Fun with Leftovers!

I am still plugging away on my Perkiomen Daydreams blocks.  I have enough blocks completed for 7 full rows and 2/3 of an 8th row.  Just a couple more rows and I will be at the half way point.  By assembling rows as a go it breaks up the process, which is nice, and it also means that I won't have to lay out 400 blocks all at once.  Here is a pic of the first 6 rows with rows 1 & 2 joined and rows 3 & 4 joined.  I replaced and re-arranged the blocks in row 5 after getting row 7 completed in order to better disperse fabrics and colors.

Making all of these blocks generates a lot of leftovers, some of which are totally usable in my book, while others go in a bag for my quilting friend who makes art quilts.  I have two types of leftovers from these blocks - strings of a certain length and shorter pieced units that come from cutting the block segments.  I am piecing string blocks with the strings and coasters with the other leftovers.  The plan right now is to make the string blocks into potholders rather than put together in a quilt.  My latest idea is to piece the strings diagonally and use those blocks in a quilt.  Otherwise I will end up with about 50 potholders by the time I am done with this quilt :-).

Before I post the leftover pics, here is a pic with a bunch of block components spread out as I select which one to add to each block.  I try not to duplicate an individual fabric within a block, but it's happened a few times in spite of my efforts.

And here are the leftovers and what I am doing with them.

The Stripology Squared Ruler Rocks!

I am a scrap quilter.  That has already been well established.  As such, I'm generally not easily persuaded to buy specialty rulers for cutting this, that and the other, unless I can clearly see a benefit to doing so.  Part of it is not wanting to add more clutter to my sewing room when I don't use said specialty ruler as has happened in the past, nor do I want to waste money on something I don't use when said money could be used to buy fabric :-).  So it takes A LOT to get me to purchase a new type of ruler other than my tried and true Omnigrids that I have in various sizes.  I have considered getting a die cutter, briefly, at various points in my quilting career, to make cutting my scraps down to usable sizes faster and easier.  I have never been able to justify the cost or the space required, so thus far I have continued cutting down my scraps the old fashioned way (i.e. with whichever Omnigrid ruler worked best. Enter the Stripology Squared Ruler.  This ruler is the successor to the original Stripology Ruler.  I was able to resist the original ruler based on my quilting friends' reviews that it wasn't long enough for cutting longer pieces of fabric.  That problem has been solved with the Stripology Squared Ruler.  I was still on the fence about it until Gudren Erla, the designer of the ruler, sent one to Bonnie Hunter of Quiltville for her birthday.  Bonnie is a scrap quilter extraordinaire and when she used her ruler to cut down her scraps into strips for the quilt she was working on, I was sold.

My ruler arrived last week and while there were instructions included noting all of the different things you could do with the ruler, my focus was on cutting down my scraps and cutting my strips for my Perkiomen Daydreams quilt in progress so I just dove in without reading them lol.  I had quite a pile of my own scraps and gifted scraps to be dealt with so I started with those.  I'm trying to turn over a new leaf and deal with scraps as they come rather than storing them in boxes of  "Scraps to be Cut Down", of which there are currently 3 or 4 crammed full.  Oy.  No need to add to THAT backlog, so off I go with my new ruler.  While I couldn't use the ruler for all of the scraps to be cut down, boy did it make short work of the pieces to be cut into strips.  So far, so good. 

Scraps before pressing:

Pressed and ready to be cut into useful shapes, or kept as is (i.e. I keep a box of just triangles that work great for the corners of string blocks or for paper piecing triangle shapes as well as boxes of "crumbs" for paper piecing or crumb blocks).

Trimmed scraps.  The ruler is designed with markings for easy cutting of 1 1/2 and 2 1/2 inch strips, but you can cut pretty much any width strip you need as the ruler has cutting openings every half inch.  You just have to make sure that you count correctly :-).

Next I put the ruler to work cutting more of the bazillion strips that I need for Perkiomen Daydreams.  I want as much variety as possible and I want this quilt to be a scrapbook of fabrics I carried in the shop, so that involves lots and lots of strip cutting of lots and lots of different fabrics.  I stack the fabrics three at a time with pieces that are approximately the same width and I put the widest at the bottom and the narrowest on the top.  Clean up one edge, cut as many strips as you can from the stack and wa la, beautifully cut strips in a fraction of the time.

The biggest bonus so far having purchased this ruler is using it to subcut all of the strip sets I need for Perkiomen Daydreams.  Due to the long length of the ruler, I can easily cut two sets at a time.  This has saved me SO much time!  I will definitely pull out my Stripology Squared Ruler anytime I need to do a major amount of subcutting of strips or strip sets.

So in conclusion, this ruler is a bit spendy compared to other rulers out there, but the quality is great, it's made by Creative Grids so it has grippers automatically built in to avoid slippage, and it's a huge time saver.  The time saving aspect alone makes the cost of the ruler worth as it will pay for itself many times over since as quilters we all know that there are more quilts to make than time in the day LOL.  The larger shape makes it a challenge for shipping, but if I can figure out a way to efficiently ship the rulers, I will definitely stock them in the shop.

And here is the progress on Perkiomen Daydreams since my last post.  The blocks for rows 4 and 5 are completed, but I want to make at least one more row and then shuffle the blocks around to mix up the fabrics a bit more.

Princess Mirah Batiks Have Arrived at My Very Own Quilt Shop!

There are many, many more to come, but the first of the Princess Mirah batiks are now available at My Very Own Quilt Shop!  These are some of the richest, yummiest batiks I've ever seen.  I just love Mirah batiks!  Well, I love all batiks, but I REALLY love Princess Mirah batiks lol.

Here are some of the new ones on the site.  Click on the link above to see them all as well as the other batiks in our shop.

Perkiomen Daydreams

Ever since I saw this quilt on Bonnie Hunter's website I knew that I had to make it someday.   Well that someday has finally arrived.  I got the book with the pattern in it for Christmas this year and realized it would be a perfect quilt for using the cutoffs I get from prepping the bolts for sale in my store.  So out with the original plan for the cutoffs and in with the new. 

This quilt is HUGE and has 10,000 one inch squares.  Even using strip piecing methods, that is ALOT of cutting, sewing, and then more cutting.  I set a goal to cut and piece 50 strip sets in February to ultimately yield 50 blocks (I think) of the 400 total that I need.  I managed to get 3 sets completely pieced and the fourth cut, but now sewn.  Not bad considering the time of year it is.

Here are some pics of my progress in February:



A Gaggle of Geese & Other Random Stuff

Tax season is officially underway, but I have been trying to carve out some sewing time in the midst of the chaos as it helps keep me sane.  And calmer lol.  I have been working on a few things this week as I've had some snippets of time.

Way back when, a number of years ago, I started a Corn & Beans quilt made with batiks.  I had extra in all of the strips so using my triangle rulers, I cut flying geese units as well as other block components from the extra.  This week I sewed up a bunch of the geese.  And no, I have not yet finished the original quilt.  In fact, I still have probably half of the cutting left to do.  It's going to be a very large quilt made up of 6" blocks :-).  So here are my gaggle of geese for the week:

I also got the binding attached to this little orphan block trivet that I quilted at least two years ago, probably three:

I haven't posted many cat pics lately, so I thought I would remedy that as well.  When I prepare the fabric bolts for sale in the shop, I clean up the end of the bolt and get rid of the wrinkly part and make a nice straight edge to start with.  Of course being a scrap quilter, I am keeping all of those cutoffs.  In fact, I am keeping them separate and have selected a pattern to make a quilt just from those cutoffs.  Kind of a scrapbook for the shop and a record of all of the fabrics I have ever carried. 

I washed the latest dark cutoffs yesterday and had them piled on the cutting table.  Sassy of course thought they were perfect for a nap.  But then she decided the basket with the unwashed light cutoffs was even more comfortable :-).

Happy Birthday to Me!

Yes, it is my birthday today...43 years old.  I have a thing about the number 3, I hate it, so I told S that I may just tell people that I'm 44 for two years and skip 43 lol.  As a little birthday gift to myself, I bought these yummy batiks from Jackie during her sale last weekend.

Of course I had help with them when I started getting them ready to wash.

Echo simply moved to the pile once I pulled the pieces out from under him that he was laying on in the above picture.

On an unrelated feline note, I have an orange and white cat that has started coming around, usually in the back yard. He drinks out of the pool and hangs out a bit from time to time.  This morning I was laying in bed when I heard the most awful sound.  It was cool outside so the windows were open and apparently Echo and Tyrone were looking out the front window when the orange and white cat showed up outside the window.  To say that Tyrone wasn't happy to see him would be an understatement!

Progress on Christmas Gifts and a Little Stash Enhancement

I spent yesterday at Dawn's and actually did some sewing!  The last time I did any sewing was also at Dawn's house.  It seems when I'm home lately I'm either working on work or working in the garage lol.  But yesterday I got started on my sister's Christmas gifts.  I got two of her table mats cut out and pieced.  Both of them are made from patterns, something that is rare for me, and I followed the directions exactly, which is even rarer for me LOL.  Usually I design my own quilts or at the very least, rewrite the instructions for somebody else's design to make it more "me friendly".  But not this time.  I followed the instructions for both patterns to the letter.

Here's the first one.  The fabrics were kitted up with the pattern at the quilt shop in Devils Lake, ND, and I thought they did a fabulous job with the fabric choices.

This quilts is from this pattern by G.E. Designs.  It's designed as a Quilt As You Go pattern, but I wanted to be a bit more creative with the quilting, so I just pieced the top as instructed and will baste it and quilt it the traditional way.  My sister wants one more topper in this pattern, with different fabrics, so you will be seeing this design again, probably soon.

I also pieced this little table topper.  It is from this pattern by Atkinson Designs.  This is a great pattern that is pretty easy to piece if you are careful with the bias edges and follow the instructions exactly.  As a bonus, it comes in 3 sizes.  I made the smallest size.

You will also be seeing this pattern again as my sister picked out one more set of fabrics that she wants made up in this design.

And here are the new batiks I got last week that I mentioned in my last post.  All southwest designs, of which I don't really have many in batiks, so they will be a nice addition to my stash.

And the cat backing I got for 40% off and a random dot fat quarter that I found in the $1.25 bin.  The dot fabric is a Michael Miller fabric and the cat fabric is from a new line by Red Rooster.





Long Tall "Bleeding" Clarification

While I was certainly perplexed by the amount of color in the color catcher sheets when I washed my Long Tall quilt, I want to clarify that there was NO actual bleeding in the quilt.  I think Wanda's comment today explained how that could be, so thank you to her for clearing up some of the confusion.

Like Wanda, I have never had a batik actually bleed.  In fact, I have a Jewel Box batik quilt on our bed that has been washed a number of times.  The background on the top is white with numerous dark batiks and there is not one spec of bleeding in that quilt, but the backing batik fabrics seem to release dye onto the color catcher sheets when washed, much like Long Tall did.  I thought that quilt was a fluke until the same thing happened with Long Tall.

So, the bottom line is don't be afraid to use those batiks! 

Awesome day yesterday!

As planned, I did spend the day at Dawn's sewing and it was quite the productive day.  At the top of my list was to finish the color catcher string block top that I posted about here.  I finally decided on a layout, but needed 4 more blocks first.  I happened to have exactly 4 more color catcher foundations on hand from washing my aunt's quilt.  I pieced those first using the strings from the scrap bag I just finished cutting up to add variety to the strings I had already used.  Actually, I found out that I must have previously cut up some amount from that bag as some of the fabrics had already been used, so I think I got even more from the bag then I thought.

Here is the almost finished top.  I say almost finished because Dawn and I concluded that the yellow squares need some sort of applique in them as they are so large.  First we were thinking hearts, but those don't really go with the overall look or name of the quilt, which we are calling All That Jazz because it reminded her husband of New Orleans and Mardi Gras.  I already have a quilt named Mardi Gras so that name was out.  Then I thought of purple flowers with a yellow center, but that doesn't really go either, so now I'm thinking a square of the purple border fabric placed askew in each of the yellow squares.  What do you all think?  Any and all ideas are welcome.  Leave me a comment or send me an email with your opinions, please.

We took a break to go get lunch and while we were at it, we checked out a new quilt shop in our area.  It's really nice and we will definitely be back.  I picked up a few pieces to come home with me.  The pink was on sale for $6/yard, so great deal on that one and I definitely couldn't pass up lime with dots, or the geometric bright pattern.

And finally, if you are still reading, my DH called part way through the day and was confused that I had received a FedEx package.  He read me the return address and I knew it had to be the scraps that Thelma of Cupcakes 'n' Daisies had sent me.  We were chatting about scraps one day and I told Thelma that I would gladly take her scraps off her hands whenever she wanted.  Next thing I know she's offering me her bag of Faceted Jewels scraps.  Scraps that are Batiks to boot.  Of course I said yes immediately and the bag arrived yesterday.  I thought it was a quart size bag, but it was a GALLON ziploc and it was full.  And let me tell you folks, these are not scraps.  These are perfectly cut or pieced unit components that Thelma didn't use in her quilt, so the bag is actually more like a quilt kit then a bag of scraps.  THANK YOU THELMA!!!!  I already have 4-5 ideas swirling as to what to do with these pieces and once I decide, everything is ready to just sit down and sew.  Fun, fun.  I sorted all of the pieces and then put them back away in the bag while my ideas are marinating.  Here is what was in the bag.

Whew, what a great day yesterday, from start to finish.  I had planned to work today, but not sure how that's going to go.  I'm not motivated at all.  I have a massage later, which I desparately need, and I still have some household things to take care of before I can even get started on work, so there's not much of a window left at that point to get anything major done.  And the Oscars are tonight, so forget working after the massage.  So, I think maybe it will be a light day of work getting some billing done, always a good thing if I want to get paid, and maybe some "pre prep" work and corporate extensions.  Easy stuff.  And then back to the salt mines tomorrow.

Something doesn't belong in this picture...

I was washing my new batiks on Sunday and as I was transferring them to the dryer I noticed that I had a helper.  Do you see anything that doesn't quite belong in this picture?

I thought if I kept throwing the wet fabric on her, she would leave.  Nope. Just kept letting it pile on until she was completely buried.  Shortly after that she popped her little head out for this picture.  I can't ever accuse her of slacking on her Quality Control duties!!

Fabric Inventory complete/stash pictures & ponderings

Well, the 2010 fabric inventory is complete.  While it is a bit of a chore, I always like revisiting my stash and finding things I forgot I had.  It also gets my creative juices going and helps solidify my current year goals.  And of course I never get tired of petting my batiks.

In the midst of the project, the mail arrived and look what was waiting for me.  Here's a sneak peek.  Can you guess what the box contains?

Ok, here's a closer look, along with the package inspector, Echo.  Are you surprised?  It's more batiks of course!  Yummy Timeless Treasure batiks off of Ebay.  They were a good deal and cost about exactly as much as the check my sister sent me for my dishcloth sales, so they were basically free too!  How could I pass them up?  They have been counted in the inventory and will be getting washed and stored today.  My inventory sheet tells me that I have almost 700 yards of batiks.  Do you think that's too much?  I don't.  I don't think I can ever have too many batiks.  My dream job would be as a fabric rep for Princess Mirah batiks, but alas, I will have to keep my day job for now, since we like to eat and have a roof over our heads, as do the furkids.

Here's some pictures of my batik stash, as well as the rest of my stash.  I do truly love my stash and wouldn't want to get rid of any of it.  I love that I very rarely have to shop for borders or even backings as I can shop my own "store" 24/7.  Same goes for thread.  I have a huge stash of that now too and I had something on hand for every quilt I just quilted and didn't have to wait for the quilt shop to open in order to continue on my projects.  That is huge for me.  When I am in the mood to work on something, particularly machine quilting, I need to jump on it while the mood is there and get it done as I'm not good at all with "having" to work on certain projects.  The rotation method would never work for me.  I like to work on what I want, when I want to do it, whether it be quilting, cross-stitch, or crocheting.

Oh, and here's a cute picture of the main members of the Quality Control Team, Mutt & Jeff, er, I mean Sassy and Echo.  Can you see how much smaller Sassy is?  She will be a year old in a month and Echo is a month younger than her.  She's a petite little thing.