Decluttering and mending

I started another ten stitch blanket this week for Project Linus UK (well, 20 really-it grows quicker!)

I have a lot of random green yarn scraps, they may as well go to make someone warm rather than be binned. It will be my YouTube  watching project for cold winter nights. 

Sewing this week has been clothing repairs and a few 3" finished leader-ender broken dishes blocks...

...and a LOT of draw cleaning and reorganisation! I have five empty drawers now that I must not fill up with NEW projects! 

I found lots of  half made four patches left over from Perkiomen Daydreams-this was intended to be a large quilt, however I wasn't happy with the accuracy, so it ended up as a cot size flimsy. 

I need to find something to do with several hundred navy four patches that finish at 2". 

Postage Stamps

A while ago I decided that my original piecing for Perkiomen Daydreams was not good enough to continue with for a large quilt: I sewed up completed blocks into a cot size.

I may try one of these in a different colour set in the future.

So, I needed work on my piecing accuracy. It's not bad generally, but with 1" finished pieces the 1/16" and 1/23" errors quickly add up.  I had cut lots of 1 1/2" strips from all the ugly fabric I came across, but was not using it. I spent several hours running strip sets through the machine this week and have cut and stitched the strip sets in batches.

The pieced strips are 105" long.  I have played with the assembly, four, eight, six and random patches so it doesn't look too uniform. 

I am keeping back two of each symmetrical four patch I make for future projects, as I would never cut this much variety for one or two quilts.

I am working on 25 patches now to use up part Perkiomen rejects.  

All of the uglies have gone in here! 

Just about had enough of this fix now, it will go away for a bit as I have two large tops to quilt. My accuracy has definitely improved in the last week working on this. 

3,465 of  11,025 1" finished squares in the completed strips so far, with partials done as well. Almost 1/3 done!

Linking for Move it forward Monday
and Oh Scrap!

Roundup without curves

I have been working on hexies for the last month. Piccies later. 

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I gave up on Perkiomen Daydreams as I wasn't happy with my accuracy on earlier blocks. I have pieced the finished  blocks into a cot sized flimsy, as cot sized people are no the quilt police! I will quilt this when I need a baby quilt in a hurry. 

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I have started another postage stamp quilt, from the 1 1/2"  bin. I am not using this size, so I sewed some strip sets together and will sub-cut a few at a time- blocks of colour when I need a quick fix. Teenny bits help me with my accuracy. 

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I have done a few of these flying geese strips, from 2" scraps in sets 1-8, again, to work on my accuracy. They will probably make a scrappy border for something. 

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These two charity quilts are pinned and ready for quilting, all orphan blocks. I have several filmsies of the moth blocks in this size, I am practicing with the fancy stitches on my Bernina before I quilt the king size version! 

This one is part quilted. 

Much more to do to shape the moths.

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A charity quilt finish today, about 1m square.

This one was frugal:

• Backing was a new gifted polycotton duvet cover
• Many shirts were harmed in the making of the blocks
• All the thread was gifted polyester from my dressmaker mum's stash
• The stripy border was a charity shop cotton duvet cover
• The white border is recycled cotton sheeting
• The scrappy binding is made from off-cuts from previous quilt backings 

=happy!

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.

Discoveries and Excess

A couple of months ago I finished the top (no borders yet!) for 'The Big Green One'. It took ages as I was never in love with the colours and kept putting it aside.  It will look OK with a red border, I have decided. 

 Leftovers: lots of triangles.  Lots. So I am making up some pinwheels and for x four patches, using my seam guide on this machine for the first time. Accuracy much better!

. I still need to mindlessly sew to de-stress, so this fits the bill for now. Pinwheels will finish at 6". 

I have a design in my head-for this I need geese. I have to work on the accuracy, this practice strip with randoms from the stash bin is 1/4" plus longer on one side, so it must be about my piecing.   I will try some more today to get it right.

Liking these colours. 

I have done a few Perkiomen Daydreams leader-ender blocks-hoping the seam guide improves my accuracy here to. 

I found a random bin that I had stuffed things into-these were another attempt to use up all my strings-scrappy meandering braids.

 Yards and yards!

I found a pattern on pinterest that I can use them for

Genius!

 

 

But- no!  I found some more strings too, just when I thought I had cracked it and used every last one up!!

I also rediscovered these blocks- they only need laying out and putting together-a job for the next wet weekend.

One of Bonnie's patterns-she had been keeping me company on Quiltcam archive.

Dedicated space.

Yipppppeeee!  I now have a dedicated sewing room, though in true quilter fashion, its too small, even though it's the biggest bedroom in the house!  In the reorganisation, I found lots of orphan blocks that I have sewn up for Linus, just to get them out of the way.   Now I'm webbing a double, that was ready to go, Dancing Sisters Choice. 

Sisters Choice blocks, this will be a gift.

 

Orphan red moth in a window blocks, with orphan four patch centre strip-all of this was either assembled or pre-cut. Easy!  I just had to cut an outer border.

 

 

Mauve moth blocks, with pre-sewn mini moth centre, border was all that needed cutting.

 There are another three moth Linus quilt tops assembled, in various colours.

Four orphan spiderweb blocks: I tried out the seagull background fabric and it didn't pop enough. I like the juxtaposition of the seagulls with their distant dinosaur relatives on the inner border. Outer blue border was leftover from another project.

Orphan twisted nine patch blocks, Linus size!

I now have seven tops ready to be quilted for Linus. 

I have a few of these done, about 40 of 400 or so, for Perkiomen daydreams. I am really trying to do this as a Leader-Ender project.

So far, so good...

A few quick pics, I want to keep up the momentum!

Quick pictorial update from my mobile

I have done a lot of hand sewing in the last few weeks.......a whole pile of random hexie units completed

and about 20 more sewn into strip sets ready to go (yes, it's organised!).

I cut more hexies as I needed some for the rainbow hexie, one large section complete now......

 More strips ready to go.... (excuse the bare feet!)

The bins were refilled, much cutting (I did a fabric swap with a Bookcrosser friend): this is the random bin...........

Hundreds more sewn up already

This weekend I looked at all the offcuts from the hexie cutting and decided as they were all the same size they should be sewn into strips NOW for the next crumb quilt-it took about 7 hours but at least it's manageable this way, crumbs from one cutting project are the same size-last time I had a giant unmanageable bin of mixed sizes.  I like the fact that every piece is angled.

I had cut more strips for the new leader-ender project, Bonnie's Perkiomen Daydreams; I sewed these into pairs today, that took a couple of hours.  A few weeks of pressing and cutting ahead into 1 1/2" pair units. 

I tried a few out to see how bulky the seams would be on 1" finished patches-seams OK!

I have almost finished the bow ties!  There will be about 1200. This was supposed to be a leader-ender project but it didn't work out that way.  Last few pairs waiting to go......

I sewed the badly cut hexies into units of the right size, these will go into the random hexie bin.  It's going to be fun finding these in the finished quilt. I tried for contrast.

I am all nine-patched out!  I think I have enough for a double with some sashing now; I haven't decided on the setting yet.  I have hundreds more 2" squares cut, its hardly touched the surface. 

 .

All the black and white nine patches are complete for 'Morphie'.  I need to decide on the next block pattern and cut more black and whites, triangles this time.   No planning, this is a decide as I go project.

As this little project will NEVER get done at home, I have taken the 1/2" diamonds to work to do in my lunch break. All the chaps I work with have asked with varying levels of puzzlement, 'What....': they haven't seen paper piecing before.  When I explain it will take about 10 years and need 14,000 pieces they just shake their heads!

This weeks read

Chosen from Mount 'To Be Read' because of 'A Good Read' on Radio 4 this week.