Pink Finish, Kits and Stash

Welcome to Treadlestitches!  How are your projects coming along?

Well, I'm a little late for pink month for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge, but I did manage to finish this Disappearing Nine Patch before the start of July, though, so I guess that's something.

Not really a pink girl myself, but I've been lucky enough to acquire scraps from friends and second hand sales.  Lots of these are really cute!

Here's the back, originally from the local chain shop.  It's a plain cotton, not a flannel, but the same print also came in flannel and I've had some of that.  The binding matches the cornerstones, and came from an antique mall in Indiana.

The tutorial I used for this quilt came from Jo's Country Junction, by Jo Kramer.  She calls it the Self Sashing Disappearing Nine Patch.  (Click HERE.)

I posted about how I was making this back in May, but here's a quick run through.

First, you make a 9 patch block.  The cornerstone fabric square goes in the center, the sashing fabric squares go in the middle of each side, and the other squares go in the corners.

Next, you slice the block in half vertically and horizontally.

Obviously, you don't want a sashing and cornerstone on the end of the row, or the bottom of the last row.  Jo Kramer solved that by ripping.  I hate ripping.  

Instead, I made the pieces on the right of the photo below for the last piece in each row except the bottom row.

On the bottom row, I sewed another row of squares with sashing between.

 

 

 

This one is a little bigger than normal for me, about 44 in. x 55 in.  It will be donated locally.

Do you ever have this problem?  I get to the stage of setting the rows of a quilt together, and then have to look around for something to sew for leaders and enders.  (I blame the amazing Bonnie Hunter lol.)  What if I had a few kits cut ahead, ready to go?  

Here's the first one, a Windmill pattern in an 8 in. block.

The kit includes the directions (from the amazing Nancy Queen of Scraps at our quilt guild), a finished block, and all the cut pieces for 19 more blocks.  I also included my notes with my plans for the set, borders, etc., so I can refresh my memory if I forget.

I cut 2 more quilts, a Four Patch and a Tumblers.  So I should be set for awhile!

As for quilting plans for the weekend, I need to cut these repro fabrics up for my hexies project before RSC blue month is completely over.  Most comes from my stash, but the lights and the first blue were purchased at a quilters rummage sale yesterday.

I did a very scary thing.  Last weekend, I inventoried the stash.  (Have you ever done this?)   I should say, I inventoried just the stash in the sewing room, which I use to make mostly children's quilts.  Yikes!  Mind boggling.  Just putting away the new acquisitions from this month took some work.  This shelf unit houses the 1 yard or so pieces on the bottom shelf, half yards on the next shelf up, and fat quarters on the shelf above that.  I had to add 3 more smaller boxes on top of the others to fit everything in.

I also had to add another box for the larger-than-one-yard pieces on the shelf in the closet.  I was so lucky to find so many cute blue fabrics.

I'm well set up to not buy much of anything new for the next year, but we'll see.  That's the plan anyway.

So, off to press and cut and sew and quilt!

Have a wonderful week!

Thanks for reading, and check out the quilt blogs at the linky parties below.

Cheers,

Sylvia@Treadlestitches

Linking up with:

Alycia at Finished or Not Finished Friday

Angela at So Scrappy

 

Lost in the Scraps

The scraps are taking over my sewing room.  And my life.  At least the quilting part of it.
I've been using Bonnie Hunter's Scrap Users System for years, and it does work, but I need to do something will all these bigger scraps.

I had this fantasy that I could trim them to useful sizes and control them.  And I did that, for some of them.  The suitcase holds 5 in. squares for charity quilts.

This box holds 5 in. squares of reproduction 1800s fabrics, sorted into lights and darks.  There are still more lights to cut.

I got a little distracted, and started making these blocks with floral 5 in. squares.  The pattern is called Flower Girl, and is a free pattern from the Moda Bakeshop.  You can find it HERE.

These are the ones with the bonus triangles, that I made into pincushions (see last week's blog).  They're piling up again.

I made 20 of these blocks this week.  Don't they make you think of spring?

But 20 blocks was not enough, even for a twin sized quilt.  Back to the scraps!

To get enough solid yellow 1.5 in. squares for the centers, I dumped out baskets and rooted around on the floor.  There is some really fun stuff in these baskets.

There, 22 more cut!  The yellow centers are not all the same, but that's not a problem.

While I was at it, I cut out some kits for our quilt group to use to make donation quilts.  Each one has a sample block already sewn.
First, this one, made with 4 patches and alternate blocks. I used novelty fabric printed with band-aids in the 4 patches and teddy bear doctor fabric for the alternate plain blocks.  This one will be crib sized.

Next, another novelty baby quilt.  This time we're making hearts, each one with a different fun fabric.  I still need to add borders to the package.

Lastly, a twin-sized quilt, made from some of those good old cottons from the 90s.

I guess the kits are my finishes this week.
How is it that I'm still knee deep in scraps?

Have a great week, and check out all the links at Busy Hands Quilts and Crazy Mom Quilts.