Little blue quilts

Saw a quilt like this on Joyce's blog, and knew it was perfect for something to do with blue bits for July's Rainbow Scrap Challenge.   Of course, I still have lots of small blue pieces (I think the blue pieces breed baby pieces), but here are two little quilts which at least help thin it all out...

I have also made two flying geese circles in blues (one light, one dark), which I will show tomorrow or the next day.

Pastel Pinwheels

I've been working on these blocks for a week or two - the top is for a baby quilt commission for the sister of a friend & colleague. The baby is a girl, but I tried to avoid it being too pink - I think this works. I still have to quilt it and whatnot, but I do have the rest of the summer, so I'm not too worried!

Rail fence variation

Another little top made in an effort to reduce the strips in my scrap basket. This one didn't use a huge number of strips because it's mostly using the blue stripe fabric, but every little bit counts!  And it did very nicely use up a half metre of blue striped fabric which was looking for a use...

Strippy quilt

Spent a lot of time today sewing, with the cycling road race on in the background. Among other things, I made this top (about 30" wide), which uses up a good chunk of the strips which have been accumulating. All the strips were from scrap strip stash, but I alternated a single fabric strip (though some of these are pieced!) with a strip made from pieced fabric, so it's not quite as busy as it might be otherwise. I used this as a sort of enders and leaders thing, mostly.  Another one for the ever largening Linus pile!

Curvy 4 patch

As usual, I am working on lots of things at once, including blocks for the August block lotto (which I can't show yet), some blocks for a baby quilt I am making for the sister of a friend, and some scrap stuff - these blocks went together to make a nice baby quilt for Project Linus - and it got rid of 10 of my scrap log cabin blocks. Of course, as I have over 100, that's not as impressive as it might be...

Cross Stitch Update

Believe it or not, I did actually take my cross-stitch to Bath with me to work on. And I worked on it, a bit.  I also carried on one more day after I got back, but who's counting.  Quite decent progress since last time, I think.  I imagine the other one will make good progress as well, as there will be lots of Olympics to watch...

American Museum in Bath

A few quilts from the collection at the American Museum in Bath, where we are visiting. The quilts are all behind glass, which of course is very sensible, but it means they don't photograph as well.  Sarah was impressed with how modern this school house block quilt looked.

I'm always a fan of log cabins.

This is a block I might well consider making.

Another log cabin - pineapple style this time.

And this one was in the other part of the textile collection - lots of rugs and Navajo textiles. This is a penny rug - made from wool and felt circles - wish I had a better photo as it's amazing.

Curvy four patches

Here's a set of scrap blocks I actually constructed last weekend, using some of my scrappy log cabins and some solid squares; today I began to assemble them into a small top, but I haven't finished that process yet. There are 20 blocks, so it will make a nice baby quilt with the curvy 4 patch blocks.  Only used 10 of my log cabin blocks, though - I think I still have about a hundred...

Silly string

This month's block for the block lotto is this silly string block - a pale background with three bias strips inserted on a curve, two crossing, in bright colours. I had originally intended to make more but it just wasn't happening.

Cross stitch update

This looks like it's nearly finished, and of course there has been a great deal of progress, but it's only one third of a larger piece, so it's not really close to being done yet. There are only  a few small areas of colour left in the main section to do, but there are the letters along the bottom as well, and then I will carry on to the second part.  Just realised I've done the S in the wrong red, though, so will have to unpick that. Not a lot of unpicking, luckily.

Quilted...

...but not by me.  This one was too big, so I gave it to my friend Lana, who is a professional longarmer, to handle. It's come back with lovely large white feathers stitched on it. Now I just have to bind it!  It will be put aside to be a wedding present for an engaged friend who may actually someday really get married...

Zig Zags

So, here's what I did with the half scrappy log cabin blocks - a nice zigzag effect top. I think this works fairly well with the scraps - keeps them from being too busy...

Descrapping

Some semi-scrappy log cabin blocks - scrappy centres with two scrappy rounds and two non-scrappy rounds. Half the blocks have blue, half have cream - there are 16, though at the time of this photo, they weren't quite all trimmed to size. (I didn't worry about the width of the scrap strips, just tried to add a wide one on the second round if the first was narrow, etc, then just trimmed to the size of the smallest block, which was 9".)

I noticed recently that the scrap basket was beginning to fill up again, so during the tennis last week I went through and took out pieces which were square, squareish or easily foldable into a squareish shape for my small scraps boxes (nothing smaller than 2.5".)

That left  me with this pile of squares (etc) to be filed away, which I did. 

And with a stack of strips

and some small scraps in the basket. A few tiny scraps went in the bin, as well. 

So, centres were made from the scraps in the basket, leaving this:

while the strips were reduced, somewhat, to leave this. 

And of course, 16, 9" semi-scrappy log cabin blocks!

Cross stitch update (with a finish!)

So, guess what?  There was a lot of telly watching this week, between a fantastic Shakespeare on the box (Richard II) and the Wimbledon men's final, and various other things, so consequently - a lot of stitching. And the houses...are done!

Here's the photo again of what the finished stitching was supposed to look like.  Hopefully later this week I will get it into a frame - I do actually have one ready from my last trip to Ikea.

here's where they were when I left them last time, so you can see how much work I did on the side --all those potted plants and a bit of wall, too.

Of course, once that was done, I needed a new one...

Can you tell what it is yet? 

No, I didn't think so.  It's some cakes:

I have used up a scrap piece of 16 count AIDA (I don't usually stitch on that, prefering either evenweave or linen), but it's a lot whiter than the cream colour used in the photo of the pattern, so I've actually subbed out the cream thread (which doesn't really show on my fabric) for a pale yellow, which I think will work better.   It will have to wait its turn, though, as next week's stitching will be back to the Summer bird. 

Black, white and green

Because I've been good lately, finishing required projects like a backing for the batik quilt commission and the bags for end of school, and because I've been putting together more of my scraps blocks into tops, I let myself have a break from all that on Sunday and made a quilt using "real" fabric - i.e. not scraps or block sets which want using.  This is made largely from what's left of a layer cake, which I used in another project a while back.  I supplemented it with a few more greens and blacks, but on the whole, used the remains of the layer cake - and now, the cake is pretty much gone.  Which means that, even though I didn't set out to do so, I've been very successful in using up difficult pieces from my stash. 

Some bags

That time of year again - teacher presents. This year is easier, as I only have one child in primary school, and his teacher is a guy (so no bag - we are baking instead). But here's a totebag for the teaching assistant. 

I also made another one for the teacher who I work with - she always brings books to and from school in plastic carrier bags, so she really needs a proper bag. This one has a wider bottom than the other, and short handles, so hopefully it will fit a complete set of numeracy (or literacy) books. 

Brown and Black String Hearts

I was a really good girl yesterday, and pulled out my basket of lonely blocks once again - this time, I thought I'd tackle the leftover string heart blocks, of which I had 5 black, 6 brown, 3 pink and 3 green.  Well, I couldn't come up with an interesting solution using all those blocks, but combined with some alternate blocks I think it really works with the black and brown ones. So much so, in fact, that I am going to actually put this one into my top stash and take one of the other two string heart pieces out to go to Project Linus in this top's stead.

Crumb block top

Another scrappy top for the charity pile - this one using crumb blocks with sashing. The sashing is a looser weave African fabric I picked up at a craft show ages ago - I had loads of it, but am finally beginning to thin it out of the stash, with repeated use. Still have loads of crumb blocks left, though...

A quick top

Here's a little top I actually put some blocks together for last month, but only got around to joining them into a top last weekend. This one will go on the Linus pile.

Cross-stitch update

Good progress this week - this is a fast one to stitch, not like the houses. It has fairly decent size sections of single colours, or long strands of them, rather than just a few stitches here and there - why do I let myself start pieces like that? (Answer: these days, I don't buy those types of pieces, the ones like that are all old ones...)

Orange & Blue French Braid

Here's something else I finished off this weekend - the four French braid strips I had from a month or so ago. Not sure what will happen to this, though it will go on the pile I keep (for the time being - it might someday be a gift) rather than the pile I give away, as I like the way it turned out.

Batik quilt - top finished!

My floor isn't quite big enough to lay this one out all the way, but you can get a fairly good idea of it with the final border on. I'm pretty pleased with the way it's come out, and it's made a dent in my batik stash (though I still have quite a few, mostly in blues, purples, etc).