Random Rails

A stack of blue print strips in an odd size – what to do?

Another stack of solid bits seemed to be complementary colours.

I decided to leave some blue strips full size and I cut others in half lengthwise.

 

 

Then I made strips from the solids.  This required some piecing and resulted in strips in a variety of widths.

 

 

 

I assembled blocks using a wide blue strip, a narrow blue strip, and assorted solid strips.  The blocks were trimmed to size and arranged in a Rail Fence pattern

The top finishes at 40” square.  A back has been prepared, and this project has joined the queue for quilting. 

Technorati Tags: rail fence,baby quilt,random

Table Runner for Christmas

Many years ago I swapped strips of Christmas fabrics with internet friends.  Ever since, I’ve been working them into projects and wondering if I would ever come to the end of the pile. 

This year, I’ve made another table runner using those strips, and there are now only a very few left.  Hooray!

I adapted a pattern called Baby Juniper from the new book Angles With Ease published by Anka’s Treasures.  I am calling the trees on my runner Pine Trees, because junipers in this part of the world are not that shape.   The Triangler ruler that goes with the book made cutting the pieces very simple. 

 

  I completed the runner with some machine quilting.  Now I’m not quite sure what those shapes represent – snowflakes, perhaps? 

 

 

It’s great fun to have some Christmas stitching already finished!

 

 

 

Technorati Tags: Scrappy,Christmas,Anka's Treasures

Cut the quilt to suit the cloth

Once in a while the scraps we have on hand dictate what we make from them.

My friend Pat made these framed pinwheels for our Prayer Quilts group recently.  The pinwheel blocks in the centres finish to 5” square – why that size?  Because that’s what worked with the triangles she had on hand.
We framed each one with strips cut 2 1/4” wide. This seems an unusual width, but Pat had on hand some muslin she wanted to use, and it was already cut in 4 1/2” strips, so she simply cut them in half.
The blocks will finish at 8 1/2”.  We expect that 20 blocks plus borders (let’s see what’s available in the cupboard) will make a quilt the perfect size.  It will look like we planned it that way! 

Technorati Tags: scrappy,pinwheels,prayer quilts

Reversible Basket

At Scrappy Club last week Helga showed us a charming basket that she had made with her sewing group in Holland.  She very kindly demonstrated how it was put together. 
It is reversible, and it makes a wonderful container for all those tools on the sewing table.  Or it could be a thread catcher.  Or you might use it in the bathroom to hold odds and ends.  You are sure to find many other uses for one of these. 


See the tutorial page (at the top, right hand side, of this blog) called “Helga’s Reversible Basket” for instructions.

Technorati Tags: reversible basket

On the Design Wall

 

I’ve been working on “use ‘em up” type scrappy projects for the last few weeks, and it’s time to do something else.  Remembering my vow to start using “the good stuff” in my stash I pulled out a bin of lovely shweshwe fabrics from South Africa. 

Not much sewing done yet, but I’ve constructed two blocks.    I’m using the directions for Smoothing Iron as found in Gayle Bong’s book Trouble Free Triangles.

The rest of the time I’ve been busy with cutting and counting the pieces I’ll need.  I have a couple of days lined up to sew with friends in the not-too-distant future, and I’m looking forward to pulling out my pieces and doing a lot of stitching.

I’m linking up with Design Wall Monday over at Patchwork Times – so hop over and be inspired by what other quilters are doing this week. 

 

Technorati Tags: Design Wall Shweshwe fabrics

Tumbling along

 

Quilts made with tumbler shapes have been around for many years, but lately they seem to be cropping up everywhere in wonderful fabric combinations. 

The current Sew Scrappy Club project is based on these shapes.  I had great fun making up samples. 

Of course, the Tumblers can be cut any size one wishes.  But this video from the Gourmet Quilter shows a wonderfully simple method which worked perfectly for the fabrics I had on hand. 

First I dug into that big box of plaids and shirtings, added a blue print for sashing strips and came up with a twin-sized throw (60” x 80”)

Somehow there were plaid tumblers left over, so I put them together into a smaller top.  Still needs borders, may be donated to our Prayer Quilts group.

Then I pulled out the charm squares I had won at Eleanor’s last Quilt-Till-You-Wilt-Day.  These are some Red Hat fabrics and they worked up quickly into this table runner. 

Now I’m eyeing that basket of batiks……

Technorati Tags: Tumbler quilt charm squares Sew Scrappy Club

Rotation

I belong to a group that meets annually to share a challenge project.  This year we worked from a set of photographs.  The challenge was to base a quilt on one of them.  I chose a photograph by Keith Henderson of the sculpture called “Jaguar” by John Henry that stands in Vancouver. 

I imported the photo into my Electric Quilt software program and traced it, simplifying and eliminating portions until there were only a few shapes left.  Then I rotated the image to form a pinwheel-like design.

I repeated the trapezoid shape in the borders.  Quilting began with stitch-in-the-ditch around the design elements to make them stand out and was followed with a zig-zag meander in the gray background to make it recede.