October Stashing

quiltytherapy, fabric stash, stashing

Not much sewing happened during October, but stashing did.  Stashing can be fun. Curating a wonderful collection around an idea. Most recently has been around adding some color to my living room. Here’s what I’ve added to the stash in October and their projects.

quiltytherapy, fabric stash, stashing

Crossthreads:

Thought I had enough of this long ago for my original idea. However, with my change of design, there is enough. Do you know how hard it is to find this line? Let alone this print? I ordered four yards just for good measure.

Art Gallery Floral:

New pillow covers. Recently I added some pillows in a big black and white buffalo check. They are backed with a vintage sheet. These will pair nicely with the next fabric.

Black and White Polka Dot:

Yep, more pillow covers. Polka dots, flowers, and buffalo check will surround my couch. Now I will have to fight the dogs off the cute pillows.

Other fabrics:

New pillowcases for my bedroom are in order. The rest is just stash.

Postage Stamp Checkerboard Quilt Version 2

scrap quilt, scrappy checkerboard, postage stamp quilt, quiltytherapy

After creating this quilt, there were quite a few of scraps already sorted.  They just called out “make me into a quilt.”  They are so demanding, right?

Postage Checkerboard Scrappy Boy Quilt

Over Labor Day weekend I took these to the lake and started sewing.  Are you surprised?  I take my machine everywhere.  The hum of the machine in nature was quite refreshing.  I did some early afternoon sewing, most people were out on the water and our area gets pretty quite.

Once I got home, I pressed the small squares with seams open and began adding 2″ Kona Ash strips.  Why is it every time I go to type ASH, I type AS*?  Adding those strips takes no time and creates an interesting look.

Once P was in bed I could lay out the quilt in the house and piece the rows.  My process involves piecing all the rows, then pressing.  I also don’t press the seams between rows until the top is finished.  From my stash I chose a blue backing that I had picked a while back.

For the binding I had a large scrap of a Robert Kaufman print that was a wide back.  White bindings are scary on a baby quilt, but sometimes it just works.  Quilting is my go to all over loops.

scrappy baby quilt, checkerboard quilt, scrap quilt, quiltytherapy

Time to refresh my scraps and maybe mix them up a bit.  The scrap bin is overflowing.  Anyone up for a scrap swap?


This is quilt 15/40 in my 2018 baby quilt goal.

When Your Quilt Design Takes A Turn

v christenson string quilt with binding

Do you keep a basket of treasured fabrics?  A basket of Lotta Jansdotter and V Christenson fabrics live in my sewing room.  They are my special fabrics since I adore both designers.  My pink basket of V Christenson fabrics have gone with me every year to my quilt guild’s retreat.  Last year this quilt was created at the retreat.

V&Co HST offset quilt by quiltytherapy, #modernquilt, #V&co, #HSTquilt #halfsquaretriangles, #babyquilt

This year I was determined to use a jelly roll stashed deep down in this basket to create Cluck Cluck Sew’s Diagonal Strip Quilt.  It’s been on my to make list for a couple of years.  Since I am aiming for 40 baby quilts this year, it seemed easy enough.

At the retreat I had a chance to get started on it.  Some of my strips were not full length so I adjusted and just went with it.   A stack of blocks was created and I was so excited to lay them out.

v christenson string quilt

However, I had a few left over halves and unsure what to do.  These blocks were not enough to make a baby quilt.  Rather than get frustrated I changed the design.  I cut all of the blocks above into half.

v christenson string quilt

To utilize all of the halves I had, I just pieced them together randomly.  The new design was perfect and big enough to be a baby sized quilt.

v christenson string quilt

I posted this picture during the retreat after a brief snow storm.  After I wrapped it on a bolt and left it to sit.  Once my machine was back from it’s spa treatment I was ready to quilt this.

v christenson string quilt

A number of quilting options were tested on this.  Ultimately, I went for straight lines.  I backed the quilt in the purple zig zag print.

v christenson string quilt

The binding on this quilt is my favorite part.  With the leftover 2.5″ strips I pieced together this scrappy binding and machine pieced it in place.

v christenson scrappy binding

Here is the finished product in it’s quilted goodness.  It came out of the dryer all crinkly.  A freshly washed quilt straight from the dryer is my favorite part of the creative process.

 

v christenson string quilt

This is baby quilt 8/40 for my yearlong goal.


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Needle and Thread Thursday

 

Scrappy Half Square Triangles Quilt with Negative Space

Earlier this week I talked about how this project got started.  So let’s dig into how the final product came to be.

Layout

In my retreat bag I stuffed a number of projects and a few Kona solids.  You can’t go wrong with white and shades of gray.  I had some gray scraps that I wanted to use up.  Once the blocks were made I knew it needed a bit of a border.  This quilt was a bit of the inspiration.

amy butler cameo tiny scrap quilt by quiltytherapy

This is what I ended up with once I added some gray and white borders to the blocks.  Then I used that lovely Kona Capri to surround the blocks.  I know, it’s a little out of my comfort zone for a background.

I pieced the backing and binding as well at the retreat.  Quilting wasn’t really on my agenda for that weekend.  So, I wrapped it up on an empty bolt I had.  Genius idea to reuse those bolts. Easy to store my projects and I can have everything for the project together.

Quilting

When it came time to quilt, I went with simple free motion loops.  It was a nice contrast to the triangles and squares.

I love the colors on the back of this quilt.  However, the fabric did not want to cooperate when it came time to baste.  Look at how crooked that is?  UGH.  We will call this a design element.

The quilt is straight, but with that crooked backing it looks lopsided.

Overall it’s bright and fun.  It’s out of my comfort zone but it’s a finished quilt.  This is more of a throw sized quilt so I’m not really counting it in my baby quilt goal.  It measures 53″ x 54″.  Thoughts?

The quilt is currently for sale in my Etsy shop.  You can find some other great quilts looking for new homes over there as well.

So glad I cleaned out the sewing room and found these just sitting there.  It was a great project to just play with and create.  The entire project is scraps and stash fabrics.  Win win.

This is baby quilt 7/40 for my yearlong goal.

Scraps from a cleaning day – quilt inspiration

Cleaning the sewing room can unearth from great finds.  Maybe it’s that lost fabric or a project that you have stuffed away.  Well, while I was cleaning my sewing room in February I found some gems.


My tall table housed a number of projects I had forgotten.  I took the discarded half square triangles from this project and threw them into a baggy.  Apparently I had pulled out the yellow, orange, green, and aqua ones for a quilt that did not happen.  Well, I decided to change that.

found gems in sewing room, sewing scraps

I decided to make 16 patch blocks with the left over half square triangles.  Within the blocks I didn’t want a repeat of color in the row or column.  Each block was laid out before piecing to ensure I could do it.  The blocks were tiny once finished.

found gems in sewing room, sewing scraps

What do to next?

It needed something more to become a quilt.  There were enough blocks to put four of the blocks together to be one larger block.  The effort was made to not have same prints or colors side by side.  There’s one it’s not right, but it’s not an issue.  Design element right?

I took these blocks to the quilt retreat, not sure the entire layout or design.  I grabbed some Kona Capri solid I had in the back room just in case I could use it.  It’s bright and could add an interesting color to this quilt.  Why not?

Check back later this week to see the rest of the process.  I’m curious to know your answer to the question below.

What have you found while cleaning out your sewing space?

My Crazy Sewing Goal for 2018

When I started planning for 2018, I knew immediately what I wanted my word to be.  Confidence, the one area I was really struggling with personally and professionally.

However, writing out my other goals for 2018 haven’t been as easy.  March seems like a good time to share what I’ve been pondering over the last few months.  What could I do this year that would really challenge me and encourage some stash management?

I had been aiming for one baby quilt per week during 2018.  Then life hit and I realized that goal wasn’t realistic.  Funny, I found this post below right about the time I was rethinking the goal.

I fell off the wagon

My new goal is 40 baby quilts in 2018.  Allows some flexibility with life, but more importantly challenges me to use what I have.  Bring on the scraps and stash to make this goal happen.

Also, if you’re drowning in scraps I will gladly take them.  Hint hint.

Gorgeous Grannies made for #5 out of 40.  I have a few more in the works.

2018 sewing goal, 2018 goal, sewing goal