Happy to be Scrappy

Happy to be Scrappy

Friday, February 27, 2015

Our little Grace had her 7th birthday yesterday.  I think it amazes me more now than when my kids were little at how fast the time goes by.

Another birthday, another postcard.  Sometimes the postcards I make are great and sometimes they are okay.  This one goes in the okay pile.

Front

The cats are cute.  But I do wish I had used the gray thread on both of them instead of the black.  It's just a bit too dark.  Cats do have crooked ears don't they?  These certainly do.  That gives them character. This looked a little better when I drew it out on paper.

Back



Grace showing the bag she made at 4-H



Well, now that is it Friday I'm about as happy as can be.  I'm ready for a Saturday of sewing.  And after seeing a beautiful pink and gray sunrise I'm ready to do some more sewing on the pink "I am" quilt.

It's hard for me to see colors like this and not try to translate them into quilts.  Do you do that too?  There is obviously way too much dirt on my windshield.  I started to write bugs but it's still a little too early for them.

Have a great Friday and an even better weekend.

Julie

Wednesday, February 18, 2015

Some More Pink

The pink is still fun to work on.  But quite frankly, it's not much fun to post about.  There just isn't much to show that looks like anything is getting done.  I will say that I worked at least 10 hours over the weekend on this top.  This is one where I should have been keeping track of my hours.  It has occurred to me that each of these blocks is ONLY 4" finished. And that a twin size quilt is going to add up to a lot of 4" blocks. But it does seem like it's taking forever.  Even to me.  This time I have some rows sewn together though.  So see, there is hope.

I started and ended the weekend sewing session making more setting blocks.  I've already shown some of the Jack in the Box.  But here are a few again.  I think they are more level than that on the wall. 

There were also some of these Shoo Fly blocks.  They gave me a little trouble since to my mind they are based on a nine patch setting and I needed them to be a four patch setting.  It was a little difficult to figure out the math (even with a calculator).  I just was not getting them to divide well at all.  I ended up cutting my pieces just a little less than 1 7/8".  The way I wrote it in my notes was to cut them just to the right of the 1 7/8" mark on my ruler. 
Hopefully, that makes a little sense.  Anyway, if you'd like to make your own 4" Shoo Fly block then I would suggest you make the 1/2 square triangle pieces a little over-sized and trim them down to just a shade under 1 7/8".  I tried cutting in between the 6/8 and 7/8 marks and that was too much.  My blocks were too small.  There was more time spent on these four little blocks then I'm sure was necessary.  I'm sure it would have been simpler to browse the web until I found a pattern the right size for my project.

Another part of the top I worked on was the sashing in between the rows.  I had started cutting the gray sashing into 1 1/2" strips to finish at 1".  When I sewed the first two rows together I wasn't very happy with the results.
1" Sashing
The way these rows are put together very few of the letters are going to line up from top to bottom.  There are different size strips separating the words and setting blocks on every row.  With the 1" finished sashing it was too apparent that they don't line up.

1 1/2" Sashing
So I ripped out the narrower sashing and made it a little wider.  It was cut at 2" and finishes at 1 1/2".  By the time a little quilting goes in there it will look just fine.

As of right now, I have five rows sashed together.  Using the wider sashing means that I will need at least one less row of words.  And that means I have an extra word.   Oh, well.  Maybe something else to work into the border or on the back.  If you have a strong opinion about the color gray for the sashing please don't hesitate to let me know.  There are several reasons I went with the gray.  One - I have a lot of it.  Two - It makes me think of the words being underlined with a pencil mark.  This quilt is for a almost seven year old that is in the 1st grade.  They do a lot of writing in pre-lined workbooks in the first grade.  And several other reasons could be added.  But it's not too late to make a change if needed.

Another weekend or two and this too shall be in the "to be quilted" pile. Yes, that is me, mocking myself for making a lot of quilt tops and quilting very few.

Have a terrific rest of your day.

Julie

I apologize for using the word "sashing" so many times in this post.  When I hit the spell check it high lighted each and every one of them.  If sashing isn't in the dictionary, it certainly should be.

Monday, February 9, 2015

Pink Progress

Any progress is exciting to me.  And this weekend I finally made some progress on putting together a few of the quilt rows.
Grace's "I Am" quilt progress.
Isn't it coming together great?  This was just what I had in mind when I started thinking about doing this quilt.  I've been calling it Grace's "I Am" quilt.  I started thinking of it as a "You Are" quilt.  But I don't want her to read "You are beautiful.", I want her to read "I am beautiful".

Right now each of the rows finishing measurements are 4" x 60".  I plan to add a narrow inside border and a wider outer border to make it a twin size quilt.

This is what the rows looked like Saturday morning.
See where I had spacers on some of the ends and not on others?  Nope, I didn't like that.  So all of those had to be removed and that amount had to be added in the row.  All of the figuring I had done the week before wasn't going to work.  I did a lot of ripping and resewing.  But it was well worth it to make it look like I wanted instead of just what what was easier to do.

I also made quite a few 4" setting blocks.  So far each of the rows has different setting blocks.  I think I've come up with enough different patterns that none of the rows will be the same.  That means I'll have quite a few leftovers from the little blocks I've already made.  Maybe they can go into the border or on the back.  Since my planning hasn't made it that far there is still time for that decision later.

Here are a few more of the filler blocks I made Saturday.

One row of the flying geese blocks have already been used to the left of the word "Sweet". I'm hoping to fit them in here and there.  Otherwise, I'll just make enough that they will be on their own row with a word or words.  I really like the small block to the right of the flying geese.  It is a "Jack in the Box" block.  I've made quite a few of them before.  This time I just made the sizes smaller to end up with a 4" block.  The butterfly blocks are with the word "Daughter"  That bright pink polka dot was some of the yard sale fabric I found at a church sale a few months ago.  There is only a small piece of it.  The butterfly pattern is all over the web right now as it's quite popular.  My directions for it came from a free pattern Lori Holt had on her blog in a row by row quilt. One of these days I'm going to have enough bright colored fabrics to make that quilt.  The pattern for it can now be found in her book "Quilty Fun".

And there you have my Saturday in a nutshell.  I spent half of it ripping and resewing and the other half making very small blocks.  And to top it off I spent a couple of hours at a Minnie Mouse birthday party for my granddaughter Allison.
Allison at the zoo.
This week I'm going to link up with Judy at Patchwork Times since I haven't done that for a while.  

Have a great Monday!

Julie

Tuesday, February 3, 2015

Birthday Cards

Last year when my little granddaughter Allison turned one and I stewed and stewed over whether or not I wanted to start making her fabric postcards for her birthdays.  I have been making one every year for her older sister Grace.  But I wanted something different for Allison.  So I had a terrible plan to make her a flower block each year until there were enough to put a quilt together.  Well, that's one way to test whether or not your thread will hold up over the years.

This was from last year.
Flower quilt  block for Allison's 1st birthday.

Over the last year I've regretted my decision to not make Allison postcards too.  After all she can't pick up a quilt block and carry it around.  Or read it, either.

So here is Allison's birthday postcard for her 2nd birthday.
Postcard for Allison's 2nd birthday.

Back of postcard

You should never look too closely at my applique work.  It's usually acceptable, but rarely great.  It is however, done with love.

Now to figure out a postcard for Grace's 7th birthday.  Wow.

Happy Tuesday.

Julie