To do Tuesday #86 - Getting BackTo It

Well, it's been at least 3 weeks since I last set some goals. I completely dropped my bundle since then and apart from working on my machine cover have not been doing much else...struggling with motivation which often happens after I finish a major project.

When this happens I need something to 'grab' me and it is usually scrap quilts that do that for me. So I sat down and sorted through my leftover bits and pieces taking out most of the strips that were floating around.

In terms of project I was looking for something that does not require much thought...just mindless sewing. I have got a nice book from the Tilda collection and found a very nice quilt where the author just put strips together in a Chinese Coin arrangement separating the columns by sashings. 

This book is just gorgeous...you can see the strip quilt in the background. The book has a lot of very easy but eye catching designs in very pretty fabrics with some fantastic quilting all over it. Highly recommended! The strip quilt caught my eye as it has feathers quilted all down the strips and some easy quilting designs in the sashings. Looks absolutely gorgeous.

In the book the strips are coordinated in terms of colour and placement. They are also the same size. I am doing mine a bit more haphazardly, i.e. sewing strips of varying widths together to arrive at the required 10-1/2in for the section. I am cutting mine straight, but really, you could also just sew them together in a wonky way.

So, no thinking involved apart from making it long enough to make the 10-1/2in. Here I am using some of the longer strips and just cut them into sections of 4-1/2in, but I also am doing some smaller ones from just little strips that were left over. I already have a stack of them, so this should not take too long. Not sure which colour I will make the sashing, maybe a light grey or beige. We'll see.

This has gotten me a bit more motivated again and today I sorted through my solids and blenders leftovers. Intending to make a very simple scrap pattern for my Etsy shop from that.

In terms of tasks for this week I am intending

- to make a start on the quilting for my background filler project

- make more sections for my strip quilt

- cut out the solids/blender fabric requirements for another little scrap quilt to go in the Etsy shop.

- continue with my knitting of the second sock that I started a couple of months ago (it's almost spring here!)
There are a few other things that have been started over the last few months, but I am leaving them off the list for now as this would just become overwhelming. For now I just need to get back into it.

Linking up to To Do Tuesday #86 over at Quilt Schmilt.

Karin

Multitasking

I am out of quilt tops to quilt on...hence I am continuing on my 1000 Pyramid quilt. Wow, what was I thinking...there are so many points to match! Given my tendency for sloppiness in piecing this is going to be very painful.

Have done 2 rows so far, aiming for a King Single size. We shall see...

You would think that a scrappy quilt like this would make a bit of a dent in the stash, but I have to say I have hardly noticed the difference. What I did notice though was that I have an extraordinary amount of red fabric in the pyramids...just about every pyramid has some sort of red tone in there. Constructing the pyramids is good fun as you can chain piece along. Particularly love my new gadget...the Cutting Gizmo

Makes separating the chain pieced units very fast.

While I was doing this and looking at my stash in general (I really need to do something about this!), I found a stack of orphan blocks...I think they were from an EQ7 quilt along some years ago of which I dropped out after a few months. The blocks were very intricate and many were paper pieced. You would think that they were all nice and straight, but 'no' they were anything but straight...found some nice grey fabric to go with it (the fabric was from a Jelly Roll from Moda which I think was called 30s Playtime) and put some sashing around it, fudging a fair bit to get some straightness happening.

Love those blocks. This will not be exact and the piecing is somewhat wonky in parts but it will be great to practice some more intense ruler quilting on. I am planning to put a 4 in border around it in the grey fabric and also try out my new Waves ruler on that to put some feathers in. This should be fun.

Apart from that I have been searching the internet for a bit of an interesting pattern for Charm squares. I got a packet of Charm squares (Meadow Bloom by April Rosenthal) from the Fat Quarter shop last year to make into a baby quilt...as they had a special going at the time I also got a packet of 2 1/2in squares of the same range to go with it, not thinking much about how to combine this...

Found some simple ideas on the Internet and after a lot of math was able to combine some ideas on the EQ 7 program and come up with a way to use both the 5in squares and the 2 1/2in squares. Nothing spectacular...just squares to keep it simple. Currently waiting for my order of an 4 1/2in finished Accuquilt die to cut out some additional fabric to go with it. Figured that I often use this size and while I could cut it, I do like the efficiency of the cutter. Takes no time to cut out a whole stack of squares and you are ready to go.

So, hopefully in a couple of weeks I will have 3 new quilt tops to play with.

I am dropping in to Esther's Quilt Blog  who hosts WIPs on Wednesday

Karin

Scrap Happy

I should be working on my WIP: A Field Guide, however felt like doing something else. So I started this

I had these Robert Kaufman fabric stacks which I cut to size some time back. However, horror upon horror, I actually mis-cut them and made them 1/2in too small for the design that I had in mind at the time. Since then they have been lying around on the bookshelf...got to it the other day and designed a slightly different set up that would use them up. I am thinking of putting the beige background behind it and then using it as a FMQ practice quilt. Already have a FMQ design in mind which will also go into the border which will be the same fabric as the dark accent colour. You can't see it properly in here, but the dark accent colour is a gorgeous dark brown Jinny Beyer print...

So, that sorted out, I started a second project...why stop at one, when you can do two at the same time on top of all the WIPs lying around. Finally...a 'Thousand Pyramids' scrap quilt

Went through my scrap boxes the other day which are literally overflowing and went to work on cutting some of them up with the Accuquilt Go Cutter using the 4 1/2in Equilateral Triangle. Bought this die last year and this is the first time I am using it. How crazy!

Cut through the stash in no time and settled down chain-piecing the units...absolutely love doing this. Very relaxing and quick to do. I am not going to stress about size as yet and will see where this takes me. Always wanted to make a scrap version of the Thousand Pyramids quilt...this should be good fun.

Feeling very enthused about it all.

Linking up to

Karin