More exhumations

I tackled another tub of unidentifieds.........

33 blocks left from Sisters Square Dance top (not yet quilted).

Sisters Square Dance

May be enough for a lap quilt?

77 moth blocks from Moth in a Window. Oh dear.  

I made 3 small charity quilts from the leftover blocks that had sashings on as well! All not yet quilted.

 

Kiss in the Corner

Six of these at 12 1/2" square from Kiss in the Corner. plus one crib charity quilt......and ..........

45 of these three patches!  

And stupidly I did not take a picture of the  finished hand quilted Kiss in the Corner before I gave it away! 

I found the strips I had pieced for Bow Ties and put them together today: I only needed 7 of the 10 I made to complete the bed topper at 66 x 84". 

I am happy with it at this size with no borders (it's for ME!).  616 bows and 3, 696 pieces!

But. 

I have enough left to make an even bigger quilt!

Recent excavations have brought my issue into focus, I don't plan properly and end up with too much stuff made!  

Meanwhile, more box kites-

these are so ugly I truly love them, no one else that has seen them does, another one for me!

I also made the decision on the filler triangles for the next leader and ender, Garlic Knots, at the bottom of the picture. I thought I had the perfect fabric, but it was really UGLY when I tried it out!  Then I found this blue and white, enough variation not to be a solid but it has movement.  Because I used white sheeting as the background, whichever way I laid out the blocks there was a glaring  white area in that corner, it needed something. Problem solved.

I am going to shelve this now it has been kitted up and decisions are made and use the bow ties I found as leader-enders with the box kite project, to get the second top put together!

There are going to be so many huge quilts to try and stuff under the tiny space of  my Bernina this winter, I probably wont need to put the heating on  as I will be swamped in them for weeks as I wrestle them through!

Good job I bought two full rolls of batting! 

I am going to count the quilts that have to be machine quilted next week......

Linking for quilterinthecloset.blogspot.co.uk Building blocks Tuesday
and
WIP Wednesday  http://www.freshlypieced.com

A little more alignment

 I am gradually organising the boxes of random stuff that have accumulated. The blue two patches have been sewn as leader-enders into another two dozen 9 patches to join the rest.

 These 3" finished four patches left from Moth in Window have been bagged up and put in the 'potential' category box.

 The backings cupboard is organised. 

The crumb bin was 1/3 full of 2" offcuts from kitting geese and Garlic Knots, so I pieced these into 10 1/2" strips for the Crumb Quilt Project: whilst everything in the bin is the same width, it makes it  an easy job.

 Lots more triangles chain pieced for Box Kite, and some of them pressed

Yesterdays blocks...............

 

 Kitting up the 2" pre cut orange and browns for garlic knots:  I need to make a dent in these  2" squares as they are not moving.  I may add different colours.

 

I am using good quality recycled soft white sheeting for the background, again in an attempt to use up things that are sitting about. Soft, soft, soft!

I made four blocks to play with the arrangement: however I laid it out  there was a big white area, so i found some snipped triangle corners and played-half a flying goose on the long strip (not the final colour for the diamond!) Better.

Odds and ends

Still finding little stashes of random bits-today's find was a bag of blue two patches that must have been left from making  250 nine patches some time ago-I am using them as leader-enders to make nine patches to add to the stack whilst making more box kite blocks. 

I need 99  of these 9" finished blocks to make a quilt with no borders or sashing inserts.

 Today's hoard:

 I have watched all of Bonnie's Quiltcam archives from the last year in recent weeks whilst I have been sewing.  Time to go back to the beginning now!

A boring jobs next: I have to draw diagonal lines on the goosey squares I have been cutting to go with the pinwheel blocks; also lots of sets of box kite triangle pairs to press.

Purging the greens and planning a new learning curve

 I have made 395 green/brown pinwheels for two projects from the pre-cuts.

 There were a lot of two patches and four patches over from The Big Green One. 

 The four patches were dubious, so I made them into 240 six patches, I have a plan for these. 

 I made 347 4 patches from the remaining two patches, with greens that are better matched in each block, to be put by for a future project TBC.

A lot of the two patches have been hand sewn,  I took them on holiday about 5 years ago!  It made for very easy seam spinning of 395 sets.

I used some of the very odd four patches, (here the centre blocks are really brown and yellow!) to make scrappy nine patches to join the pile of over 100 I have already.

Thirty seven of these made, you can't really tell they contain a green/neutral four patch.







I have  chain sewn sets of triangles  for Box Kite, to be pressed:  I  made 14  blocks so far.  I really like this block. The top centre one doesn't fit with the others as the blue is too pale. There will be enough for at least two quilts, so I can sort them into tone block types when they are all done.

I also did a few Perkiomen Daydreams blocks.  I will be pressing the ones I have to check the accuracy (it's difficult to determine without a press as they finish at 1"). If I am not happy  I will abandon this project. I can't work out why my pinwheel accuracy is almost always spot on, but simple squares seem wonky.  This is Bonnie's  block and its perfect! 





I have been investigating one block wonder quilts. They are not a difficult to construct as I thought, helpful videos found on Youtube.    Bruce Seeds's Flickr page shows some informative pictures about fabric choices.



I found these in my stash, good quality fabrics bought at silly sale prices as backing.










I also bought  several metres in the sale from Lady Sew and Sew ( UK), one of my favorite online shops, of this Makower fabric that I think will do well, lots of colour and shape variation. Don't know about the size of the print yet, as it hasn't arrived!

I stashed some ideas on my Pinterest page too.

Green from spinning

MORE pinwheels

See this 80 litre bin? About 5 years ago I had a cutting frenzy and ended up with thousands of hst's finishing at 3" that I have barely used.

There seemed to be more green  than anything else, hence the green/brown pinwheels.

I am zoning out on green, I needed a change of colour for a bit. 

I kitted up hundreds of box kite sets whilst watching TV and barely made an impact on the bin!

These make up fast, finishing at 9" I haven't  made  a block this big for ages, seems enormous!  I tried two to see which way the light/dark triangles should go. Sixteen  triangles used in one block, ideal. I have tried to pick out a lot of the uglies, so this will be a darker, more masculine looking project, definitely NO acid brights.

Blocks look better with light on the outside. The centres probably won't be and exact match with the outside triangles as the scrap bin contains cuts of 3 1/2" squares cut at least 2 years later (I didn't start the scrap users system at the same time as I cut the triangles). 

The danger is I will spent too long finding the 'perfect' centre square match for each block!

I have also kitted up for the 1 1/2" finished  goose components  to go with the green pinwheels. 

There will be a  flying goose border too- the quilt will be about 100" square, thats a lot of geese. They will probably end up being a leader-ender project when it comes to the border. A serendipitous find last week on line in  the sale: there really will be geese in the crops!

I  found these scrappy strips sets left over from 'Dancing Sisters'- no point in leaving them languishing, I cut them down to goose components, 2" X 3 1/2". Sorting them into identical sets of four was a pain, but at leas the fabric is being used up now. The  crumb bin is refilling!

Sorting through the stash, I need to cut more green/brown goose components, I have mostly pulled fabric with a directional element in for these.

Time for bed I think

~(;@?

Linking for Building Blocks Tuesday
and
WIP WEDNESDAY 

Green flashes

Some of the brown and green triangles left from The Big Green One

 that I have been chain piecing, now pressed.............

............... and sorted into sets of four: the sets are also going round the block on the machine table!

Now chain piecing the pinwheels.There is a mess of clipped dog ears on the floor!

I had four patches left too-now made into 72 sets 16 patches .  I will be making two quilts using the pinwheels. The ugly greens in this one need a zing, I'm thinking of setting these 'dancing' with red. It will make up a second quilt to go on the back of The Big Green One-should make for interesting free motion quilting!

The Big Green One, minus border