A Quarter

 

Here is the top left quarter of the quilt, all sewn together.

Here is the finished quarter next to the rest of it. I like this a lot.

This is a scrap slab triangle quilt. You can get my tutorial here, at my Etsy shop,

Scrap Clean Up

I've made over 50 purple scrappy triangles and it's time to move on to a different color. I decided to  make scrappy triangles using the scraps that are left on my worktable. What the heck, you have to make life a little interesting! So I sorted the fabrics on the table by color.  I've also cleaned up the rest of the studio a bit so I don't feel so bad working in there.

It was really hot today. It was 80 degrees at 9 in the morning. I worked in the rock garden right outside my kitchen window for an hour. One of the plants that is doing surprisingly well are the garlic chives. They grow anywhere, are tall and have pretty white flowers. I'm going to add more!

A Big Mess, A Terrific Result

When I went into the studio yesterday, I did not expect to make such a big mess.

I went into the studio because I wanted to do something easy. I decided to make some slabs, but as I sorted through the fabric in my little scrap bins I came across some of the leftover giant diamonds from the Diamond quilts I have been making. I have so many of them. I wondered if I could use them together, so I set my scrap slabs aside and gathered up the big diamonds and started arranging them on the design wall.

I wasn't quite sure, so I moved them around again.

Nothing about this layout appealed to me.

So I moved things around again.

After about four hours, I had this, and I was liking where this was heading. I had hoped to NOT cut new diamonds, but it quickly became apparent that wasn't going to happen, so I started digging through my stash for more large prints. (In the end I cut 27 more large diamonds. Each fabric is represented once.)

I worked all afternoon and into the evening. I knew I needed to resolve the top (it had to have a row of darker diamonds up there so the design didn't just float off the top edge).

Finally I got to the point where I couldn't see it any more and needed another set of eyes. I texted my pal Julie and we agreed to talk on the phone after we each had dinner.

Eight more changes later, we had this, and we are both happy. Julie suggested the name, Splendid, and I think it is.

So how long did this take from start to finish? I started at 12:10 in the afternoon, and we made the final change at 8:46 PM. In the meantime I made a batch of granola and made and ate my dinner.

I'll clean the studio tomorrow, then I'll start sewing the pieces together.


Remember you can click, then double click the photos again to enlarge the photos to see all the details.

Fruit Loops, Quilted

The first scrap slab triangle quilt, Fruit Loops, has been quilted. I love the zig zag quilting! It's so much fun. I'll be finishing this up over the next few days. I know I'll have fun taking this out for beauty shots given the colors are very spring-like.

Triangle Dancing

This is a great shot of the quilting on the Triangle Dance quilt.

 I used four different fabrics with black backgrounds for the back of this quilt, and when I cut down the excess backing, I used some of that for the binding, along with something else from my stash.

It isn't all sewn down here, it's just pinned. This way I can pick it up when I "watch" TV and get the bindings sewn on both Triangle quilts over the next few nights.

Yes, I sew my bindings down on the FRONT of my quilts.

I started with the black one because the bright light of daytime makes it easier to see.

Triangles!

What's better than getting one quilt back from the longarm quilter?

Getting TWO.

This is Triangle Dance, on the left, and Triangle Twirl, on the right. I'll be giving one to each of my brothers, and don't these two look like different people sitting there?

Triangle Twirl looked like it needed a light binding, so I dug through my scraps and put together a mixture of three fabrics, made and attached the binding. Now it just needs to be sewn down.

This quilt is 55 x 70" (140 x 178 cm).

Spools

My pal Julie had made a really cool spools quilt a year or so ago and I thought it would be a good way to use up the mashed potato cream fabrics I had left over.

Scrappy Gizzy Quilt

The first of the scrappy "Gizzy" quilts is finished. I really like the black-and-white binding.

 You can check out Chris's lovely quilting in this shot.

There's nothing like a scrappy quilt.

Decisions, Decisions....

This is one of the scrappy Gizzy Quilts that just came back from being quilted by Chris.  I had to choose the binding fabric, so I asked Millie to give me a hand. Here were the final selections:

Option 1, a multi colored stripe.  (The dark batik in the foreground is the backing fabric.)

Option 2, a white with black stripes.

Option 3, a black and white zebra print.

As you can see, Millie took her job very seriously.  You can see how her own lovely black and white coloring informed my choices. It was very clear the binding simply HAD to be one of the black and whites.

In the end, Millie and I decided on the zebra print. I trimmed the quilt and made the binding. I'll be attaching it to the quilt in the next couple of days.

Christmas in July

Not one, not two, but THREE quilts arrived at my house yesterday from Chris, who does all the quilting on my quilts.

The quilts are Red Sticks, and the two scrappy Gizzy quilts. (One here, the other here.)

Now I have to figure out what to use for binding!