Bonnie Hunter was amazing!!!

Yesterday, I visited the Hall County Quilt Guild in Gainesville, Georgia where Bonnie Hunter was speaking. I have followed her blog for almost a year and am also a big fan of her website.

As far as I am concerned, she is the QUEEN of scrap quilting and has a wonderful “scrap saver system” where you cut your scraps into specific sizes of strips, squares and bricks. Then, you can use those scraps to make wonderful quilts….she even gives the FREE patterns on her website!!!

Early in the year, I became interested in trying to clean up my scraps and then make use of them and I have been working on my scraps for about the last 6 months. My basket started out looking like this……

but is now down to this…….

and my storage drawers are full of wonderful pieces already cut and ready to go into beautiful scrap quilts!!!

Bonnie was a vivacious speaker and I came away truly encouraged by her words!!! Please dont miss a chance to see her in person!!!

Another one finished

On Monday, I finished a quilt that will be given as a wedding present for one of Jenny’s good friends. I pieced the top during tax season….one of my “dont think….just sew” projects.

I really like how the rectangles float on the surface.

I debated for a long time about how to quilt it and ended up using my friend, Anita‘s, idea about printing out several photos of the quilt and practicing different quilting designs on paper. I finally decided to divide the quilt into areas and quilt each of those in a different pattern. All in all, I am fairly pleased with it. If you click on the photo, I think that you can see the quilting.

Another top finished

I spent yesterday and this afternoon working on the quilt that I mentioned in the last post and am very pleased with the result. Since we have recently purchased a queen size mattress and the only quilts that I have are for a full size, I think that I will use it on our bed.

The next step is to get the backing fabric ready to go so that I can baste it. Since I dont have tons of really big pieces of fabric, I think that I am going to try a tip that I learned at quiltville.com and cut the backing fabrics into 10.5 inch squares and piece the back from a lot of different fabrics.

I am VERY excited that I have used my stash and my scrap basket to make both of the last two quilts!!!

Well, so much for a weekend of quilting fun…..now it is back to my desk and computer. I know that I will be through soon, but right now I feel like I am trying to empty a big barrel that keeps filling from the bottom!!!!

Simple and Mindless!!!

During tax season I really enjoy working on simple and mindless quilts….they are a wonderful way for me to relax for a few minutes each day. Once I have them planned, I can just sit down at the machine and get something done quickly.

The next quilt that I am starting is from the book “Successful Scrap Quilts from Simple Rectangles”. I am making a quilt that uses eighteen 1-1/2 by 3 inch (finished) rectangles for each block. AND, it takes 63 blocks to make a 60×80 quilt. So, today I spent my time cutting out dark and light rectangles.

However, I have made a very interesting discovery…..I DONT HAVE MANY LIGHT FABRICS!!! Obviously I lean toward brights and darks. I found this a bit worrying since I was trying to make this entirely from my scrap box. However, I then remembered all of those 5 and 6 inch charm squares that I have been given over the years so I am pulling all of the light fabrics out of those as well. I have already cut about 120 of the needed 570 rectangles, and hopefully I can get the rest of them without having to go into my actual stash.

One of the thoughts that has been at the back of my head for a few years is that I dont make good use of all of the scraps that I have. About a year ago, I pulled them all out, ironed them and placed them neatly in a plastic box. I then promptly forgot about them!!!!

While working on these past two scrap quilts, I realized that I dont use them because I forget that they are there, so I found an old unused basket and simply dumped them in. I am hoping that if I see these bits and pieces sitting in my sewing room, I will be more likely to use them when I am looking for “just the right” bit for some pattern.

We will see how this plan goes, but, if nothing else, I am enjoying having a bit more color out in the open.

Ready for quilting

Over the last few days, I have given myself permission to sew each afternoon, assuming that I have worked hard during the day and not wasted too much time with other things. During that time, I was able to finish the scrap quilt that I showed a few days ago.

I finished the top and now have it basted and ready to quilt….I even cut the binding. I think that this design will be a good one to practice my machine quilting on. Now, I just have to figure out which design to try.

This quilt came from the book “Loose Change” and was so easy to make. You start with a 5 inch square and cut it into a 3 by 5 inch rectangle, which leaves a 2 by 5 inch rectangle for the final border. The dark strips are cut into 1-1/2 by 5 inch rectangles. The pattern actually called for a black fabric, but I didn’t have one that would work and I didn’t want to buy any fabric for the quilt, so I used dark blue instead. I think that I like it better!!!!