People using things up!

Those of you who hang out here a lot will know that I sometimes give stuff away that I don't want any more - quilt tops sometimes, but more often leftover blocks or sets with which I am no longer enamoured, other other bits and pieces. As far as I'm concerned, what then happens with those things is only of interest to me as a matter of curiosity - that is, people are under no obligation whatever to use the things I send them quickly - or at all - and I never check up on them or try to make them feel guilty.  However, it IS fun to see what happens to these things, when something happens.  Two people I've passed things on to have recently been in touch to say they were using those things, so I thought you'd all be interested to see..

First up, Kathy used some crumb blocks which I sent her - not sure if I sent her the 4" blocks or the 6", though I'm thinking they were the 6" because I don't have any of those left and I still have stacks of 4", which I seem to be able to use for things more readily than the 6".  I love what she's done with them - her design does tone them down a bit and make them cheerfully busy, rather than manic. Well done Kathy for a FINISH!  Hoorah!



And Lynne used some HST units (which were offcuts from my red scrappy string heart blocks) to form the centre of some log cabin blocks. She's not finished with her project yet, but it's a great start.  I've pinched this photo from her blog - hopefully she won't mind - but you'll have to go over to her place to see the log cabins themselves...

A little sorting

Didn't do much sewing today, though I had originally intended to - first, I spent more time than I had planned fixing some open seams in a parachute for school (the nylon kind you play playground games with, not the silk kind you jump out of airplanes with), and then there was homework help and various other things.

I also had intended to do some cross-stitch while watching telly, but as we were watching the film Inception, I ended up having to switch to something a little more mindless as I actually had to pay quite a lot of attention to the film - not something which happens all the time. It was good, though, I thought, if somewhat confusing at times.

Anyway, I decided to sort out the scrap basket instead of cross-stitch and as you can see, it's much emptier. I did remove a few things - some larger scraps and a pile of strips to be filed elsewhere, and this rather small pile of diddy scraps which are too small to bother with - they'll go in a box for a friend who childminds - she'll use them for collage, etc, with her kids.

Scrap basket

Been ages since I updated the state of my scrap basket, and yes, it's nearly full again - but lots of these pieces could be "filed" elsewhere, I'm sure. And I do have a shoebox of small scraps which are sorted by colour from earlier in the year. This might be a good watching telly project, though - sorting the scraps - particularly if I am watching something with subtitles (when I can't do cross-stitch)...

Blue and brown four patch

Here's the second one of the two brown and blue four patch quilts - with the alternative layout. I do like this better, I think. Anyway, I don't suppose it matters too much as they will both be charity donations...

Better!

This definitely works better - stitching the blocks together so that the browns cross the blocks rather than the scrappy blue. Wish I'd done the other one this was as well...

Blue and brown four patch

I put together some of the blocks I've been making into a small top - problem is, I don't really like the effect. I will keep it this way and donate it to Project Linus, as I'm sure it will come in handy, and I don't hate it, but ideally, because the blues are all scrappy, the browns need to be the blocks which form the diagonals, rather than the blues (in the smaller blocks) - the other half of the blocks, I will put together the other way, which I think will be far more effective.

More scrapbusting

Today, what I felt like doing was some fairly mindless piecing (I am a big fan of piecing - of all the parts of the quilt making process, it's the bit that relaxes me the most. I like other parts, too, but they take more effort, concentration, brainpower, what-have-you - simple piecing I just find really relaxing. This is why I do so much of it and end up with so many tops). So I decided to see if I could whittle down my drawer of blue scraps even further by making some double four patches, using 2.5" squares and 4.5" squares. I found a bit of browny-neutral fabric which I've had for years - it was given to me - which I thought would be good for the non-blue blocks, and away I went. I've cut enough fabric for 50 of these blocks (which finish at 8") - that will make two baby quilts for various charities. And, more to the point, it did make a serious dent in my blue scraps - look:

This was full to the top before I started cutting! Of course, it's nearly time to clean out the scrapbasket again, whereupon lots more scraps will be added to this little drawer, but at least there's space for them now...

Brown scrappy top

Another one for the Project Linus pouch - this one designed to reduce brown scraps, with some other autumnal colours thrown in. The four patches are made from 2.5" squares, but then cut slightly askew to make a 4" block, which is the (unfinished) size of the larger squares. I tried very hard not to repeat any fabrics in this one -yes, I do have that many different brown scraps! These came entirely out of my scrap drawers - many of them already cut at 4" or 2.5". I did throw in some yellow, orange and red squares in the smaller size as well.

Blue squares

Remember a while back I did a green version of Judy Laquidara's Peaches and Dreams quilt to use up green strip scraps? Well, I decided I'd tackle some blues with a blue version, only a little smaller - baby quilt size (36" square). What an excellent idea - I love this. I was going to give it to Project Linus, but changed my mind once it was made - instead, I've taken a blue string quilt out of my stash of tops and replaced it with this one! I might even do this again someday - such a simple yet effective pattern.

The other heart quilt top

This one has only black, purple, green and blue hearts - the colours I seemed to have the most of - and the layout is a bit different. This will go on my baby quilt pile, I think.

Stringy hearts

Well, I finally finished up the orange and brown hearts (not so many orange ones - only about 3 or 4) and have been making them into tops. Made these two tops over the weekend - essentially the same, but just mixed up the colours of the rows a bit. I have one more design planned, which will use 25 blocks, and then I have 19 more in various colours which will want using in some way. Not quite sure yet what I will do with those - will have to have a play with them. At least one of these stripy ones will go on the baby quilt stash - the other may also or may go to charity - I think that will depend on how the third one looks. Whatever I do with the leftover 19 blocks, that will almost certainly go to Project Linus. And of course, a load of red ones that I made already went to Clare for Quilts for Leukaemia, so my de-scrapifying is really doing some good somewhere...

Orange string hearts

Coming along nicely - as are the brown ones. And then, the issue will be how I use them all (some will end up as charity quilts, which is fine).

Pile of scraps...

or not. These are what will be the last of the string hearts I have been making all year to thin out my strip stash (and actually, it's worked - strip stash is noticeably thinner, unlike lots of other scraps). There is orange, which is the colour for October, and brown, which I anticipate will be the colour for November. And even if it isn't, I had a lot of brown scraps I needed to use. (I'm anticipating the colour for December might be red & green in combo - if so, I won't do hearts as they are monochromatic - just as I didn't do red, white and blue in July).

Black string hearts

More hearts to go with the scrappy string hearts - September's colour was black, and although I haven't finished them yet, at least I have a few done. And many more partly done. The time will soon come when I have to decide what I'm going to do with all the hearts I have - now that will be a real challenge!

Black string hearts

Made a start today on stitching together some black strips to make hearts to go with my other colours - I have LOTS of black strips, so there will be quite a few hearts. Haven't got to the heart part of them yet, but here are the strips. I've thrown in a few greys as well...

I'm predicting the remaining colours for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge 2011 - I think October will feature orange, which we haven't had yet, and which is a very October colour. November, I think will be brown, as again, it's not one we've had yet. And December, this is just a wild guess, based on July, but I'm going for red & green in combination. I could be wrong!

Black & White & Bright

You may remember yesterday I said I had cut out 144, 2.5" black and black and white squares - well, this is what they were for - first I sewed them into a background (see below) and then I added some rather random shapes in different bright hand-dyes on top. The shapes are just fused at the moment, but I'll sew them down during the quilting process, so they'll stay stuck. The piece is (in case you don't want to do the maths) 24" square and will be for a swap.

Scrappy with black and white

The colour for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge for September is black - I dug out some black (and black and white) scraps and used them along with some green and purple to make this simple top - another charity donation. I have also cut up 144 2.5" squares in black, BOB and black and white fabrics to use for another project - more on that tomorrow...

End of Day scrappy quilt

So, here's a small quilt top made from one of the Farmer's Wife Sampler Quilt blocks, which I did the other day. A little more time and effort than many of the scrappy quilts I have been doing to de-stash, due to the angled cuts and joins, but still not difficult. Blue is still the main area that my stash of scraps and small pieces of fabrics bulges in, so I decided to grab a few slightly larger pieces and see what I could do with them. I decided to use tan fabrics with the blues, because they look nice together... This one will also go on the Project Linus pile.

What's wrong with this photo...

Not a trick question, really - but now that I've sewn these together, I realise that I really need another row of 6 - this layout is too long and skinny. Easy enough to do - lord knows I have plenty of Hawaiian shirt fabric!

Also sewed together the little string top - can't decided if I like the random width strings or not, but it will do!

Tomorrow, the kids are at tennis camp all day, so I'm going to try to get one of the upcoming baby quilts quilted. Hopefully that will fit nicely into the other things I have to do, which include a bit of laundry (of course) and a bit of hoovering...

White strings...

To continue with the Rainbow Scrap Challenge for August (the colour being white), I decided to tackle my (not very large) pile of white strings - obviously I can't use these to make string hearts as I have been doing in other months as there's not enough contrast between the different whites and they won't work on the white/cream/COW backgrounds I've been doing the other heart blocks on. So, I decided to make a few blocks with random white strings in them - using Hawaiian shirt fabric leftover from my dad's shirts. I had forgotten that I still had a ton of fabric left, even after making a number of quilts from the shirts. I found the box with all the fabric in it when I was clearing out last weekend, so I decided to make the little scrappy one above (which is pieced onto a foundation) and then do some blocks with strips across them, like these:

I have nearly used all my white (and lighter coloured cream) strips now!

I will probably give the top one away, but keep the bottom blocks for myself, at least for a while, until some need or other arises. Unfortunately, I still have LOADS of Hawaiian shirt fabric. I will have to think of something else to do with it which uses up greater amounts (maybe some pieced backs...)