Rainbow Triangles

I feel like I cheated for this one. All the triangles were already sewn together, and I had the side triangles all cut out.

I don't like to work on long rows, so I sew my blocks together in half rows. This is the upper right quarter of the quilt. Much easier to work with.

The top half of this is all sewn together. When I added the side triangles, I put then together so they created rhomboids. I should have this all sewn together before Thanksgiving.

This is a terrific way to use up all your scraps. You can get the tutorial here, at my Etsy shop. This is the fourteenth quilt I have made from these scrap slab triangles and they are all different.

Kangamangus, Finished!

 

This is a close up of the Kangamangus quilt. You can see some of the warm brown fabrics, the creams and the spectacular quilting. I've had this for a few weeks, waiting for me to add the binding and finish it up.

I finally got to it, and actually took it out for beauty shots the next day. Such is summer in NH. 

Sometimes you arrange it, back up, and you just know that you've got the "definitive" shot. That's what happened this time. I looked at this and I thought, Yup. That's the one. Funny that.

I didn't stop though, because I have learned that sometimes what I THINK I see is not what shows up in the camera, and there's nothing more irritating than getting home and looking at the pictures on my computer and thinking they suck and knowing I'll have to go out again. At at rate, this is pretty good too.

Long time readers know I dislike brown, and I hate, loathe and despise beige, so this quilt is rather a departure for me, but I really like it. I'm keeping this one.

Yeah, I know. Live and learn.

This is a Scrap Slab Triangle quilt, and I have made a few of them. You can see them here. If you want to use up some scraps, you can get my tutorial here. I am continually surprised at how many variations of this quilt there are.

Big Red

 

When I was cutting blocks from the Lights bin, I was surprised to find how many red-on-white fabrics I had, or how many blocks I cut. It seemed obvious to make a RED quilt. So after I finished sewing up the Nonchalant flimsy (White Macnas) I went through all my bins and cut up red Macnas blocks. I cut up blocks that were mostly RED or Red with White.

Then I sorted the blocks by print. After that was done, I started pairing blocks, matching a white one (at the top) with a red one below. I started at the upper left of the white stacks, took one piece, then picked the red at the top left of those. I matched up the next white with the next red, and kept going that way until I had 112 pairs. I need 270 for a quilt the size of the Nonchalant quilt.

Then I sat down and sewed them up, then pressed them, and then put them up on the design wall in no particular order.

I stopped for lunch, then went back into the studio to match more pairs, sew them up and put them up on the design wall. I need to cut more blocks, but you can see where this is going.

Nonchalant

 

After some very minor tinkering (removing some blocks I thought read as too dark and moving some darks and lights around so I'd have a better balance) I decided this is what I will sew together.

The quilt also has a name: Nonchalant, because this quilt is not full of itself, and not overly fussy.

So I started where I could reach, and sewed the blocks together in largish chunks.

Here are the sixteen blocks I sewed together first. These fit in the empty space in the photo above this one.

When I stopped to have dinner, I had two-thirds of the top half done.

After dinner I sewed up the last third of the top section. I have to sew the three parts together, but oh gee darn, that won't be hard at all.

I hope to get the flimsy sewn together over the weekend, but I'll be teaching on Saturday and am having some work done in my house that may start next week and will need some things moved before that can happen, so we'll see. At any rate the flimsy should be completed in short order.

Here is a closeup of a section of the quilt. The WOWs are self-explanatory - you know I love them and use them at random. The "Lights" are bright colored prints on a white background. That's all this quilt is.

The quilt is based on Julie's "Macnas" series, and you can read about them here and here.

3, 2, 1... Blast Off!

 

Once I decided to actually DO the Macnas dance, I had to work out how big it would be and set a vertical and horizontal line so I could properly line up the blocks on my design wall. A plumb line helps me work out the vertical line, a laser level helps me set up a horizontal one. Then I set out some blocks to help me work out how many across (14) and how many up and down (18.)

Then it was time to start making blocks. To do that I had to cut more WOW Macnas rectangles, and I did that from yardage. Once I made a bunch of blocks and pressed them, I literally put them in a stack and started working from left to right, one row at a time, and I put the blocks on the wall in the order they were in the stack, so there was no rearranging or designing. I just wanted to fill the space. It took about an hour to match, sew, press the blocks and put them on the design wall.

Well that was so easy, I just decided to keep going...

Woo hoo! This was fun!

Another hour or so later and I had covered three quarters of the design wall. But I needed to cut more WOW rectangles, so I did that.

And because you know me, in for a penny in for a pound, I just had to keep going until I filled out the entire design wall.

THAT WAS FUN!  Next up: fine tuning. But don't expect anything fancy. The whole point of this is to do something that looks fresh and free and isn't formal or stiff.

Plans for a Macnas

 Last Monday (June 16th), I texted Julie and asked her if the Macnas rectangles were 2-1/2" x 4-1/2". I had been looking at her blog posts about her Macnas quilts. (duh)

"I am thinking of going through the big bins and cutting up those scraps into that sized pieces and making them into a bunch of semi-scrappy quilts."

As you know, I have been doing that.

A few days later I texted Julie again, "You know what would be pretty? A White Macnas. Half White with colors and...  half Cream with colors.  Or half of the first with WOWs."

Julie said she'd go with WOW and White with prints.

I couldn't go with either because I was still sewing up the Green Deco quilt. Before I made blocks for anything else, I had to get the green quilt off the design wall. Which I finally did.

Before I sewed up any of the rectangular pieces I needed white rectangles. So I dug out my WOW scrappy bin and cut a whole stack of rectangles from that box. I also got rid of a lot of stuff I couldn't use (like long strips less than one inch wide...)

Anyway I finally grabbed some fabrics, paired them up and stuck them up on the design wall to see what it  might look like.

Yeah, that's a GO!

Squirrel??

It shouldn't surprise anybody (certainly not my regular readers) that Julie and I influence each other. She is now making a pinkish version of the Deco quilt and I have been cutting up my scraps into rectangles like her Macnas quilts. 

I have a big bin in my studio that has scraps of light fabrics. Some leftover backing bits, some pieces that

are too small to go back on the shelf and some that got thrown in because I couldn't figure out where else to put them.

I saw the lovely collection that Julie is making and when I looked at this bin, I knew there had to be a quilt or two or three in there.

So knowing the wicked hot heat was coming, and that simply having the iron on heats up the studio, I dug some pieces out of the box and ironed them before bed the other night. I planned to cut them up in the morning.

The result was the picture at the top of this post. I had a stack almost six inches tall. Woo hoo!

Thus motivated, I prepared another stack of fabric for the next day. Not as big as the first, but still pretty good.

On the THIRD day, I cut a stack of fabric almost SIX and a half inches tall.

And this is just the LIGHTS bin. I have other bins. And sadly, or not, depending on your viewpoint, the Lights bin is not anywhere close to being empty.

So here are all my pieces more or less organized by color. I have resolved not to begin to plan to sew any of them together until I have gone through the entire LIGHTS bin. Already I have some ideas.

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.

Finished!

 

I didn't expect to finish this quilt so quickly, but the movie AMADEUS was on Netflix, and I stitched while I watched. 

I love every single thing about this quilt, not the least of which is the panel on the back.

It's a scrap slab quilt, and you can make one. The tutorial is available here, at my Etsy shop.

Blue Arrowheads

I arranged the blue triangles the way I wanted, then added the light side triangles. They are pretty quiet, I know. This quilt has a home already and it is being designed for the future owner - who is a really low-key person.

I've started sewing the blocks together.

I've sewn the bottom four rows of blocks together. It looks a bit weird because there are nine blocks in each of the rows above, but the quilt the quilt really has ten blocks across, so I have been adding a block at the right side of each row.

This particular layout along with the low key light areas, has a very regular, repetitive design which is somewhat soothing. As usual, it looks better when it is sewn up!

This is a scrap slab triangle quilt. You can get the tutorial here at my Etsy shop. It's a great way to use up scraps,

 

Stacking Them Up

 

I moved some of the lighter blue triangles around. Now they are clustered on the lower left and upper right. I want them to move into each other. I want this thing to remind you of water.

I'm also cutting some side triangles for this. I haven't quite worked out how I want those to look yet, but I'm getting there.

This is a Scrap Slab Triangle quilt, and you can get the tutorial here, at my Etsy shop.

Teal & Orange

 

Here is the Teal block.

And here is the Orange one. I really had to search through my stash and bins to find light orange fabrics, or fabrics that would "read" as light orange.

Here they all are together, in no particular order. As you can see they are all different sizes. At some point I will need to trim them down, but not yet.

I have removed the bright one because it overpowered the others, and also the dotted one, which didn't hold its own among these.  I have fabrics set aside for a red one, and that's up next.

I'll have to go through my stash to see if there are any colors I have missed. I might be able to do a light brown (or beige?) one, and maybe a gray one, but I don't know yet. Maybe I can make a white with colors if I don't use fabrics that are as bold as the original one.

At any rate, if I need to make another yellow or green or blue or pink block, I'll do it. I don't need this quilt to have only one block of each color.

I do like the irregular shapes of these too. We'll see what happens. It's so nice not to have to fuss.

Eagle Eyes

 To Cherie who pointed out that the "new" blue block was the same as the original one...

OOPS! I uploaded the wrong photo.

The Yellow block was tricky. I didn't want to make a bright yellow block, and I really had to search my stash and scrap bins to find enough "pale" yellows to make this work. 

Hey, whatever works!

I figured I could rely on the wrong side of some fabrics if I really couldn't figure it out, but I did not have to do that.

Missing U

 

I have already started making slabs. Here is the first one. White with dots. It's about 14 inches, and it needs to be bigger. But that's OK. I have lots of fabric.

This is the second one. It is White with Black.

This is the third one. It is White with Colors. It is about 16 - 17" or so. I will trim it down whenever I figure out how big I want the blocks to be.

These are fun. Not a lot of thinking involved!

I made a Missing U quilt years ago and called it MHT2MEM because I gave it to my pal Julie. The title refers to the airport name for the Manchester NH airport (MHT) and MEM, which is the designation for Memphis TN, where Julie lives. The 2 ought to be understood. The quilt went from MHT to MEM.

You can read about it here and here.