Block sets

I was recently congratulating myself on having used up (or given away) all the sets of blocks I had accumulated over the years from swapping - and this is true, I have!  However, this does not mean I'm without sets of blocks which want to be assembled into quilt tops.  Thought I'd share them with you - lucky you.  These ones above are little - 3.5" - and will probably end up being bordered with something before being used. There are only 16, so they definitely need more happening to them before they can make even a small quilt top.  They were an ender and leader project from a stack of brown squares I had in my scraps. 

These are the 8"  scrappy log cabins I've been making this year to get rid of strings/strips.  I'm sort of not counting these because they are a work in progress, though I do intend to use some up as I go along.  At the moment, there are 91 of them.  I might make some in a smaller size as well - perhaps 6". 

Here are 20, 7" framed four patches - the four patches in the centres were made from blue 2" squares from my huge box of 2" squares; the blue and taupe borders were from FQ or smaller pieces. This will probably be the next thing I use as an ender/leader project - putting these into a top. 

Don't even ask why I had so many of these HST units with the batik stripes - I couldn't tell you. There are getting to be progressively fewer as the months go past and someday, I may even use them all up. At the moment, there are 5 light blue, 19 purple and 38 dark blue. They are 7" blocks.

These are another fairly new addition - 15 of the plaid hot crossed nine patch blocks. I made 9 for the block lotto in April; these were what I could make with the rest of the plaid fabric in my stash (admittedly not much - I'm not a big hoarder of plaids).  Again, they simply need to be pieced into a top and will be done soon.

These are 30,  7" blocks I made today using some of my 4" crumb blocks and some pink and orange hand dyes, where I had small, not particularly useful pieces. Not sure how I will lay them out yet.

These are the last of the 4" crumb blocks I made for using small scraps in the past - there are 21 of them, apparently. They are small, so something will probably happen to them - borders, sashing, something.

This is the last of the string hearts from last year's scrapbusting - there are 19 of them in mostly brown, black and green.   They are lurking because I'm not really sure what I'm going to do with them.  19 is an awkward number.

...and finally, another thing I did today - I took 20 of the log cabins and bordered them with (different) more or less solid hand-dyes - again, using up some smaller, less useful pieces in my stash. These blocks will create a very different quilt top than the ones with the log cabins simply put together side by side - I have a photo of a top done that way which I have yet to blog - soon!

More using things up

Here's another instance of people doing things with stuff I've passed along - this photo came from Sarah's blog - her quilt ministry has made a lovely quilt using a flimsy I sent along to her - the string hearts - with several borders added. It looks fantastic and will go off to someone who hopefully will be really comforted by it. If Sarah lived in the UK rather than the US, I'd send her a lot more flimsies as her quilt ministry is always able to use them and often turns them into really interesting pieces. As it is, I try to send her stuff when my mother comes to visit (she lives in the US, so she'll take a parcel back to the states and post it for me, so it doesn't cost so much).

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...

Another baby quilt

Aren't I productive? Here's another baby quilt quilted. This time, just a meander. This one is the one I mentioned for Sarah's friend's sister (technically, she's a half sister - she's in her mid-20's) - they know they are having  a girl, so it was safe to pull out this top and quilt it up. I will have to attach and stitch down the binding, of course, but I've got lots of bits of the jelly roll left, which I will piece to use for binding.

Finished (again!)

Here's the other baby quilt, ready to go. I finished the binding on it tonight (which means, no cross-stitch was done - oh well), so it's sorted now. Now maybe one more for Sarah's best friend's (considerably older) sister, who is having a baby in the next couple of months.  I'll have to quilt another one for that, though...

More using up blocks

Here are two more tops, made from these Batik Roman stripes blocks which I had loads of. I still have quite a few (and no, I'm not really sure why, I just have them) and am trying to use them up in different layouts. I still have ones with dark blue corners, and 19 purple ones, but I am down to 5 of the light blue. The end is in sight. Sort of.

Cross-stitch update

If you are struggling to spot the progress this week, don't worry, there's not a lot to be seen. I only worked on this one evening, I think, so it's just a bit of filling in the path and doorway - I was out at least one night and had one night where I stitched down binding, so there just wasn't much cross-stitch progress. But that's ok.

Finished!

Finished sewing the binding down on this one at my little quilt group tonight - and I got about a third of the way through the other baby quilt, so that one will follow fairly shortly, I should think. Maybe.

Batik Framed Fours

These are two more tops I put together over the Easter holidays - from blocks from a swap ages ago. I have very few swap blocks left, if any - but it's taken a while to get to that point!  One of these tops will stay with me and the other go to a charity.  Not sure which is which, just yet!

Batik quilt, steps 2 & 3

The next thing I did to the batik commission quilt was to add a purpley red border, about an inch wide, then another border made of wonky four patch blocks. I'm very happy with it so far. Next step is to introduce some new colours - I want to get some brown into it - I have a very nice warm brown or two. So I'll do that by using a kind of dark neutral batik I have which has a purple tinge and some orangey brown streaks in it. Hard to describe, but I think it's going to work nicely. That will have to wait for next weekend, though.

Batik beginnings

This is the start of a new quilt top - this one is a commission, so I don't have to feel guilty about starting a new project. I'm going to work through using up some of my batik stash.  This will be the centre of the piece, and I will work out bit by bit. I'm kind of making it up as I go along, to be honest!  At this point, it's about 24" square, and it needs to get up to about 90" or so, so we've got a way to go.  But I wanted to do something a little different than just making a load of similar blocks and chucking them together.

Cross-stitch update

Definite progress - filled in both leaves on the left, which was fairly mindless - I did use a different colour to the one given as DMC equivalent in the bottom leaf, because the colour given - the peachy one on the spirally frond above - had very little contrast with the outline of the leaf. Also did quite a bit more on the letters. Next week, back to the houses.

Blue and Brown scraps

Another scrappy quilt to use up bits and pieces, this time starting with some brown squares, with which I did liberated four patches, and framed in various browns and blues. This one is staying in my pile, though, not going to project Linus. For a while anyway - not that I need more tops, but I kinda like it...

More actual quilting

Here's the second of the two baby quilts I quilted this weekend - for this one, I used a denser quilting pattern - essentially a medium meander with some suns thrown in. These fabrics are all hand-dyes, so some are a little thicker than commerical fabrics and there are quite a few seams, so it helps to have a little denser quilting than in yesterday's piece. 

Actually, I quilted them both yesterday, as it happens. Today's sewing time was spent partly in doing some mending (boring) and partly in seaming together some quilt backings (even more boring than mending).  After about 4 backings, I was losing the will to live, so I stopped, but I'm getting there - I'd like to have all the quilts I have backings for (which isn't all the tops I own, I admit), have their backs ready to be quilted up at the drop of a hat. So to speak.  Not that I will necessarily do so, but if you get in the mood to quilt, the last thing you want to do is have to be piecing backing!

Actual quilting

In addition to loads of piecing to use up scrap things, the next round of the Cotton Robin round robin, which I can't show you, and a huge pile of mending, I also managed to do some quilting over the Easter holidays. Here's the first of two baby quilts for colleagues at work - this one I kept fairly simple, with just a loop and star design. It's quite a plain quilt with lots of open space, but I didn't want to quilt it heavily as I like all the open space. If it wasn't a baby quilt, I might have put something in the big space, but for a baby quilt, something simple is fine. The other one, which I'll show tomorrow, is quilted a bit more heavily.  I also pinned together three other small projects waiting for quilting - then I ran out of batting. It would be great to really reduce that pile of waiting stuff. Some of it has to go to the longarmer, which depends on me piecing together backing and having some money to spare, but the rest, I really should be able to work through. Especially the small things, which don't even require that I move my sewing machine to the dining room table!

Pink and Blue Scrappy

Yet another of the small tops I've been making in the Easter holidays to use up scraps - this one is made from squares with logs on two sides; the blocks are then rotated part way to give the staggered look when joined up.  Looking at it now, I can see I've joined one or two rows backwards (they should alternate), but I'm not sure I'm going to change it - in fact, I know I've not, becaue I've already sent it away...

Hot-crossed Nine Patch

This is the block for the block lotto this month - a plaid and white nine-patch block, bordered and sliced with a narrow contrast strip inserted. A fun block, and probably not something I'd normally make, which is part of the fun of the block lotto...

Cross-stitch update

Quite a decent amount of progress this week, actually, though a lot of the new stitching is in a pale cream, which doesn't show well in a photo. The left hand bottom side is pretty much done now except a couple of stitches in the plant with yellow flowers. I've also done a fair amount of backstitching in the centre of the piece, which always helps things look more finished, I think. Of course, there's still the right hand side to work on!

Herby squares

Another in the collection of tops I've been making to destash. This one simply features squares of a feature fabric alternating with scrap squares. It was a way to use up 1/2 metre of the herb fabric, most of which I used some time ago for something else - can't remember what...

Brown & green

Another top which I put together from oddments. This started with the brown plaid, which is something I've had for a while but which was quite hard to use in anything - it only seemed to go with brown and green, so I've put it with other browns and greens, also in those awkward browny/olively colours - it's certainly not a quilt for a child, but it works.