Please excuse my dog ears

A weekend of pressing...some time ago I stitched hundreds of HSTs for charity quilts from all sorts of fabrics (probably about a year ago!).  I will use these as leader-ender patches whilst sewing on other things. So many dog ears to clean up! 

I put the borders on my granddaughters first quilt, made from orphan moth in a window blocks. That backing is soooo cute! It was on sale, I ordered 5 metres but they only had two and a half in stock 😕

I started cutting all the string blocks to size for crumb quilt strips.  I am saving 3 1/2" strips for a scrappy border for some UFO or other! 

Sewing this weekend was Allietare blocks from Bonnies mystery a while ago. All the component bocks are made for this quilt, so it's only the  large block assembly that's needed. My daughter in law may claim this one. 

Last night I finished the binding for a Linus quilt made from orphan blocks. 

Definitely a girl quilt!

Project Linus

Another Linus finish. 

Not the best picture, the colours are brighter in real life! 

These orphan blocks have been languishing for over 10 years, they were a first try for background fabric. I felt the seagull fabric was too busy and too dark for a big quilt. 

I recently had a sort through and decided they had to be used or go, so now they will cheer up a poorly child, hopefully. 

I like the seagulls and their dinosaur relatives in juxtaposition. 

The border blues came from my scrap users system stash, the binding is scrappy. 

It was quilted with gifted polyester thread. 

Linus finish 2 this week

• Orphan blocks from trimmed crumb strips
• bargain backing with fun insects
• various odd strips for sashing and borders
• Green cotton free motion quitting on the front, shiny blue poly on the back
• pieced batting

This week

 

 I have been ironing the stash of strips and strings that were sewing up in three batches over the last year. That's a 64 litre bin under that pile! I have another refuse sack full, probably about the same.

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 These are  ironed, only the trimming to do.....

I am cutting some as standard 4" for a scrappy piano key border

The rest are various widths. I think there will be enough for at least four king sized quilts, with yards of piano key border!

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I have decided to use the 1 1/2 " finished leader ender triangles to make Bonnie's Ocean Waves 

Some way to go!  

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A little more of the 1 " postage stamp quilt ...... I am saving two of every set, for a future project.

 

This is about 1/3 complete

Eclipse II

Another UFO done. This flimsy has been on the shelf for 10 years!!!

Applique detail:

• 10 year old flimsy from strings and crumbs
• pieced onto calico making it heavy (novice error) 
• 66 x 110"
• backing from economy buys in deep stash
• Mickey Mouse cotton duvet cover pre-made binding. 
• gifted pale orange and pale blue wavy line quilting on the front, dark cream polycore on the back. 
• appliqued motifs to cover split seams!
• heavily quilted to stabilise  the many seams as sits so heavy! 
• poly batting
• this will probably be a gift. 

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I did a little more on the postage stamp quilt

 

 

Lots of reading this week. I finished the 1250 pages of 

I needed something lighter, so it was quilty chick-lit on my Kindle!

Now I am onto something more complex from a favourite author

Use it or bin it!

I had a sort out: dozens of batting trimmings and shirt pieces that weren't getting used had to go, but how can I part with it?!

The grandpup needs a blankie when he visits, so I pieced the batting into two cot sized sheets and appliqued the shirt parts onto them using a dense zig-zag. I have not used this function on my machine before so it gave me a chance to experiment with the density, neatness didn't matter too much for a dog bed! 

Back and front of both pieces:all the scraps, uglies and ends of poly thread used. 

 

 

 I will be sandwiching these two together and practicing McTavishing. Archie won't mind if it looks hideous and the quilting is dubious, he just loves his comfort.

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This week I quilted Eclipse #2, it has been pinned and waiting for a couple of weeks. It has been on the shelf for over 10 years waiting!!!

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Yesterday I finished the binding on this cot quilt that I did a month ago. You may think that the colours are a little dull for a baby quilt, but the blocks were orphans from Noah's mum and dads wedding quilt. Noah was I year old last week, so its a late birthday gift. 

• deep stash backing and borders 
• orphan blocks 
• quilted in the ditch in cream, then top stitched in variegated brown
• gifted grey polyester thread on the back
• border quilted randomly with circular eyelet function on my Bernina and stitched in the ditch

The double was hand quilted, I forgot to take a picture  of it finished before I gifted it! 

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Today this cot quilt is done: I started using the bow ties I had sewn together incorrectly for this double flimsy, then added a few more........

• orphan blocks sewn together wrong!
• border fabrics bought recently for charity quilts
• deep stash backing
•  scrappy binding from backing trimmings 
• Quilted in orange cotton on the back, Gutermann variegated green on the front, in a false jigsaw pattern. 
• borders stitched in the ditch

This will need washing as I manged to bleed on the white border and Archie visited unexpectedly and put muddy paw prints on it whilst I was layering it!

I also did a few more strips for the postage stamp quilt.

Eclipse

• Eclipse is finished, 6' x 7'.
• crumb quilt that has been waiting for 5 years to be quilted!
• four different backings from the stash
• binding is a Micky Mouse cotton duvet cover 
• seven motifs hand appliqued, all from one fabric (useful!). Two of them were to cover poor seams, I had to add more to balance the design out. 
• wavy line quilted to stablise all those seams  with 0.33 miles of scrap threads in cotton and polyester. 
• batting is a 1/16" loft Hobbs polyester, bought in a sale

Hours of peaceful binding in the garden 

Linking for
 Move it Forward Monday
Oh Scrap!

Full speed ahead

I have spent the day at full speed, layering and quilting a 6' x 7' flimsy that has been on the shelf for 5 years.

The flimsy is made from crumbs and needed lots of quilting to keep it stable. 

All those seams!  This one is going to have to come with a warranty. I have spotted two places that gape whilst quilting, I have an idea for applique repair  that I can sneakily add and name the quilt to make it look as if it's on purpose.

I used a low loft Hobbs batting that I got in a sale. It is still really heavy!

My nerdy side came out: how many stitches, how much thread in the quilting?

An estimate: 

1.  7' x 6'flimsy
2. quilted 125 rows along the 6' length
3. approximately 11 stitches to 1"
4. 6 x 12=72" 
5. 72" x 11= 792 stitches per row
6. 792st. x 125 rows =99,000 total. 
7. As the rows are not straight add 15%=113,850 stitches
8. 113,850 stitches /11=10,350inches of quilting.
9. That is approximately 0.163 miles/0.26 km of sewing
10. Thread: loft of wadding is 1/16" so for each stitch add 1/16" ; 113,850 stitches x 1/16" =7,115  sixteenths of an inch= 444"
11. top and bottom thread total : (2x 10,350 ") to 444" =21,144" of thread
12.  0.333 miles or 0.54 km of thread. 

I think....................that's a lot of gifted polyester and odd reels of cotton used up!

1/3

About 1/3 of the small flimsies for donation are quilted, eight.  I had a roundup and cut backing for the rest, they need to be gone!

Too many orphan blocks! 

Still to do: 

 Five larger ones here ready to go, for Linus.

And nine flimsiness here for Portage and Linus -there are another two 'moth in a window' flimsies to practice on in this pile. 

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There are three small quilts in progress, quilting/binding stage. 

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One crumb quilt double to be layered, that needs to be done in the next couple of months. Lots of quilting needed to secure all thise seams. I will  be able to use up reels of gifted polyester thread on this. 

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Two finishes, both about 1m square

• Broccoli backing  and green border from deep stash
• orphan blocks
• scrappy binding from backing off-cuts
• FMQ practice: variegated pastel orange and green on the front, cream polyester on the back (that was brave!)
• borders quilted in the ditch

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• broken dishes blocks
• FMQ quilting in cream  polyester front and back
• scrappy binding from backing trimmings
• Border from backing trimmings

Cat-napping

It seems the word went round the neighbourhood that I no longer have a resident quilt inspector. The vacancy has been filled: he does have a home (somewhere), but obviously no duties there. Every time the door is open, he is in! So much for ironing the backing and patches!  Encourage him? Noooo, 'course not!

Testing my lap for comfort too-my last cat didn't do this in 17 years so I made the most of it! 

 He is a bit gorgeous, is genuinely pleased to see me and had a marvelous purr. I am clearly not properly trained yet as I don't act like his real servants at home, he tries to tell me what he wants but I don't understand!

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 Allietare four patches have been waiting since December to be sewn, so I cut the strips that had been hanging over the door for three months and got on with it. 

Then I cut the next stage. The patches were not meeting at the points properly when I sewed a few. (:@{

I had leftovers of the 2" strips, rather than add them boxes, as I had cut a few as goose blocks (too small) I trimmed all the leftovers down for the mini broken dish blocks and goose centres for future use. 

 

Then I sewed a few goose blocks to work out where the accuracy was failing by two whiskers on Allietare blocks. 

I think I have worked it out now, after much goose beheading and broken wings. 

Next update will tell!   

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I have sewn up trimmings from other things to 10 1/2" strips as I go for the crumb quilt, to keep the piles down.

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I am wading my way through ironing several hundred pinwheel and broken dishes blocks, sitting on the floor in front of the TV with the mini board and iron on my lap, on top of a cushion!

These will take a couple of days. 

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I was feeling stressed yesterday morning so sat down to push a few random mini triangles through the machine, it did the trick.  I am thinking these could make Ocean Waves

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We have Storm Katie hitting the south of England today, roof felt/fence panel lifting winds. I will venture a short walk, then it's back to sewing related occupational therapy for me  and finishing this...

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Happy Easter!