Thursday, January 29, 2009

A Flash From the Quilting Past

I wrote this picture dense post for Rejoice Always in January of '07, and even though I completely finished it at the time I just saved it as a draft and never published it. I'm not sure why. I think it's time it saw the light of day...

January 14, 2007

I spent Monday putting together a small challenge quilt to be auctioned off for Relay for Life. The challenge was to make a quilt featuring the color pink no more than 100'' all the way around. I discovered why people like to make small quilts...I had no idea I could put a top together in a day. I thought it would be fun to do step-by-step documentation of the process. Looking back over the pics it seems like I took a picture every two seconds at first and then towards the middle and end kept forgetting to take them, so there are some gaps in the documentation.

I started by sorting through my scrap box for any and all usable scraps. Comments on this step in the process: 1) Yes, I need a better system for my scraps, but that's a project for another day off. 2) My scraps look so red and blue...which I guess is why I didn't find too too many usable scraps for this particular project.

scraps

OK, here are my usable scraps pressed and ready to go. Now I look at them and start sewing them together pretty randomly based on which ones look similar in size and look nice next to each other. I trim liberally.

step1

step2

step3

By the time I completed this unit below, I had pretty much exhausted my scraps and it seemed like a good place to stop. I broke for a cup of tea.

step4

I had pulled every pink, spring green, and grey fabric in my stash and after my tea break I went through them and made my final choices for what fabrics I would use for the rest of the quilt top, pictured here:

step5

Then, in the longest most tedious step of the process I pressed each piece of fabric and cut one strip from it, at a random widths. Most were straight although I cut a few intentionally off grain.

step6

Then I added strips to my scrappy unit:

step7

Then, using the scraps from the strips I just added to the scrappy unit (are you with me here?) I did this part to add in:

step8

The finished top:

done1

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Edited to add this picture of the final quilt, hand quilted with baptist fans:

The Pink Quilt

7 comments:

Browndirtcottage said...

I love it...love it..love it!! Of course, I'm into pink/green....your little quilt turned out wonderful!!

Debra Dixon said...

Very Cute. . .but I am wondering--have you figured out the scrap system in the last 2 years? *wink*

jovaliquilts said...

Glad you found the post! Cute quilt -- did you acution it off? And I, too, wonder whether you've found a good way to deal with scras. I was into my scrap bins today and they are ajumble.

Andrea said...

What a great step by step and what a fantastic end result. I started cutting my scraps into nice manageable squares before Christmas but can't get motivated to continue.

Barbara C said...

What a very pretty quilt. I love the combination of more and less busy sections.

Dionne said...

Oh, it looks GREAT! What a fabulous result. I think your method is my favorite way to use up scraps I've seen yet!
Cheers,
Dionne

Michael5000 said...

Scrapalicious

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