Work on Several Small Projects

    This has been another week of piecing on several smaller projects.  It is always a struggle to control my scraps and UFOs. I pulled one big box of scraps and spent a couple of days ironing, sorting and trimming.  This photo shows some of my progress.  I enjoy working with scraps to create “made-fabric”, and it is goes much faster when the scraps are prepared ahead of time.

     I found a handful of Clemson scraps and made 2 mug rugs for a friend who is a fan.

    Wednesday was quilt day at church.  We talked about finding a quick pattern so we could quickly increase our stash of quilts. I pulled Leah Day’s free pattern for “Twin Rainbow Stars”

and made a few changes.  I increased the size of the blocks ( so it is no longer fat quarter friendly), added a top and bottom row of background fabric to make the quilt a rectangle and added a simple pieced border of rectangles for a lap quilt that finishes at 46” by 56”.  

It took me less than 6 hours to cut and piece one top plus the blocks are already pieced for the second top.

That was a fast and easy lap quilt top. On my tutorial page I will share my directions.

    I have 3 larger quilt tops waiting with their backing to be sandwiched.  I hope to get a couple done today so I can get some quilting done this Labor Day weekend. 

     

Hope you enjoy time sewing or quilting. 

A Finish Plus a QOV Top

     I enjoyed trying many different free-motion motifs on this purple and green curves quilt.

I tried to use a different quilting motif in each pieced area but there are some repeats. 

 

Some were inspired by Angela Walters and others by Christina Cameli. 

    

   I added the Appalachian Mountain block border so one QOV is a finished top.  I could not think of how to do the corners so simply used a square.

    I used a new cutting technique learned from Debbie Caffrey in her Bluprint class “Cut To It: Strategies for Smarter Quilting”.  It saved a lot of time. I stacked units in levels and cut 4 at a time with ease and accuracy. Next time I will try stacking more layers.

     

Hope you enjoy time sewing or quilting.

I'm linking up with Alycia for Finished or Not Finished Friday
 and Sarah for Whoop Whoop Friday.  It is fun and inspiring to see what others are making.

A Small Finish and Other Progress

     This has been a week of work on numerous smaller projects. I finished this top last year and finally got it quilted and bond.  The piecing was inspired by a quilt by Wanda of ExuberantColor blog.   

          

I pulled out all my bright strings and sorted them by length.  Then I sewed strip sets from 5 ½”, 10 ½” or 20 ½” wide.  Next I cut whatever squares or rectangles I could.  I love the design and would like to piece more similar to it.  I don’t have a special child waiting for it so I can hold on to it and enjoy it for now.

    I have not tackled another big UFO but am trying to use up other small odds and ends.  I pulled some orphan blocks from church, appliqued some horses, pieced some simple 4 patches and Mary Ann volunteered to piece this top. 

   I pieced the border on my strips and curves top so it is waiting for quilting.

      One morning I woke early and could not get back to sleep so started sorting some red, white and blue UFOs. This is the mess that was stuffed into 2 bags.

 After sorting, some cutting and piecing, I have 20 scrappy blocks for a quilt.  I pieced another set of 20 simple nine patch blocks into this top.

 I plan a wide pieced border so they will both be a good size for a Quilt of Valor.  

     I uncovered 2 RWB blocks plus extra units that were class samples that finish at the odd size of 13 ½” plus another 5 RWB crumb pieced hexagon blocks.  Someday I will have to piece more or figure out how those can become quilt tops. That just left a small container of RWB scraps. Quite the improvement.

    While the RWB scraps were out, I cut and pieced these 4 blocks for a guild QOV project.

     

Hope you are staying cool if you are in the hot south and enjoy time sewing or quilting.

I'm linking up with Confessions of a Fabric Addict -Whoop Whoop Friday

Strips and Curves

    This week I pieced the center for a top of curved units inspired by Louisa Smith’s book Strips 'n Curves. 

 I created strip units similar to her technique; however, my strips were pulled mostly from scraps of varying widths.  I sprayed with sizing and pressed seams open.  From these I cut as many curve units as I could.

 

I also cut units from solid fabric pieces.  Then I pieced blocks with a strip unit to a solid fabric unit and created blocks with mostly 2 yellow units, yellow and green, 2 greens, green and blue and mostly blue.  I created my own layout from those units. Before I stopped for the day, I stay-stitched 1/8” from the edge all the way around because of all the seams and bias edges.

Next I want to sew some kind of border. I am working on a plan. 

    I pulled 2 orphan paper-pieced blocks and made them into mugrugs one of which has been sent to a friend.  

Hope you take time to enjoy some sewing or quilting.

I'm linking up with Whoop Whoop Friday.  Check out what others are doing.