More finishes

This week I finished a quilt from scraps using the Atkinson Designs pattern called Step Right Up.

These strips were leftovers from another Atkinson pattern that was a UFO I finished last year. I also made two other other scrap quilts with leftovers.

As you can tell, I don’t really have a problem adding a lot of background fabric to the scraps. My goal isn’t just to find and efficient way to use them up but rather to use them in patterns that I really enjoy making.

The next two finishes are string quilts. The first one was made using Bonnie Hunter’s String X free pattern with paper telephone Yellow Book pages. It was fun to make and I’ll be using this pattern again or, at least a similar design. I really prefer the paper foundation over using muslin as the quilts are quite a bit lighter than they’d be otherwise.

The next quilt was made using adding machine paper (from Office Depot). I didn’t mind removing the paper from either of these two quilts. Last year I made this quilt using quite a few adding machine paper strips. The quilt below only used a few. I’d had the Crosswalk quilt pattern on my list to make for a while now. It was fun to take the original idea and substitute strings for the centers of the blocks.

Such a fun kiddo quilt and I was able to use quite a few partial solid strips I had in the blocks and for the scrappy binding.

A switch went out on my long arm so I’ve been organizing a bit more while waiting for the part. The room doesn’t really need more organizing but, we’re expecting our hurricane impact windows will be installed in the next 4 to 6 weeks. I’ll have to quickly move everything into one corner of the room when we gets the notice from the installer that the windows are ready. I decided to use these couple of days to consolidate things as much as possible. All of the furniture pieces in the room are on casters, including the long arm frame, so at least moving things around won’t be too bad.

Thursday quilt group

I didn’t think I’d get much done yesterday but, I surprised myself.

First, I helped punch holes with a Skip Stitch blade in some donated fleece for ladies in the guild to crochet the edges.

My BOM block(s) for this week plus, a block to mail to a member who recently had surgery were made.  I used the large cutting tables to trim my two string quilts so I’m hoping to get those bound tonight. (No school today so Im on grandma duty today.)

I brought home a few more fabrics from the “free” table.  The ones below include  pieces I brought home last week.

I only take pieces I can reasonably see myself using in the very near future.  All of these will work well in the type of quilts I most enjoy making. 

The weight translates to approximately 6 yards of fabric. A few have chunks cut out of them in weird places but, I can use the odd shapes in my strings quilts f it go to waste.

Tomorrow is guild meeting day. No school today. It’s the beginning spring break, so my granddaughter and I went to the movies. But, I think I’ll  still have time to get bindings sewn on my string quilts tonight. Hope so because I’d take them for Show and Tell in the morning.

Time to Quilt!

3 Finishes

I finished the quilt from the blocks I won at last month’s guild meeting. The block pattern is Amish Diamond from the Quilter’s Cache website.

These were the 9 blocks I won. I really wanted to make something fun to donate that might appeal to a teen or pre-teen.

The original blocks finished at 12″. But, some were a little larger and some smaller so I chose to trim them all so they’d finish at 10″. Plus, the math worked out better.

I made 7 more blocks so I could use them to frame this little panel I’ve had in my stash for several years. Two years ago I bought the fabric I used for the border at my local quilt shop’s end of the year sale.

It was windy so hard to get a good photo. You can see the fabrics and the quilting a little better in the last picture.

After making the extra 7 blocks, I decided to use the scraps left with some fabrics in the brights bin from my Mini Stash wall as my first group of scrap busting quilts. (I’m making an adding machine string block that will use quilt a bit more of those solids.)

The first one is a simple rail fence block using some short 2 1/2″ scraps.

I used more 2 1/2″ partial strip scraps to make a smaller version of Jo’s Country Junction pattern Jimmy John.

After I finish a couple of string quilts from this bin I’ll be ready to move on to a different style fabric.

~Time to Quilt!