Red First

 

While waiting for the orange fabric to arrive, I had time to make more slabs, so I decided to go through the bins and bring out Red fabric pieces.

Before I could make slabs, I had to sort and press the pieces.

Then I sewed the pieces into pairs.

Then I was able to cut the slabs into triangles.

I was able to cut over 90 red triangles. I didn't get through ALL the red fabric, but that's OK. I can do this kind of work any time.

I have a LOT of fabric to sort through, and it will take a while, so I will work on it in "little bites."

What's really nice is that I have a big collection of scrap slab triangles from which I can pull when I want to make the next scrap slab triangle quilt. And there will be at least one other. The average scrap slab triangle quilt needs 120 triangles. As you can see in the photo above, I have enough for at least three quilts already.

This That and the Other

 According to the Washington Post, you area a super reader if you read over 50 books in a single year. have beat that number by a significant margin for the last four or five years.

Last year, my Kindle helpfully told me I had read 99 books. What was annoying about that was that it told me that very late in the day on New Year's Eve so I did not have enough time to make the number an even 100.

So that's my goal for 2025.

Well, since I always have a book going it looks like I am going to crush that number. As of yesterday I had read 27, At that rate I will get to 100 before the end of June. (No, I do not speed read.)

 

So I dug out a jigsaw puzzle. 

I have been retired just short of six months, and in that time I have made eleven quilt tops. That used to be my average output for a year. So yeah, I have to find something else to do!

Now, I've told you that I am going to make an orange quilt. I am waiting for fabric, so until then, I have dug through the big scrap bins and pulled out the green bits and started to make slabs.

I've decided that the only way to work my way through those bins is to make slabs, and then cut triangles from them, so I have decided to work my way through all the bins in this way. 

I've cut 80 green triangles.

Now, in order to keep myself from going crazy, I'm just going to go through the bins and grab some of whatever color I choose, and then make scrap slab triangles. I can make lots of quilts with the triangles. So I'm going to make the triangles, and then store them for whenever. I still have lots of green fabrics, but I also have lots of other colors.

Here is where I am on the jigsaw puzzle.

The orange fabrics arrive on Tuesday, and will have to go through the washer and dryer before I can work with them, so I have a few days to make more slabs. (And read and work on the puzzle.)

Orange

 

I'm wrestling with the idea of Christmas colored scrap slab triangle quilt. Mostly I'm stuck with how to make it colorful and yet balance the colors, so I've set the idea aside for now.

 I went through one of my big scrap bins and pulled out all the orange fabric.

I ironed my fabrics and paired them up.

Then I cut them up into Scrap Slab Triangles. It's amazing how quickly I made forty of these.

I've made a dozen Scrap Slab Triangle Quilts, and I know there are more to come. If you want to make one, you can get my tutorial here.

Right Church, Wrong Pew

 

This is the layout with the brown triangles and black on white side triangles. I stepped back and looked...

WHAT was I thinking? CLEARLYthe black on white side triangles were just plain WRONG! I had my box of leftover side triangles out, so I was not looking (or thinking) properly. It was apparent the side triangles needed to be CREAM or BEIGE...

Sigh. 

Back to the cutting table.

I had even bought a large selection of creams and beiges for just this purpose back in November. Must have had a lot on my mind. (ya think?)

This is SO CLEARLY so much better. Just goes to show you...

"No matter how far you've gone down the wrong road, turn back!"

I will start sewing this together!

This is a Scrap Slab Triangle Quilt, and is mostly made from scraps. If you would like to make one, you can get my tutorial here, at my Etsy shop.

PS, My California family is not near the areas burning in LA right now, although some of the places we have visited have been affected.

BRRRR.... Brown!

I am working on sewing the binding of the first Nightingale quilt, but I have to do that during the day, because as I get older it's harder to see hand sewing black fabric with black thread. I needed to be thinking about what I would do next.

Sitting in my studio looking at my stash and the big bins full of scraps, I thought, "What have I been neglecting? What have I been avoiding?" The answer was Brown. It isn't my favorite color, but sometimes  it's a good thing to get out of your comfort zone.

So I gathered up my brown fabrics from the scrap bins and the leftover stuff from the big pins and piled it all on my worktable.

Then I ironed it all.

Then I paired it all up, before I started to cut triangles.

.

I found some fat quarters of Charley Harper fabrics and included that in my slabs. I loved this little cat!

Here are seventy triangles. I don't know what I will do with them yet, but cutting these triangles is a good way to reduce the stuff in the scrap bins.

Harlequin Scrap Slab Flimsy Complete

I've been sewing the blocks together for the new black Scrap Slab Triangle quilt, and I am really happy with it.

I'm not quite sure why I've been pressing seams open.

After I sewed the blocks together, and completed the flimsy, I stuck it up on the design wall and decided it needed a light border.

So I added one. I tried to make sure the assortment of fabrics I chose were not too strong, and seemed to blend into each other.

This will probably have a black binding. I don't have a backing fabric selected yet, but I am in no hurry.

That's it for me as far as quilts for this year. I have to get the backing ready for three flimsies (including this one) and I have two quilts away being quilted which I am scheduled to pick up late next week. The bindings are ready for those. Given the Holiday coming up I might get one finished by the end of the year.

I'll be blogging intermittently. Take care, stay warm (or cool) and safe.

 

A New Scrap Slab Quilt

 I've been sewing up the leftover pieces from the Nightingale quilts and making slabs out of them, then cutting triangles. I decided to make another one with the black triangles. The last black one I made (Black Abacus) my mother liked it so much she asked for it. I had wanted to keep that one, so now I will make myself one.

I've made eleven Scrap Slab Triangle Quilts and no two of them are alike. But I've never made one like this, that arranges the triangles into diamonds like a Harlequin design. So that's my plan.

Normally I try to separate triangles that look alike, but for this quilt, I decided to put them together, like this:

So if you look closely at the photo of all the diamonds on the design wall, you can see that I combined two triangles into diamonds that look like they were made that way - I have some orange ones, some green ones and at least one blue one.

I didn't get all worked up about it, but wherever I could, I made sure the diamonds looked like they were conceived that way.

It also meant that when I got something like this, above, with a big chunk of color at one end (that would "leak" out into the light background and not "read" as a dark triangle),

that I fixed it.

When I started adding the side triangles, I originally used side triangles that had some color in them, but that didn't really sing for me.

So I just decided to use black on white fabrics. Here I have sewn up four blocks, and I really really like this a lot.

I am sewing the blocks together. 

Oh, I finished that jigsaw puzzle.

This is a Scrap Slab Triangle Quilt. It is a GREAT way to use up your scraps. If you want to make one, you can get my tutorial here, at my Etsy shop.

Peonies Goes Home

Have you ever met someone and had an instant connection? That's what happened when I met my friend L, above. L is from Uganda and I can fully understand her about 85% of the time, but we still manage to communicate very well.

I knew I'd make her a quilt, but we were both so busy it took a while for us to actually get together and talk about it.

We started talking about her colors and I grabbed a piece of paper. "Let me write this down so I don't forget," I told her.

Imagine my surprise as she listed the colors she liked. They were the colors of the triangles that were already on my design wall. 

"That was providential," I thought to myself. When I told L about it when she picked up her quilt, she was not surprised at all. "Yes," she said."that is God. That is Love."

Which is no surprise to any of us that make quilts for others.

This is a Scrap Slab Triangle quilt. If you want to make one you can get my tutorial here at my Etsy shop. It's an instant download so you can get started right away.

You can see all eleven of the Scrap Slab Triangle quilts I have made here.

Oh Olympics!

 

I have been watching the Olympics. I mean, I've been stuck on the couch! 

SURE, I loved watching Simone Biles, anybody on a horse, Stephen Nedoroscik (pommel horse guy), the pole vault (did you see???) the tennis between Carlos Alcatraz and Novak Djokovic, the shot put, the water polo, OMG... the 100 meter dash!!

But after like the third day, I knew I had to get off the couch, so I headed into the studio, grabbed the stack of blue scraps on the work table, and started sewing slabs. I ended up cutting forty scrap slab triangles, and I only stopped because I got a blister on my index finger.

My son and granddaughter will be here in less than 48 hours, so if I'm not blogging, you'll know why.

Yellow Scrap Slap Triangles

 

While I listened to the Men's final at Wimbledon (courtesy Radio Wimbledon)*, I made more slabs and cut more yellow scrap slab triangles.

Now I have 90. Since each quilt needs 120, I think I will keep going. I have sorted out the yellow bins and got rid of the stuff that is too small or stuff I can't stand to look at or work with.

This is what I have left. I'll make these into slabs and cut them up into triangles in the next few days. 

I've updated the Scrap Slab Triangle Quilts page. It now shows all the quilts I have made using this technique.

* by the way, now that Roger Federer has retired, Carlos Alcatraz is now my favorite tennis player. He won his second Wimbledon title, and now at the ripe old age of 21, has won three major titles.

Oops!

 

Oops. 

Can't have that!

That's better. 

The blocks are all sewn into rows, and now I am sewing the rows together. The top six rows have been sewn together in the photo above. The flimsy ought to be done by the end of the weekend. 

Peonies

I decided that I was going to put the green blocks on the design wall, and then decide where the pink "flowers" were going to go.

Something told me I needed some darker green blocks, so I made some. Originally I conceived of the darker greens as kind of leaves right next to the pink, but that would have drawn too much attention, and I thought it looked a little weird. But then I made it a flower and I knew I had the answer.

I put all the green triangles up on the design wall, and just to make it easier, I set them the base of the triangle down, but then realized that if I wanted the lighter green blocks to look like leaves I should arrange them pointed side down. At this stage I knew I liked the dark green "Flowers."

Here I have arranged the light green triangles pointing down, and then rearranged the flower blocks. Now I like where those are, but the placement of the blocks may change so I can more evenly distribute the prints and fabrics around the quilt. I may or may not leave the light green triangles pointing down. 

Since there are pink peonies blooming in my garden, I have given this quilt the working title of Peonies.

This is a scrap slab triangle quilt. This is the 12th one I have made, and they are all different. If you would like to make one, you can get my tutorial here, at my Etsy shop.