larger piece of fabric that is easier to use than digging through a bin of misc scraps. If I'm going to actually use my my scraps, they need to be easy to grab and use. 

I'm going to start with the scraps first. Why? Because when I am starting a new quilt, my rule is to always use the smallest piece of fabric that will work. If I need a bunch of 2" squares, I'm going to go to my 2" squares, If I need a bunch of 2.5" strips, I'm going to go to my 2.5" strips. 

Since my cutting table is made from cube storage pieces, I've found these type of containers work well for storing strips and squares. 

I store both strips and squares sorted by color, and I store them on end their end so I can flip through them like an index file. Stacks don't work as well for me, because stacks fall over, and pulling something out of a stack messes up the whole stack. By storing the strips like this, I can easily flip through them all, and pull out the strips I want. My squares are stored similarly, but I have them in rows in the same style container. If we ever downsize, my scraps come with me, because my scraps give me the greatest variety of fabrics to play with. 

My next category of fabric is fat quarters. If I cut into a fat quarter for a quilt, anything left gets cut into my Scrap User System sizes, so I have nothing between fat quarters and pre-cut scraps. Fat quarters are my favorite pre-cut, hands down. Now that my goal is to reduce stash, if I find a fabric I really love at a quilt shop, and I just can't pass it by, I usually ask if they'll cut me a fat quarter, and most shops will. My fat quarters are stored in drawers by color. 

I lucked out and found these drawer kitchen cabinets at a building supply resale shop. I love that the drawers pull all the way out. I have a couple drawers full of fat quarters, all sorted by color. Again, if we were to downsize, most of the fat quarters would go with me, for the same reason as the scraps, variety. 

My next category of fabric is one I rarely see people use. I keep fabrics larger than a fat quarter (or 12" WOF) to 1 yard pieces separate. If a fabric is under 12" WOF, I cut it for my Scrap User System. Now I'm going to tell you why this category makes sense to me. Fat quarters are great for variety, and I like my quilts to have a lot of variety, but unless it's a really small project, one fat quarter isn't usually enough to make something. It might be large enough to provide cornerstones for sashing, but probably not enough for the sashing. It's not enough for binding, it's not enough to be a focus of a quilt. But, when we start dealing with half yard to one yard pieces, now we are talking enough fabric for a pillowcase, enough for sashing, enough for a focus fabric on a throw sized quilt, enough for binding. These are the drawers I go to when I need to make a backing just a bit wider, and I need a couple 10" WOF pieced to piece into a strip in the middle of a length of fabric. I store the fat quarter+ to one yard pieces separately, because to me, they are used differently. If I need a backing for a table runner, this is the category, if I'm making pillowcases, this is where I look. Sashing? I look here to see if something here will work. Remember, my cardinal rule on fabric management is to always use the smallest piece that will work. 

The drawers I keep the fat quarter-one yard pieces in aren't as nice as my fat quarter drawers, but they work. Since I fold all the fabric the same, it's pretty easy to see which pieces are likely one yard pieces, by the thickness of the bit you can see. Just like with my fat quarters, and even my scrap strips and squares, there are no stacks here, I can easily flip through the fabrics and see what I've got. If we were to downsize, I'd likely try to reduce this part of my stash by at least 50%, only keeping what I really love. 

Anything over 1 yard I consider yardage and that goes on my IKEA Billy bookcases.

All of this is normal width yardage, anything over 1 yard. All my mini-bolts are wrapped on corrugated plastic DH cut to size for me. I joke with DH that yardage is for backings. Of course, yardage is also for backgrounds and borders, and on the rare occasion I'm only using a few fabrics in a quilt top. Again, no stacks, I can easily find and grab any fabric I've got. This is where I'd be ruthless if we downsized, I'd try to get it down by 75%. I'd hope to keep half the bookshelves, but if we downsized, I'd need to get rid of more than half of this fabric so I could move the solids I have on bolts to minibolts, as well as have space for the widebacks I have. 

I'm in no hurry to downsize. We are debating a move to the midwest, the region most of our kids live in, but as long as DD#2 lives here in town, we'll likely stay here. If she and her family were to move, we would definitely move. If we are all still in town ten years from now, we'll likely move to to a single story house, but for now, I'll enjoy the space I have, and the stash I have. At today's prices I'd never be able to have what I've got, even after inheriting several people's stashes. 

Now, why do I think my stash management system works for me? 

1) I can find what I'm looking for easily.

2) My fabric is stored in categories that work for the way I think and quilt. 

3) By always using the smallest piece of fabric that works, I am keeping the smaller pieces moving out, so when I'm under a yard from the yardage shelves, I have space in the drawers for the smaller piece, or when I'm cutting for the Scrap User System, I can put things away immediately. Everything may have looked full, but there is squishing room. 😉

4) I've successfully kept my system going for years. I currently have a stack of empty mini-bolt plastics that are available for any new yardage. This morning I cut a piece of yardage I needed, the remainder was less than one yard, so it went into the fat quarter-one yard drawers. Yesterday I used a piece from those drawers, had less than 12" WOF left, so I cut it into strips and put it into the strip containers. My stash is moving through the system, working for me, not against me. 

I do have a few more categories. I keep my fabric panels together, I have a bin of 1930's repro fabrics, precuts are together, and my steampunk fabrics are together. My 6.5" novelty squares are in their own drawer. I usually break up fat quarter bundles as soon as I get them. I plan by color, not designer, and I don't like quilts that are too matchy. I do have a few quilt kits, stored in bins in my cube storage cutting table. I have strings sorted by color in a 9" cube storage unit, and I have crumbs sorted by color in color coded small bins. I think everyone has those misc. things that they want separate. I know most people do that with holiday fabric, but I don't really buy that, the little I have was likely given to me and it's just mixed in the stash by color. Of course, most people probably don't have a steampunk fabric collection, but I love it so....

Hopefully this post helps someone. If anyone would like a post on how I store other quilting items, just ask and I'll see what I can do.