A Touch or Two of Red

Yesterday I shared the centerpiece to the “down the rabbit hole” quilt that I started……

Now it was time to add some borders. My first thought was to add a 2-inch red border…..

….but it was apparent that 2-inch was too wide. So, let’s look at my 1.5-inch red strips…..

I chose to cut them into various sizes, ranging from 2-inch to 4-inch…..

The nice thing about doing various sizes is that you don’t have to worry about ANYTHING matching up, and that is always a good thing!!

I sewed them into couplets…..

…..quadruplets……

….and kept stitching until I had one strip long enough for all four sides…..

I chose not to iron this strip until I had finished all of the piecing. While ironing, I tugged lightly at the strip to be sure that it stayed straight in the pressing process…..

Now I was ready to attach the borders. Some people spend a lot of time measuring and cutting but my process is a bit easier. Here it is…..

First I lay the border strips down the middle of the top……

…..and trim the borders to fit the top…..

Now both border pieces are the exact same size.

Next I mark the center of one border strip and match it up to the middle of one side of the top, and pin in place…..

Next, move to a far corner and pin the strip in place…..

Repeat for the other side…..

Now I look at the area between the two pins. In this case you can see that there is more fullness in the red border than in the quilt top……

This is where we can laud the stretchy qualities of cotton fabrics!!! I slightly tugged the fabrics so that the two edges lined up and then I held them in place with a pin…..

When it comes time to sew, I work between the pins, again stretching the fabrics slightly if needed……

After pressing both borders out……

…..you start the process over again with the other two borders…..

Quick as a flash, the first border was on…….

Now what will I add for the outside???

I won’t have time to work on it again for a while, so I will have plenty of time to figure that out!!

Down the Scrap Rabbit Hole!

Have you ever gone “down a rabbit hole”?

You know….you are working on one thing and then magically, you are headed into something completely different!!

That is what happened to me this week.

I was enjoying my 10-minute scrapping sessions but felt like I had enough blues squares….

…..and maybe it was time to switch to a different color.

The only problem was that I still had SO many blue scraps left, particularly in that “marine blue” color……

And then I had tons of 4-patches……

….and even more 2-patches…..

I REALLY wanted to use them up before I moved on.

WHAT……TO……DO??

Of course….. let’s make 9-patches, alternating the pre-pieced 4-patches and the blue squares!

After three 10-minute sessions, I had these pieced……

Since I had worked hard at my desk during the week, I decided to give myself two hours in my studio on Saturday morning.

Again, the question of “WHAT…..TO…..DO”?

Let’s keep making 4-patches, using up ALL of the pre-pieced couplets……

Then I started adding blue squares…..

….and before long I was ready to lay it out on the design wall….

….make two more blocks to finish the design, and….

VOILA…..it was ready to piece together…..

Isn’t this a fun center for a quilt??

I love the sparkles of color.

And, best of all, I finished with 2-minutes to spare out of my 2-hours….

Tomorrow I will add one border!!

Meet Christie and her “stash trash”

Earlier this week I sent out my monthly newsletter (you can subscribe at the end of this post). In it, I talked about some of my goals for 2024 and asked my readers what they were planning.

Christie Frey immediately wrote back and I wanted to share her thoughts…..

I have set a goal to make one hospice quilt a month. I have been given fabric and orphaned blocks from others in my guild so I only have to pay for batting to do this work. So far in January I completed three quilt tops so now I am working to machine quilt them to complete my first quarter goal.

Here are two very different looking quilts made from a stack of pre-cut orange peels. I am enjoying improving my FMQ skills on my domestic machine as I finish these projects

I find great delight in making treasures from others “stash trash”. So thankful these can become a bright spot of comfort as people transition to their final home.

First of all, how special to be making quilts for hospice. I know that these quilts mean so much to the recipient and also to their families.

Secondly, what a great term…..”STASH TRASH”! I think that I may adopt that one myself!

Here are the two “Orange Peel” quilts…..

They are so bright and happy!!

Here is some of the quilting that she is doing on those quilts…..

I LOVE how she is using the straight lines in the curved “peels”. It makes a wonderful pattern.

Christie’s 3rd quilt is using remade blocks and pastel strips.

It was challenging because I lean more to brights. I sorted the strips by color and made strata squares with those. I also found tucked in the “freebie” box pre-cut HST and squares of purple and lime. So that is what I used to brighten up the piece. It will be fun to FMQ designs in the open spaces of the blocks.

She is so right about the lime green and purple. They raise the quilt from boring to exciting!!

Christie has been sewing since she was 8. Her passion for quilting started when she first went to Houston IQF in 1985 with her mom who was a fabric store owner in Lake Tahoe CA. Now that she is retired, she is loving having time to spend “making”, especially working with scraps. As she said….

“Stash Trash gets my juices going.”

I first met Christie when she was the program chairman for the Metropolitan Quilt Guild in Beaverton, Oregon, and it has been fun to get to know her more through our mutual love of quilting.

Thank you Christie for sharing your 2024 goals and wonderful work!!

I love to highlight quilters and their quilts. Please let me know if you would like to be highlighted here!

…………………………………………………………………………………………

Subscribe to my mailing list and receive this free pattern for “Dancing Squares”…..

You can sign up HERE……

Multiples of Three

Each year I struggle with finding creative time during tax season. I can often get a couple of hours in on the weekends, but I long to be able to do something……anything…..each day!!

I saw this quote recently……

….and I think that it applies to ANY sort of creativity!!

I have previously tried to set aside 10 minutes each morning but that only works if I have something already prepared to work on.

So, this year I am trying ONE MORE TIME!!

Enter…… my scrap bins!!

I have LOTS of pre-cut scraps, ranging in size from 1.5-inches ……

….up to 3.5-inches……

As a matter of fact, some of these bins are reaching the overflowing stage…..

I also have rectangles of all sizes……

….and a wealth of half-square triangles (left overs from other projects) ……

So, what can I do with them??

How about making blocks using various combinations of scraps? The only requirement will be that the ending size is a multiple of 3…..

A 16 patch patch of 3-inch squares (12 inches finished)
A 36-patch of 1-inch squares (6 inches finished)
A 9 patch of 2-inch squares (6 inches finished)
A “Hole in the Barn Door”Block made with 3-inch squares (9 inches finished)

I figure that if I make blocks in these multiples, then I can mix and match them when I sew them together.

Oh….there is one more requirement……

I am going to base each block on one color however it can have a touch of other colors. So a blue block might look like this……

I am hoping that I can go upstairs, turn on the power-strip that controls my machine and my iron, sew and press for 10 minutes, turn off the power-strip and return to my office.

Hopefully, over the 15 weeks of tax season I can churn out a number of these blocks in all of the colors of the rainbow!!

I have already been sorting my scraps by color to make the design process easier……

….and I can’t wait to get started.

IF this plan works, I will share my progress every few weeks and you can cheer me on to KEEP GOING!!

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

In this blog, I post stories about creativity, techniques, tools of the trade, and lots more about the wonderful art of quilting. If you are enjoying these posts, please subscribe to be notified of each new blog as it becomes available.

Type your email…

What do I do with these?

Many years back my church was meeting in a school gymnasium and we desperately wanted something to add a bit of softness to the stage, so I made a series of “quilt-like” banners.

None of them had batting or quilting. Basically, they were a quilt top attached to a heavy upholstery fabric to help them hang straight.

This was the first one. There were actually two just alike….