256 Square Inches

252 one inch squares (1.5" unfinished) + about a week of on-and-off sewing = this piece:



All that work for a piece that is smaller than a fat quarter! That's my pin cushion on it for scale. I have so much additional respect for people who make full size quilts out of squares this small, like this one for example!



Of course a big part of the reason why it took me so long is that I planned the layout and every square had a specific place I wanted it to be. That meant I couldn't do too much chain piecing because I felt I would quickly get confused about what went where. I could imagine that working in a less planned way would go faster, but no matter what it would be time consuming!

The sad thing is I would like to conclude from that that I shouldn't bother saving scraps this small anymore, but I probably will. I actually kind of liked it, and I could see myself doing this again. Oh the horror.



This quilt is somewhat reminiscent of this one, except that those were five inch squares. I will probably end up doing one in every possible size. Why not.



If anyone thinks that this looks super fun, I have a bag of one inch squares I can send you. I don't know how many squares are in it, but enough to make a good start I think. I'll send it to the first person to express interest, if anyone does!

Another Quilted Garden

I am back in Illinois after a very pleasant trip to Texas. Shortly after returning I finished this quilt that I've been hand quilting since February or so. It was almost completely done before my trip. I only had about half the binding left to sew down, so I got that done fairly quickly after getting back.

This quilt is really a collaboration between me and my Aunt. She did the hard part - she needle turn appliqued all of the gorgeous flower blocks and gave them to me as a gift. I assembled the top and did the quilting.



I think the quilt is 60 x 90ish. It is photographed on a queen size bed here. I think it would probably fit a twin bed pretty nicely.







As much as I love this quilt (and I do), after hand quilting two predominantly yellow quilts in a row I am feeling very ready to work with another color for a while!

I have been slow getting back into my old routines since returning from my trip - namely sewing, blogging, and reading blogs. In the last two weeks I found and started a summer job and signed up to do some volunteering, and those things have taken up most of my time. I think I will continue to ease back into things.

Rose Garden

I am safely arrived in Texas, so it's safe to say that you may not hear lots from me in coming days/weeks. Before leaving Illinois I did manage to finish patching the blown out seams on the project I mentioned in my previous post.



This top was sewn many years ago, but has languished in the closet forever due to my lack of quilting skills. Because it is foundation pieced on muslin, I thought it would be too thick for hand quilting. At the time I made it I didn't yet machine quilt, and when I started machine quilting I didn't think I was good enough to work on this, since I'm particularly fond of it. Now my machine quilting skills are slightly better, but more importantly I decided I would rather have it finally finished so it can be enjoyed.

I'm fairly happy with the quilting, but the good news is that you can barely see most of it, anyway. There is a grid of wavy lines in the center section, and a vine in the border (no leaves).



Most of my photos did not turn out great, but the thing I love about this quilt is hard to capture in photos anyway - the texture created by using the stitch-and-flip method to create the field of green surrounding the flowers. I got the idea to make flowers this way when I was sewing my crazy quilt, which used the stitch-and-flip method. Revisiting this project made me want to think creatively about other ways to use the same method to create different effects.



If I come across anything interesting and fiber related down here I will post, otherwise I'll be back in a bit. I will try to find time to read blogs, too, but if you don't hear from me for a while, know that I promise to catch up later.

Strips

Here are two simple baby quilt tops I did last week. When doing my scrap organizing project a while back I set aside any strips that were selvage to selvage. I had fun putting them together in different combinations, and these are the results. I thought about adding borders or other additional elements, but I think I've decided that I like them as is, simple though they may be.



In other news, school is just about out for the summer meaning no more work for a substitute. I've decided to head back to the shelter in Texas for part of the summer to visit and help out. I leave next Wednesday. I'm not sure how long I will be gone for, but things my be a little quiet around here in the meantime. Of course you never know! I do hope to have one or maybe two more things to post soon. I have one project that is quilted and even bound, but unfortunately I found not one, not two, but three blown out seams when I was doing the quilting! Some patching is going to have to happen before it is considered "finished". I'm trying to force myself to get that done so I can share it, because it's a project I'm really excited about. Maybe I will be able to get to that today. Stay tuned!

Hope you're all gearing up for a great summer!

Going With The Flow

Remember this free-pieced project? And how I was trying to finish it or something? I decided I had "enough" units, I trimmed them to size, and then I started trying to come up with some kind of layout for them. Still working on that.

In the meantime I looked at the remaining scraps that I had set aside for that project and noticed that I had a lot of long strips of various widths left. A few seams later:


(This is actually before I sewed the blocks together, but it looks the same.)

I guess the best way to describe this block is improv log cabin. I tried to follow somewhat of a log cabin pattern, but obviously there's no real plan for the colors and the strips are all different widths. It's a little busy, but I really didn't want to sash the blocks. I think it works, though!

Scrap Pinwheels

I have mostly lost all focus on whatever it was I was trying to accomplish and am now just messing around and experimenting. Exhibit A:





Perhaps there is a method to my madness. More to come...?

Still More Hearts!

This is one of my favorite heart quilts. It is made by my mother, and since she had it sitting out I decided to snap a few pictures and share it with you all.



Obviously the few appliqued red hearts jump out at you the most, but the majority of the hearts are in the quilting. Every solid square has a heart quilted in it.





Hi Mom!

Spring Cleaning

So I have been cleaning. I should say I have been trying to clean. I have been sorting through my huge overflowing piles of fabric and supplies, trying to turn a critical eye towards it all and decide what I MUST have and what I can get rid of. I've spent some time this year reflecting on the topic of stash and whether or not I need to reduce mine. While logically I can easily talk myself into keeping it all because it is all a part of the creative process, I finally realized that I WANT to reduce the amount of stuff I have. At the end of the day it feels out of control to me and feels like a burden. I think I will be happier if I reduce. In the same vein, my wardrobe is also on the chopping block. My book collection will very likely be next.

The problem is that I keep coming across certain supplies and thinking - I will just whip this up into a quick project in order to move it out of my stash. And the problem with THAT is that "whip this up into a quick project" is not really something I do.

Case in point: a set of five heart-themed blocks made by a friend of my mother's in the 80s. Mom was going to get rid of them, and since I am incapable of resisting a heart theme, I had to take them. So then I came across them while cleaning the other day and thought...that's right, "I'll just whip this up into a quick project." After all, in this case much of the work was already done for me.



Problem is, I wanted to try to modernize the blocks with the setting, but I was having a hard time thinking of a good way to do that, and that was impeding with the whole "quick" part of the process. In the end I decided to go with something simple - if it looks like it could be from the 80s, well so much the better, I say. Parts of it look a bit brown in this picture, but the colors are really mauve-y pinks. I was planning to put more borders on to make it more of a medallion style, but when I finished the first border it was a nice size for a baby quilt and honestly just looked finished to me. And it's well suited for a baby quilt, so I thought why not just go with it.

Here's a close up of this block that doesn't show up very well in the overall shot (even here it doesn't show that clearly - it so hard to photograph those subtle colors!):

Quilt Spectrum

Here are a few pictures from the local guild quilt show that was last weekend. While I love the "big" quilt shows, I also enjoy guild shows that are focused on letting members show off, regardless of if they are doing flawless "show quality" work or not. Let's face it, most of us aren't, including me!

Lauren's Choice by Susan Carney. The maker had her five-year-old pick out the fabrics for this and I think she did a really great job.



Lincoln Museum Quilt by Connie Guhlstorf



Churn Dash by Barbara Miller and friends - the churn dash blocks were a 60th birthday present from many friends.



The Art of This Quilt by Kimberly Travers



No Polar Bears Allowed by Georgia Cluver Dawson. The upper section was part of the guild's progressive quilts program. The beluga whales are an original design.

My Oldest Work In Progress

Remember the grunge phase that swept the nation in the early nineties? Smells like teen spirit? Long hair? Ripped jeans? That was the context (umm...sort of! not really!) for this quilt. As a junior high school student at the time I went through a few years where I wore flannel shirts and hiking boots almost exclusively. It was around that time that my mom got me going on this quilt, probably as a way to keep me entertained in the summer, probably when I was eleven or twelve. It helped that I was also a little horse crazy (this was not related to the grunge movement as far as I know). I did the buttonhole stitch applique and embellishment (ears, eyes, and tail) on all the blocks at that time and set them all together without the borders, but that's as far as I got. Then it got moved from box to box to closet for about fourteen years.



Years later when I began to get seriously interested in quilting I hunted around for this project intending to finish it. All it needed was the borders for the top to be completed, but somehow when you've been not working on a project for over ten years it is easy to continue to not work on it. However, I had it specifically in mind when I went through my beginning of the year assessment and goal setting this year, and I bought the border fabric the first week in January. Now at last the borders are on and I can put it in the queue to be quilted. I haven't decided if I want to do it by hand or machine.



It's a different look from most of what I'm doing these days, but I guess you can probably expect that from fourteen year old works in progress...