2016 Finishes

I started the year strong thanks to classes and retreats, but then summer hit with gardening and spending time outside and then suddenly we were unexpectedly moving.  The good news is that I did get a lot of quilt tops completed last year even if they didn't ultimately turn into completed quilts.  I already had a pile of unquilted tops, so I guess we know what needs to be the priority in 2017!  Of course, I also just packed and unpacked my personal stash and it's very obvious that a lot more tops need to be pieced as well if I have any hope of making a dent.  At least with all of the projects at the new house and the money required to complete them, I am not even remotely tempted to add anymore fabric to my already huge stash lol.

So on to my 2016 finishes.  January 2016 was pretty productive.  I taught a class for our Guild with my 2 Hour Table Runner pattern and completed a red, black and white version while demo-ing the steps for the class.  I got it quilted a few months later and binding completed in September.  I also got the binding sewn down for the two Floating Four Patch quilts that I had quilted in 2015, so those two little quilts are done, done.

In February I attended a retreat, which is always conducive for getting things done.  I actually got my Black & White Bargello top completed before the retreat so I would have it for Show & Tell.  As a bonus, I also was able to take my Bargello top to a Quilting Cocoon I attended in Naperville in April and get a picture of the quilt top with Bonnie Hunter, the designer of the pattern I used.  It's a free pattern and you can find it here.  During the retreat I pieced my Prairie Stroll top using a collection of fabrics I had purchased when I started quilting in 2001, so I was happy to finally have them into a completed quilt top.  This was a pattern from an issue of Quiltmaker magazine from 2001.  Also at retreat, I pieced a quick little table runner that is a free pattern on the Timeless Treasures Reef Charm Pack.

In March I finished my Mysterious top from a class I took with Doug Leko in February.  This was a great quilt to make!  It's one of those blocks that can result in a multitude of layout possibilities that all look very different.  I also finished a couple of trivets made from orphan blocks.  I like to practice my machine quilting on orphan blocks and turn them into trivets or potholders.

April brought the previously mentioned Quilting Cocoon held in Naperville, IL.  This was a great event set up by Craftours and featured classes with four national/international instructors.  Bonnie Hunter was one of them and while I haven't made any real progress on the class I took from her in April, I did manage to get my Texas Tumbleweeds top completed during the Cocoon and got a picture of the top with Bonnie and myself.  Texas Tumbleweeds was the class I had taken on a Quilting Cruise in November 2014.  The pattern can be found in her More Adventures with Leaders and Enders book and you can purchase it directly from Bonnie here. 

I also completed this little strippy strings top that will be donated once it's completed.  I had short strings I wanted to use so I sewed them onto leftover rolls of paper from the ATMs we used to fill.  I do plan to write up the instructions at some point, but haven't gotten to that yet.  Perhaps that will be a blog post when I finally get this top quilted and bound.  The top does have a bit of a left leaning problem, but I think I will be able to remedy that with a the quilting.

Finally, I finished  sewing down the binding on another of my 2 Hour Table Runners in April.  I call this one the "Caribbean" runner.

The next few months of quilting time were filled with a special project for which I got the top completed in July.  My FIL passed away in 2014 and I am using his shirts to make quilts for my husband and his sister.  I finished his sister's quilt top in July.  It is a combination of string pieced blocks and applique.  I used the quilt Angel Kisses from the Strips and Strings book by Evelyn Sloppy as inspiration for the quilt and for the applique patterns.

While in the throes of buying a house, selling a house and packing to move, I needed some mindless sewing to keep my sanity.  I had received some free strips with my Island Batik orders, so some 16 patch blocks using matching pairs of the strips was just what I needed.  I trimmed the strips to 2 1/2 inches wide for my blocks.  A quick tutorial on piecing 16 patch blocks will likely be one of my future blog posts although there are plenty such tutorials already out there :-).  So here is my 16 patch top.  It's a small top that will be great for a child.  Once I get it quilted and bound it will be donated.

And the final finish for 2016 happened on December 31, 2016 at about 11 p.m. as I put the final stitches in the binding of my Jingle Table Runner.  This was a free pattern on the Jingle charm pack from Timeless Treasures.  I added borders because I wanted a wider runner.  The piecing was super easy.

So Let's Talk Orphan Blocks...

We all have them.  Some of us sew them together into a whole new quilt top or a quilt backing.  Some of us turn them into coasters, potholders or trivets, or even small wall hangings for those extra large blocks.  Some of us do nothing with them at all and either throw them in a drawer or in the trash.  If you currently throw them in the trash please consider passing them on to a quilter that makes charity quilts.  Trust me that they will be put to good use!

As for me, I fall into the second category and like to turn my orphans into mini quilts to be used as potholders, etc.  In the spirit of full disclosure, first they usually go into a drawer, and I have quite a backlog at this point, but eventually I have a "deal with the poor orphan blocks" day and then they get to come out and play :-)

For those new quilters out there who don't know what orphan blocks are, they are the extra blocks leftover from making a quilt.  Yes, it does OCCASIONALLY happen that the number of blocks doesn't come out exactly to what you need and you have extra.  I say this tongue in cheek because this is not an occasional occurrence for me, it's a regular one LOL.  Or you make a test block that doesn't get used in the final quilt.  As a rule I'm not a test block maker, but I know many quilters are.  Or in the case of one of my recently quilted orphan blocks, I made a mis-cut when piecing for the quilt, so this one block had to get rejected because it wasn't going to end up at the correct size.

No matter how we get them, they seem to multiply much like scraps do.  So I am trying to not let them pile up quite so high and to deal with them more timely as they get produced.  I was traveling recently and binding little orphan blocks is the perfect handwork for airports and airplanes.  I got these two blocks bound during that trip.  I had lots of other handwork with me so I didn't get as many blocks bound as I took on the trip.

These two blocks have cotton batting in them so they will be used as trivets although they may also be fine as potholders as long as the temperature isn't too hot and the item isn't held too long.  I use Insulbrite in orphan blocks specifically intended to be potholders.  Then I know they are safe for use with high temperatures.  If you aren't familiar with Insul-bright, you can find it at the big box stores for a good price, especially if you catch it on sale.  It looks like this:

These two Christmas orphan blocks have Insul-Bright in them.  They end up a bit thicker and stiffer than they would with cotton batting and they have a little crinkle sound when you bend them.  That makes it easy to tell if Insul-Bright has been used rather than cotton batting.

Here are three more Christmas orphans that are quilted with regular batting.  The rectangular one would be great as a mug rug and the other two would be great for displaying some smaller Christmas decorations or simply using them as over sized coasters.

As a bonus to turning my orphans into mini quilts, I get to use up some of this:

Those are my bags of binding left over from binding my quilts.  I can generally find something in these baggies to match the orphan blocks and it is a good way to use up small lengths of leftover binding.  I also use these blocks to practice my machine quilting skills.  This is a good way to get practice without turning a large quilt into an eyesore lol. I currently have one poor little orphan that came out worse for the wear after I tried out some new quilting designs on it.  It's not the actual quilting that is so bad, but rather the designs I used, where I used them, and the thread that I used.  The quilting became way too busy and overwhelmed the block itself.  I am keeping it for future reference to hopefully show me how far my machine quilting skills have come!

I have more to say about orphan blocks, but this post is getting long so we will leave it as is for now :-).