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.
Time to refresh my scraps and maybe mix them up a bit. The scrap bin is overflowing. Anyone up for a scrap swap?
Have you ever been stuck when it comes to naming something? Over the last few weeks, giving this quilt the best name has evaded me. Thank you to my wonderful Facebook followers for some suggestions. One suggestion was sea glass. I added the sparkling since the background fabric is silver metallic dots on white. Plus, it truly sparkled in this picture.
Background
Shout out to Nicole at Modern Handcraft for sharing her scraps from the IMQG retreat this winter. While I’m not sure what project the blue scraps are from, but there was enough to spark an idea. She had these castoff triangles that I wanted to pair with the same background fabric all over.
I was able to pick up the white with metallic silver dots, the metallic silver crosshatch, yellow and orange solids also at the retreat. The blues needed something else to complete the look. So why use the yellow and orange solid too.
The triangles were trimmed to three inches.
Time to chop up the dots for background fabric.
Conveniently, I had a sew day planned for race day here in Indy. Hubby rode out to the Indy 500 and P was away at the lake. Look how cute these trimmings are.
I had everything cut out before the race. Did you know in Central Indiana the race is blacked out for the live broadcast? We can watch a taped version usually around 6pm after the race. It’s been this way my entire life. Growing up we listened on the radio to the race every year. So I turned on P’s Lighting McQueen radio to listen to sew.
During the race I was able to get all the triangles pieced and another quilt top started. Now it was time to trim and sort.
Some of the colors were so close together, it was hard to tell. Piecing the rows went smoothly. The piecing was done with the random method I have done before. It can be challenging to not overthink this part of the process
Beautiful rows were sewn together and a top was suddenly finished. Take a look at this picture? I think it’s stunning.
Quilting
The backing is a Robert Kaufman light gray crosshatch on white. I kept the quilting simple with straight lines on the rows. However, my machine decided to be a royal pain in the ass. It was just in for service and I’m dealing with this crap?? UGH! The stitching was ripped out multiple times.
Finally something worked and this quilt got finished. I was able to photograph as the sun started to set, giving this warm glow.
My favorite detail in this quilt is in the binding. I ran out of the silver metallic crosshatch with three inches to go. Scraps of the blue solids were added to make up the length. It’s the perfect touch on this quilt.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
Spring should be in the air, instead there is a prediction of snow for Indianapolis on April 1st. It’s not an April Fool’s Day prank. Seems to be unfortunate. It’s also a good time to write and share what is coming up on the blog. Also my main machine is spending some time at the spa. The tension has been off for a while and I was over dealing with it.
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This will be a special project that I have been wanting to do for years. My wonderfully talent hair stylist kept her dad’s ties after his death. The collection is large and they roll up nicely into a tub. Various patterns and colors tell a story of her dad’s collection.
The tie pillow I made a few years ago inspired our discussion.
She was finally ready to create something from these. Over the last couple of months I have been taking apart ties. Any guess what quilt pattern I’m going to be using with these?
I’m turning to my favorite book, Paper Pieced Modern by Amy Garro. Tied Down quilt is beautiful and will showcase these ties in a lovely manner. The background fabric will be a chambray or linen. A shirting fabric will be soft and round out the look.
