Memorial weekend 🇺🇸

I spent some time working on two of my quilts early this morning. The sun woke me at 6am, which is not a bad thing. I love sewing before Al gets up. Another row was added to this blue rail fence quilt and a few more quilt blocks to the other quilt on my “design” floor…. But I ran out of room on it. Around the corner from my sewing area is the reading loft… which is just an extra large landing with a bookcase, chair and side table. Soooo… I’m taking it over😁. Al is gonna love his new obstacle course 🤣

One of the things we did this weekend was hit some estate sales. This one, above 2 photos, is downtown TC, in a historic building that was amazing ! I loved the floors, woodwork, windows… all of it! Just gorgeous!

And this morning we’re out having a late breakfast, early lunch, at Fiddleheads 😋 

Later, we might head to the parade and then tonight will be fireworks …Have a great Memorial Day!

 

Sewing, sewing and hiking

 How’s that for a design floor! There are 4 WIPs going right now… cleaning out my sewing stuff so I’m cutting scraps and putting them into the appropriate quilt. There’s also a donation pile😉

I’m up to 200 #scrappymeetsthriftchallenge blocks… 52 to go. The blue blocks are finished… 99 made so I’m sewing rows now. And I have 150 mini 9 patch blocks stacked on the side. Not sure when I’ll stop with those. 

Lots going on here besides sewing.

Took a walk with daughter Jennifer in Sleeping Bear Park, the other day. She needed inspiration for her oil paintings and I needed fresh air and exercise. 

Watch that first step off the boardwalk! It’s a doozy!! This was a good hike up.. definitely got my heart rate up😁

A little cooking, a little sewing

 It’s May and the rainbow scrap challenge color is GREEN. I spent a few hours sewing this morning before breakfast so that I could get this one out of the way… I really wanted to get my blue rail fence quilt worked on and maybe turned into a top. 

But first I wanted to get dinner (spaghetti sauce) started. This is when everything went wrong… I had a major leak with my mini food processor and of course, it was tomatoes in there 😳🍅🍅🍅🍅🍅🍅 Tomato sauce everywhere. Still haven’t figured out how it came out and splattered on me, my white tile and cabinets. So I grabbed emulsion blender to just crush tomatoes right in the pot. It didn’t sound right and I thought it smelled funny…kind of like plastic?… but I figured, just get it done. WELL! It made a popping noise, smoked and shut the electric down. Scared the 💩 out of me! I unplugged it and tossed it into the sink. 

I saw the stove was off…the fridge was out and the plugs near the stove, all off. I went to the basement and flipped the fuse that had blown, went upstairs and, yay, fridge is back on. BUT, stove isn’t. I looked everywhere for a switch to reset… couldn’t find one. So, I got a book of matches out, and lit the burner. Good thing I have a gas stove. Can’t get the oven to work but I’m able to light the gas! So pasta sauce is on and cooking and I’m cleaning tomatoes from everywhere then change my shirt. I got the dough, for bread, out of the fridge where it was doing a slow rise. Butter the bread pan, floured it, shaped my loaf and plopped it in. Letting it rise…. But wait… how the heck am I gonna bake it if the oven won’t turn on? Al is in Charlevoix for the day, meeting with his friends. I guess I’m going to have to put the bread back in the fridge to slow the rising until he comes home. 

I think I should have just stuck with sewing today. 

 

This one got a border added to it and now I’m adding the next one, which will be plain gray.

At the same time I’m making more 5x5 scrap blocks and some 9 patches. 

When I took a break from stitching, this afternoon, I stopped at one of my favorite resale shops and bought a baggie with 4 vintage blocks in it. I have NO idea what I’m going to make with them… maybe appliqué them to a background then make a giant 4 patches for a quilt center? .. who knows but for 50 cents for the 4, I couldn’t go wrong.

Working on my blue ufo

This was my project for today. I cut a bunch of half square triangles to add for the next border. This quilt is another “design as I go”. I’ll probably add another border after the hst one but I have no idea what kind. I have to think about it a while.
 

 

Scrappy meets thrift blocks

 I’ve been in economy block production lately for the #scrappymeetsthriftchallenge I’m doing on Instagram. I laid them out so that I could get an idea of which colors I’m short of. 

So as I’m making these, I’m also cutting up the scraps into 1-1/2” squares for tiny nine patches and into half square triangles for my current “leader ender” blocks:

The pieces for the 9 patches are next to my machine, I’m stitching those up as I do the economy blocks.

My scraps are out of hand so I’m hoping that doing three quilts at once will help get them under control. There’s also a donate bag on the side for fabrics I probably won’t ever use.

Sewing and shopping day

I’ve been sick for the last few days with a spring cold but today I felt much better. I decided to do a little sewing this morning and then a bit more this afternoon. I was able to get 10 thrift blocks finished for the #scrappymeetsthriftchallenge 

 So then after sewing a bit, Al and I decided to hit a few of my favorite thrift shops. My favorite place usually has fabric and on Wednesdays they mark everything 1/2 off! 

So I bought some quilt magazines, fabric and patterns.

This magazine had a pattern that I’ve been wanting to try. Actually, I really like both of these. The “point me in the right direction” quilt just caught my eye. I’m going to see if I can use the pattern to paper piece it.

I also found this 2 yard piece of Cotton + Steel fabric. It was 99 cents… couldn’t pass that up.

And then these shirtings were in a bag kit. It included 2 FQs and a bunch of pieces for $2. I know these will be cut into in the next few days. I use so many shirtings in my scrap quilts. This was my favorite find!

Patterns were 25 cents so with the half off sale, they were 2 for a quarter! 

And this was just part of the finds. Also found a bag of threads, some magnetic snaps, rubber boots for Al to wear at the farm, lots of books and a few shirts. 

All in all a great day😁

 

Rainbow scrap challenge for April

 This month’s color is RED. I stitched up my block for this month fairly quickly… I’m anxious to get back to my little economy blocks.

I’m doing 12 blocks for this quilt which will b plenty since these are very large 18” blocks.

I haven’t decided on a setting yet… maybe plain 2” strips? I’ll have to to thick about it as this grows.

Working on more blocks

I spent a nice amount of time in my sewing room today playing with blocks. I hav about 110 made.. not even halfway to the amount I’ll need. 

 But I wanted to see how they were coming along…did I have enough of each color so far? I definitely still need more red. And purple. There are tons of blues… quite a few yellows and pinks. 

And as I was going through them, I pulled out my scrap bins to see if I could use up any novelties, reproductions and shirtings. Guess what discovered? I’m never going to use up even half of these scraps! I think it’s time to donate a bunch.

So I stitched up a bunch more blocks but I also started filling some baggies to take to the resale shop. I love to go through these when I find them at shops so I know someone else will have fun with mine.

I like how this one is developing…I may change my mind but I like it without sashings. Just have to be sure to alternate lights and darks.

 

Tutorial for making 4” economy (thrift) blocks

I’m working on my 4” blocks for the #scrappymeetsthriftchallenge that I’m doing on Instagram. If you would like to join us, follow Taryn of @reproquiltlover and sign up. She’ll send you all the info. You’ll get foundation paper patterns that work for 3 sizes. I chose the largest. The main reason was, I didn’t want to foundation piece and this acrylic template gave me the same size. 

I thought I would put together a demo of sorts. I use the SQUARE ON SQUARE TRIM TOOL from creative grids. They have a video online … but I thought this might help too.

I use the corner window (see above) to fussy cut a 2-1/2” square for my center. I have a lot of cute 30s and vintage fabrics that I’d like to use, but you could just cut with any regular 2-1/2 ruler.

I’m making what the trim tool calls the “A” block. This is for the 4” block. The tool also makes a 8”. There’s a little area on the trim tool that tells me what size to cut squares, then these are sub cut on a 45 degree angle.

So these are the triangles for round one or the first border of your center square. They are oversized and will be trimmed after I stitch them to the center.

First triangle attached, pressed, and roughly trimmed. I trim away the excess triangle piece that’s hanging past my center square, as I go.

Attach the pieces in the order you like. I do top, bottom, side and side.

Now give it a spray and a good press so it’s nice and flat before trimming.

Using the trim tool, center the lines of A-1 over your center block like above. If it doesn’t line up perfectly, that’s okay. Center the best you can, then trim the two overhanging side. 

Now flip the block, recenter it on A-1, and trim the two remaining sides.

You have a perfect “triangle border” on your center. Now pick out a second fabric. I like to use something that matches but contrasts a bit. 

Here is a bunch of my blocks with round one on them so I’m matching up fabrics for the next set.

I’m trying to use only scraps because but sometimes (like that brown one) I just can’t find a scrap that works. That’s fine. I’ll dig through my larger pieces of fabric..pretty is more important than sticking to the rules 🤫

For this block I had scraps that would work just fine. The trim tool says to cut (2) 3-1/2” squares then cut in half.

I have a 3-1/2” template with a diagonal line so I’m lining up the fabric straight edge with the 45 degree line on the ruler and cutting triangles that way. 

NOTE: I’ve found that you can also cut a 5” charm on the diagonal, twice, to get 4 triangles that work. Those will have bias edges though, so I give them a heavy dose of spray starch to keep them square.

SO…back to this…using half the square ruler gives me the same size triangle as if I had used the whole square and sub cut it. 

The other two scraps will work because they were on a different block that I did an OOPs 😬 on. I saved these two, ruined two others. I set the pieces on my ironing pad, next to my machine so that I don’t make a mistake in how I want them arranged.

I put the matching pieces across from each other.

Sew them on, spray, and press.

Now I’m ready for the final two cuts. 

This time, line up the first border of triangles with A-2. Double check that you are lining this up correctly…my earlier OOPs was from improperly lining up the template (and not having my coffee b4 cutting anything 🤣)

Trim the two sides.

Then the two remaining sides.

Your block is finished!

Now, this might just be me but I like to cut the remaining scraps from making that block, into sizes I save. I keep 1-1/2” squares in a tin for making scrappy nine patches.

I am getting quite a collection so another 9 patch scrap quilt is probably in my future.

This is the last one I did…just needs quilting 🫣