From Scraps to Stars

 This is what I've been working on this weekend instead of important stuff.  It is a little quilt top of friendship stars that measures about 13" X 18" that I made from a pile of scraps.  I know I saw this on someone else's blog, but now that I'm looking, I can't find it.

Interlocking Friendship Stars

This all started  with a pile of leftover 2.5" strips from the piano key border I showed you a few days ago.

I needed some 2.5" squares for a Signature block swap, so I chopped up some of the strips into squares.  (Many thanks to my friend Jackie of Canton Village Quilt Works for the speedy service.  I ordered the Kona white on Wednesday night and it was in my mailbox on Friday!)

The tutorial for these little blocks is here at p.s. i quilt.  

 

This method produces a big pile of tiny triangles.   But if you sew across the corner twice, like in this Weed Whacker tutorial at Quiltville, you end up with a pile of tiny half-square triangle units.  I made 60 signature blocks which left me with 120 bonus HSTs!

 

1.75" HST will finish at 1.25"

 I used all but 8 of the bonus blocks in the friendship stars.  I could have spent all night rearranging those colors, but I didn't.  I was anxious to sew them together, so I let them fall where they may.  I wish I had moved a couple, but it's just fine the way it is.  

Now I need to sign 60 blocks.  I'm using a super fine piece of sandpaper to stabilize the blocks while I write.

3 down, 57 to go!

In family news...

Pete's band, Attractive Dan, won the high school Battle of the Bands!  Not bad for 2 juniors and 2 sophomores.  They are trying to decide how to spend their cash prize of $75.

Pete on drums with Attractive Dan

Julia sang the National Anthem at opening day of her recreational slow pitch softball league.  She did a lovely job and it was a good warm up for her gig at the PawSox on Mother's Day.

Oh, say, can you see...

We've got a busy week ahead, so there might not be much sewing going on.  I actually just packed up my machine so I could clean up around it.  If I do have any free time, I will be prepping applique pieces.

Spring Wreath Re-Do

I'm completely addicted to Pinterest.  (See my boards here.)  I really needed to take a break from pinning and start doing!  So, last night, I grabbed my bag of wool and a crochet hook and started making flowers.

 Does this wreath look familiar?  I made it last December.  I never did find a decent bow for it.  My mother didn't think this shade of green was appropriate for Christmas, and that sickly bow did nothing to help its case.

 Then along came a Pin of these great crocheted flowers.  The flowers and leaves work up so quickly!  They are just pinned into the styrofoam, so I can move them around easily or switch them out for other colors.

I love it!  It really brightens up the inside of our front door.

WIP Wednesday - Piano Keys

 Happy Wednesday!  After a rainy Tuesday, I'm hoping to see some sun today.

On to another WIP Wednesday report...

Resurrected:  I was tidying up the sewing room (I don't actually sew there - it's become primarily a storage area) and came across a growing stack of piano keys (2.5" x 10" rectangles).  I had calculated that I would need 150 to make a border for the Three by Three swap nine patches.  More than 100 were already cut, so as I filed away some fresh fabric, I chopped off a strip.  In no time, I was ready to stitch. 

Sewing them together into borders went fairly quickly.  Monday morning, I figured I'd slap them on and be done.  Not so much.  That's when I became reacquainted with my seam ripper!  I had put one side on backwards. rip rip rip. Then I wasn't happy with the corners.  rip rip rip.

Please ignore the junk on the end tables.  People live here.

I'm mostly happy with it, but it's too small to fit on my bed.  I need at least another 4-5" all the way around.  I could add another row of nine patches and white, but I wish they were inside the piano keys.  rip rip rip?  I think I'll make a bunch of nine patches and see where that takes me.


Back Burner:  I played with all of my 4x5 blocks this week. Yay! Then I piled them up and put them away.  boo. 

Now off you go to see what else is happening in WIPland...

4x5 Bee Blocks

 I received the last 4x5 block this week. If you click on the photo, it will take you to Flickr where it is labeled with the makers of each block.  Thank you, Hive 11!  

4x5 blocks - 1st quarter 2012

Here are all the 4x5 blocks!  It's quite the delicious assortment of fabrics and patterns.  I think I like it set on point, so I can use all 18 blocks.  If I take out two of the blocks I made myself, I could set them straight, 4x4.  Or I could make two more and set them 4x5!  

I'm starting to audition fabrics for sashing and corners.  I think it will benefit from a unifying sashing in some solid.  More white?  Buttery yellow?  Contrasting spring green?  Bright pink or orange?  We'll see.

4x5 blocks

That block in the bottom right corner is one I made and now I don't like the dark border.  It will probably need to be switched to something lighter.  Once I start adding sashing, I will play with block placement.  I hate to add it to the WIP pile, but that's where it's going until I finish some other pieces.

Are you sewing today?  It is Sew Sew Saturday at Sew Many Ways!

WIP Wednesday

 Hello, WIPpers!  It's been quite a while since I've posted for WIP Wednesday and it's nice to be back.

Finish:
The JDRF RI quilt, Masquerade, is ready for the auction this weekend!

"Masquerade"

New Start:
I just started working on our guild raffle quilt.  The show is in October 2013, but I feel like I am already behind schedule!  The pattern is called Going in Circles from the book Certifiably Crazy by The Buggy Barn.

Raffle Quilt Sample Section

Here is my mock up, repeating the sample section above.  The guild quilt will be an assortment of blue and neutral batiks, giving a scrappy feel.  Blue sells tickets, don't you know.

Raffle Quilt Mock Up

Top Priority:
My nephew and his wife celebrated their first anniversary at the end of March, but their wedding quilt is not done yet.  At our quilt retreat in early March, my friends helped me decide on the applique designs.  I have three different flowers to choose from.

Corner Applique

They also decided that the quilt must have a scalloped edge that echoes the shape of the wedding rings.  Yes, they are still my friends!  Looks like this quilt will be a housewarming gift.

Side Applique

Ongoing:
I need to tweak this list a bit.  There are just too many projects!  Bonnie referred to them as PIGS (projects in grocery sacks)!  I only have one that lives in a grocery bag and it is her Orca Bay Mystery.  Anyway, here is the whole list.  Eek! (You can see pics of most of these on the Works in Progress page.)

• Girl Scout Troop Quilt - would be nice if it was finished by end of May/early June
• Kaleidoscope QAL - needs to be finished in June
• Orca Bay - I might get back to it someday
• Blogger's BOM - 2 blocks done.  Am I really 6 blocks behind?

SWAPS:
There are so many piles of swap blocks, they need their own category!

•  4x5 Modern Bee - waiting for 1 block, then layout design begins
• Mini scrap basket - might play with these next weekend
• Teeny Weeny Paper Piecing - no plan for these yet
•  3X3 - add borders - will go on our bed when done
• Mod Bento - needs borders
• Polka Dot - charms made into hourglass blocks.  Now what?
• Red & White Charms - Karen and I really need a sew-in day!

Now let's go check out the other Works In Progress...

JDRF Auction Quilt

Masquerade

54" square

Completed 4/23/12

This was a labor of love and I'm so happy that it is done, delivered and has been well received.  I hope it nets a large sum for JDRF RI at the auction on Saturday.

The most time consuming part of the process was scanning and cleaning up the masks that were drawn or colored by kids associated with the organization.  I'm a beginner in Photoshop, so I'm sure it took much longer than it should have.

The images were then printed on Photo Fabric from Blumenthal Craft.  It is sold in packages of 6 sheets and retails for $14.99 for the 100% cotton poplin.  I was able to use coupons for 40% or 50% off at ACMoore, which made this much more affordable.  The product works great and I highly recommend it for small jobs.

Plan A for setting the blocks failed miserably.  I started paper piecing diamond shapes for the sashing in the gala's theme colors of pea green and purple. It just didn't do anything for the drawings.  

Plan B: The rainbow fabrics all came out of my stash.  The hourglass corner stones pieced up quickly from Kona white and charcoal.  I am very happy with Plan B!

On to quilting.  There is straight line quilting in the ditch with gray thread.  My loopy swirly stipple in white thread is in the background of each drawing.

 

Pumpkin seed quilting in the sashing and corners is done in a progression of rainbow colors.  I didn't want to use yellow thread on the yellow fabric, so I bumped the colors down one.  Purple thread on pink, pink thread on red, red thread on orange, and so on.  This turquoise thread is my favorite!

 

More thread color changes in the border.  I love this!

(I'm not showing you the corners where I went askew.)

 The binding was done completely on the machine.  The only thing I had to hand stitch was the bottom edge of the hanging sleeve.

 

What to do with all those beautiful green and purple batiks from Plan A? Put them on the back!

I didn't do any quilting through the drawings, so the masks pop out.  I think you can see that on the back and in the detail shots above.  I'm not sure how I feel about that, but it's done and gone.

 

I'd like to thank my friends for their support!  Their generous donations made this quilt possible.

 Canton Village Quiltworks - assortment of green & purple batiks

Folk Art Quilts - 2 yds of green batik

Sharon & Frank Dziekan - batting

And thank you to my Facebook friends for their design advice!


5/3/12:  I'm happy to report that the quilt sold for $1000 at the auction!

Twisted

A three-year old WIP is now finished!

I started this project with Bonnie during Super Bowl Weekend 2009.  It was sort of a quilt along to use up 2.5" strips.  I had a stack of novelties that needed to be used, so I chopped them up into 2.5" strips and started stitching.

All the blocks were done before the end of the big game.   But when I laid them out all next to each other, it was kind of muddy and really didn't work.  So I grabbed some fresh fabric from the stash and added some sashing and the fun border.   And there it sat in the WIP pile.

I pulled it out again after a machine quilting class with Pam Clarke at MQX 2010.  I wanted to try out her technique on something that would hide my mistakes.  It hides them so well, you can't see the quilting at all!  Here's a glimpse on the back.  I had gotten through about 1/3 of the quilting.  Back to the WIP pile!

A couple of weeks ago, I dug it back out and finished the quilting in a few hours.  Another hour to sew the binding completely by machine and it was ready to show Bonnie during show & tell.

Totally Twisted, 60 X 76", completed April 16, 2012.