More Quilt Finishes and the Rest of the Fabric Tour

Usually when Blogger goes berserk on me, it at least lets me know that there are unsaved changes to a post. But last week? No...... So the last part of my studio fabric storage “tour” flew off into the ether, never to be seen again. (Like a Chinese spy balloon?)  

So let’s quickly dispatch with that and then move on to this week’s Rainbow Scrap (pink!) progress and the quilt finishes for the week.

These are the bottom two shelves of the leftmost (of three) bookshelves. The upper shelf holds two WIP quilts (another Zip quilt to be sewn - FOR ME THIS TIME! LOL) and the Red Ribbons quilt that needs to be finished. The rest are fabric pulls for three more personal quilts and several pillowcases, also personal.

The bottom shelf is my autumn and Halloween fabric for a quilt or two I never even got started last year. I think there’s also some Independence Day fabric there. And on the floor is my plastic tote of Framed Four Patch blocks from RSC 2022. There is a line through the label meaning it’s ready to be assembled.

This is what we’ll dissect next (the right two bookshelves):

Left Bookshelf (top down): 

Purple scrap tote on purple yardage, Kaffe Fassett fabrics

Aqua scrap tote on aqua/teal fabrics; Yellow scrap tote on yellow/gold fabrics

Solid scraps and yardage

The remainder of that are the Cubbies of Shame. I’ll come back to those in a moment.

Right Bookshelf (top down):

Red scrap tote and red yardage

Black/Gray/Brown yardage; Light Blue scrap tote on light blue yardage

Pink scrap tote on pink yardage; Orange scrap tote on orange yardage

Dark blue yardage and scraps

All the Greens - scraps and yardage

Bottom shelf; Christmas fabrics and scraps; shirtings

On floor in front: another group of quilt tops sent from Jo Kramer in IA (Jo’s Country Junction) as I’m one 

     of her quilt finishers. These will be added to the Cubbies of Shame

Cubbies of Shame:

Kids and Novelty yardage, paired and unpaired with like colors/themes.

Quilt tops to have a backing made, then to be layered, quilted and bound.

In baggies and plastic tote: groupings of like-themed or like-colored scraps - quilt “kits” that I pull out to sew on, a few at a time each month. 

Yes, I’ve got a backlog here to last me well into next year and beyond. Or maybe into next decade, LOL. Therefore, with a grateful heart and humble apologies, I have to ask my generous friends and donors to hold off sending things for awhile. Now, if you’re OK with sending larger fabric pieces that can be used as backings and/or passed directly on to Quilts for Kids, that would be awesome. I just cannot sew them all, and I’m not sure if that was ever expected or not. But everything intended for Quilts for Kids goes to Quilts for Kids, whether it’s in the form of a quilt or fabric to be made into quilts by one of our hard workers.  

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Now, let’s get to the fun stuff - pink, girly February in the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.

First, I made 12 Split Nine blocks.

And then I started working on little crumb blocks, but I’ll save those for next week. Instead, I’ll show you the three quilts I was able to quilt, bind and label this week. Just in time for our monthly QFK workshop tomorrow!

Pink Checkerboard blocks (donated by Catherine in NJ) supplemented with some 4-patch blocks and one pink orphan block from my stash. Finished size: 40x50”. The backing was the last of an old sheet, the first half of which backed a pink quilt from last year!

This next one has a bit of a history to share. The two circus border strips (a J. Wecker Frisch fabric) were a gift to me from Nann; they actually came from her friend Dorothy (how appropriate! The lion in the panel reminds me of The Cowardly Lion. But I digress....).  The wild pink and red diamonds, which really should be turned the other way in a perfect world, seemed to scream Circus to me. So this Tula Pink fabric (from her Tabby Road collection) was included, along with some dark pink and white stripe fabric. Four quick seams, and two side strips later, and an outrageous circus quilt was born. 

The backing used the last chunks of these Kaffe and Kaffe Collective fabrics. I would’ve felt bad doing that, but with the solid designers of the front fabric to keep the Kaffes company, I figured the Quilt Police would turn a blind eye. 

This little quilt, which took next to no time, finished at 39.5 x 44.5”.

And here come the elephants! This penultimate elephant quilt is finished! The last one will be done in March, but for now, isn’t this just the cutest quilt ever? 

Happy Elephants finished at 39.5 x 44.5”.  I sure wish I had lots more of that border fabric!! 

So, what do you do when you have really enjoyed your week sewing pink circus quilts and elephant quilts? You make one more to keep the fun going!  Here is my pink “Creature” quilt in progress. It named itself  The Creature From the Pink Circus.

At this point, only the central portion between the hot pink starred width-of-fabric strips is sewn. I started with a vintage elephant appliqué (also from Dorothy’s stash, courtesy of Nann) and machine appliquéd it down to a cute trimmed fat quarter - designed by Tamara Kate, one of my all-time fave designers and purchased from her Spoonflower shop. I added a polka-dot balloon appliqué too. 

The rest is just cobbled together, medallion-style, with leftover blocks of strings, waffles, Twin Sisters, Bullseye Courthouse Steps, and Chaser blocks. I think I’ll probably replace that ugly top strip with some 6” scrap blocks. That’s on the agenda for the coming week. Also coming are two adorable quilts from my friend McGill in South Carolina. One of hers is already basted, and the other has the backing made and will be basted, along with the Creature from the Pink Circus this week. I can’t wait!

Have a great week, friends!

Three Finishes and Studio Tour

This week, three little quilts “got their wings” (were officially finished) - and none of them are pink. Two are little blue quilts from January and one is an RSC finish of blocks from last year. I will be getting to some pink quilt tops and some Community Quilts once I spend this afternoon pin/spray basting them. I’m hoping to get five finished next week, but if I could only get three done this week (did I really just say “only” out loud?) then I’m not going to hold my breath for five finishes next week. Whatever happens, happens. 

Let’s see which little quilts got their wings. 

First up is this cute little Bow Ties quilt. These were some blocks I did for last year’s Rainbow Scrap Challenge. 

It measures 42x48} and was quilted with a simple stipple. The backing is a piece sent to me by Jo Kramer for her Community Quilts donation quilt program,.

As usual, this one will to to Quilts for Kids.

Next up are the two blue quilts pieced in January. This first one, pieced with dark and bright blue strings, reminds me of frosted winter window panes. So I’m calling it Frosted Window Panes.

It finished at 42x48”, was quilted with loops, and used up most of the rest of this blue print for the backing. The remaining bits will be cut up for Zipper blocks. 

The final finished quilt this week was this Creature From The Blue Lagoon quilt, using leftover blocks, chunks and all manner of scraps. The finished quilt is 44.5 x 60.5”. I forgot to take a backing photo. 

Working with my pink strings, I finished sewing 63 string blocks at 6.5”, unfinished size. I safety-pinned them into four groups of 15 blocks for the QFK quilt kit makers. 

The remaining three blocks will hopefully be incorporated into my pink Creature quilt later this month. I’m open for ideas for a pink Creature quilt name (hint, hint). Last time I did a pink Creature quilt, it was The Creature From the Bubblegum Factory, LOL. 

This next photo is a bad one, but it shows that this next elephant quilt is ready for basting. I promise that despite how wonky it looks on the design board, half hanging and half pinned, that it is squared up. I’ve also assembled a backing from scrap chunks, so this will be a finish next week hopefully!!

 

What follows is a mini-tour of my studio. I’ve had three separate requests (from Linda, Kat and Anonymous) to show how I store my fabrics and scraps. First up, here is a photo taken of my one studio wall after the flood and remodel from about 18 months ago. It will give you a “lay of the land”, so to speak. 

Although things have changed since this photo was snapped, it is the window wall that I’ll be talking about and showing pictures of. I’ll start on the left with the two plastic storage drawers, then move to the right and eight cubbies on which the ironing station rests, then finish with the three IKEA bookshelves. Ready?

Scrap storage for (top down): Kona White, White/black and black white scraps, Kona Snow, Zip Block contrast squares), Low Volume, Brown, Black. On top of this unit rests my bolts (yardage) of Kona White, Kona Snow, Kona Black and Kona Red. 

Next up: 

Fused scraps (appliqué leftovers), Zip Block ingredients, gray scraps, Linens and scraps pulled to work with them (someday I’ll get back to these, and the drawer that houses the Orphan blocks and Parts Department. 

Moving to the right under the ironing station are:

Top Two: lighter (L) and darker (R) backing pieces for Quilts for Kids.

Bottom Left: precuts. 

Bottom Right (in polka dot bin) Low Volume print yardage and pieces greater than a fat quarter.

Moving to the right, here are the other four bins

Top Left: paper, phone books and lightweight backings for string blocks

Top Right (polka dot bin) African fabrics

Bottom Left: backings for personal quilts

Bottom Right: flannel and muslin

Next, we’ll tackle the bookcases. 

Bookcase #1 (two pix)

I think I missed the very first shelf . That houses a long-term clothing project I’m working on. 

Top Down: miscellaneous string blocks, 2022 RSC Bear Paws and on top of that plastic container are RSC 2021 Chips Blocks to be assembled.

Next: three current RSC projects in their storage boxes.

Lower shelf: two more current RSC boxes

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Blogger stopped working at this point; I will recreate the rest of the tour in next week’s weekly post. 

Quilting by the (Orange) Book

Welcome back, friends! First, let me say that those of you in Florida are sure in my thoughts as you brace for Hurricane Irma’s impact. Hopefully you have all prepared as best you can and that you and your loved ones (and loved homes, etc) escape harm. If our friend Angela is able to post the Rainbow Scrap Challenge Scrappy Saturday link-up, I will join in.

And we have not forgotten our Texas friends who are still recovering from Hurricane Harvey. There are many online sites for donating money, services, quilts, pillowcases, kennel quilts for animals, etc. for the multitude of victims in the Southeast. I hope we will ALL take the time to contribute what we can. If you need help finding a charity, please feel free to write me and I will be glad to direct you to some.

And now let’s talk Orange.

This week I started by using orange strings to make (8) 8.5” string blocks. If I have strings left over after all the rest of my blocks are done, I'll make 4 more to sew into another 16” finished block. If not, there is always next year!

And then I sewed up four quick Plus blocks. Originally I wasn’t even planning to use orange in the Plus quilt, but that changed. With these, I have 89 blocks. The remaining blocks for the quilt will be pink and gray, and I will need between 7-18 total of those. The extras will be used if I decide to switch out some of the already-made blocks that I don’t care for.

Next, I got started on my orange shelf of books (5 blocks) for my Bookcase Quilt. Bookcase Quilt - it needs a better name, doesn’t it? Any ideas? Anyway, here are some close-up pictures so you can see the individual titles in case you want to “check them out”!  hahahaha..... get it?  check them out 

So, let’s read across from left to right. Note that you can click on the pictures to make them bigger. Have you read Timeless Treasures or Peak Hour?

Moving along (there is some overlap in the pictures), we find Cool Cats and Helen’s Garden. Naturally, Helen has pumpkins in her garden at this time of year....

And it’s true, I got lazy and stacked all my smallish books sideways. But the titles are easier to read. These little book titles include Diamond Eye, Handmaids and Hello Darling. 

All this reading is making me hot (as in hot flashes, LOL). So, thank goodness I parked my fan on the shelf, eh??

And note that we have the the runaway bestseller Butterfly Bliss. It even has a butterfly on the cover! And even Home for Harvest has an appropriate cover.

And here is a view with the orange shelf just pinned on top of the yellow, green and blue shelves. I haven’t sewn the orange books onto the shelf yet.....

There are three pink book blocks still to sew and add to my two red book blocks; they will they will comprise the top shelf. The bottom shelf will be the 4 already-sewn purple blocks plus one dark-colored book block of black/gray/other dark neutrals. This may come to Colorado for me to work on....

I am starting to cut and pack other projects to take along with me to Colorado next week. One of the things I plan to bring is fabric to make the pillowcases for Sarah’s charity drive over at Confessions of a Fabric Addict. I’ve cut and packed up 7-8 of those to sew.  And I will probably cut and kit fabric for a half dozen or more Farm Girl 12” blocks. I want to do an autumn-themed quilt. And since I have way too many 12” Farm Girl blocks for just one quilt, I thought I would pull out the autumn-ish blocks, add a few more and see what I can come up with. I have plenty of sashing and backing ready to go, so this is another one that could materialize quickly. Like a quilting hurricane.....

Last December, we purchased four Ingo tables from IKEA as my Christmas present. I have wanted to re-do the tables and arrangement in my studio forever. Anyway, after Christmas came the end of our living room remodel, and then weeks, even months, of the arm cancer scare and operations for Bruce. So we “tabled” the assembly (sorry, couldn’t resist). And then it was summer/garden/family/brother moving in, etc. Finally I announced an assembly date last Monday, and both Bruce and my brother agreed gladly. They had those 4 tables whipped out - from gathering tools to wiping them of dust - in 2 hours flat.

So, here are some pictures of the place. Keep in mind it’s still a work in progress. And also, these are honest, messy pictures. There is ironing to be done, messes to clean up, stuff packed up for our trip, etc..........

When you come down the stairs (above picture, where the light switch is), there are two rooms to your right. The first one (brown) is my office and computer. It's also where I used to store my lace and fabric inventory when I had an active Etsy shop. The second apricot-colored room (above and below) has two easy chairs and is my hand stitching room. In there I keep my batting rolls, and cabinets of embroidery threads, silk ribbons, beads, buttons, books, ribbons, vintage laces, and collectibles such as vintage aprons, vintage clothing, vintage pillowcases and linens, etc. That room is worthy of a post in its own right sometime.

So, as you come down the stairs and look ahead in my studio, there is the design wall on the right. Facing forward (to the left in the above picture) are two bookshelves housing fabrics. On the top of the wood-toned bookcase are two containers of selvages sorted by color and one basket of multi-colored scraps.

In the picture above you can see two of the new tables. My power strip/surge protector comes down from the overhead lights and sewing machines and irons for up to 4 persons can be plugged into it. I just flip off the power strip when I leave the room. The studio is in the basement, but it gets afternoon sun and is delightful.  My big ironing board there is covered with the pillowcases I’m kitting up. Beyond that, in the corner are (1) plastic shelves containing scraps by color and the WIP bookshelf. The door leads out to the backyard. Hanging on the door handle and on the carpet shampooer is the laundry I need to iron!!

As we continue moving around the room, you can see more of the tables and the cutting station that’s set up (green mat).  Behind my sewing chair (that is really for my office, but until I get a new one without arms, I’m using it here) is my thread, treadle machine below the thread, and miscellaneous sewing supplies in the desk and shelves behind my chair. That is the bathroom there behind the door....

Between the bathroom and laundry room (the door next to the hangers) is a plastic bin of fancy fabric scraps (silks, damask, velvet) for my crazy quilting, plus a bookcase of mementos, pincushions and music. The painting was done by my son Shane in high school.

And so we’ve come full circle. Again, sorry for the mess. But honestly, I wasn’t going to clean up just to take pictures and then have to get it all back out again.

If you don’t hear from me next Saturday, it just means that I don’t have internet access at our cabin in Colorado. We are meeting up with Diann and her hubby (of Little Penguin Quilts) and several other couple friends for a long weekend in the mountains. Then we are visiting family for a couple days before returning home. I will update y’all when I get back!

Have a great week!

Slow Progress

Happy Saturday!  Our neighborhood is having a clean-up drive today and they're supplying three roll-off dumpsters for green waste, hazardous materials (paints, etc. that the local scouts are coming around to collect) and regular household and limited construction waste.  We have taken advantage of that by getting rid of some old paints and the detritus from our clean-up of the patio and storage sheds earlier in the week. We still make weekly runs to the  thrift store to unload usables. Although we are purging instead of collecting, it still feels as though it fits in well with this nesting time of year! Getting things in order.

But let’s talk about quilting. Last weekend I quilted my cousin Kim’s red, white and black quilt. But I will wait to show pictures until she adds the binding and we wash it. A couple weeks. She has this idea to piece the binding in patchwork squares, and I couldn’t dissuade her. I’m glad she will be doing the binding, not me. Stay tuned.

On my personal sewing front, I have started the purple litter of kittens (and their mama) for Kitten Quilt #3andfinal. When purple is done, there will only be green and pink left.

Those will get finished up today.  And so, I am linking up to Angela’s Scrappy Saturday for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.

What else did I sew on this week? Not as much as I would have liked, but I did finish up the orange peel blocks (42, machine appliquéd) for my DIL Kim’s Christmas quilt. She picked the fabric (Bonnie & Camille’s Hello Darling) and the pattern. The top is now pieced.

She loves red, so I originally thought I might use red for the border. But it was overwhelming. So luckily I found some of this matching Bliss pink dot fabric in my stash. I had just enough to do a 5” border. The backing got sewn up as well, using some fabrics from that Hello Darling, the leftover pink from my Dresdens backgrounds, and a cute white with pink starflower design fabric. I even sewed in a label. It’s now in the To Be Basted and Quilted pile, which is back up to 5 quilts. But I quilted a quilt and sewed a quilt top and back this week, so I am sticking to my goal of one per week until Christmas.

Living room remodel progress:  We got the plans back from the carpenter’s shop. After the sticker shock (almost double what we anticipated), I had to put pen to paper and do some fancy financial figuring (and obviously I can alliterate too). Long story short, it will work. The plans were great, and we signed off. They had a scheduled job that was delayed, so were able to squeeze us in immediately. Time frame: two weeks until delivery. That means that Jeff, our contractor/relative is busy doing some additional brickwork for the floor hearth and grouting this weekend. But first he had to pour some cement to level that floor area. The living room is painted except for where I have to wait for the boxes of flooring (stacked along the wall under the front window) to be moved. A job of ten minutes to paint. We will begin ripping carpet out this week, I think. Jeff wants to start the flooring and have much of it done (except the part that abuts the cabinetry) by the time it gets here.


We also bought all our new living room furniture this week. But as one couch (leather, from Italy) won’t arrive until Dec. 7, we have about a month to worry about that. We got the aforementioned leather couch, a fabric couch, a modern wingback chair for me (pictured above, in showroom), an ottoman (leather, from the Italian set) for me to use with my chair, a side table, and a large room rug.  In the meantime, our former Ikea shelves were brought down to my sewing room to give me additional fabric storage.

More space for fabric!

Left cabinet: WIP’s, then drawers of scraps 

The white cabinet in the right photo is missing a shelf near the top. I’m still looking. I know it seems that I don’t have much fabric compared to many of you, but I did a major purge about 3 years ago and have (for the most part) only recent fabrics. I do have a large basket of strings and strips (not pictured) that cousin Kim and I are saving to crochet some rag rugs. Many of my old cuts are in there, awaiting slashing.

And then moving around the room, this area still needs work. That old desk was mine when I was growing up. Heck, it was MY MOM’s when she was growing up. It is solid maple and heavy beyond belief. Next to it is my old 1916 Singer Treadle, which needs a belt. Those bins under the desk are RSC WIPs, but will get moved to the shelves by the door once a space opens up. In other words, once I sew up a couple more RSC and Christmas quilt tops. Before the new year.

In the center of the room, not pictured, is a long folding table and a card table. I hope to replace both of those with two matching heavy 4-legged Ikea tables. DH has been put on alert that I will need him to hack one of the tables to make it possible to drop my Bernina down so it is flush with the tabletop. He has the tools, he has the skills. Luckily, he also has the impetus to keep me happy, so that is on the Honey-Do for after the Holidays.

Hopefully I haven’t lulled you to sleep with all my blathering.  I am doing my best to stay downstairs to sew and do laundry. The real reason is that I want to stay away from the kitchen; today begins my fasting for a Monday colonoscopy. Two days; the new Thorough Cleanout procedure, I guess. Enough said. I still get liquids (coffee and soda OK!), popsicles, jello and broth. As long as it isn’t red or purple.  But I will have purple scraps today, LOL!!  Kitty sewing, here I come....