Braid-Making

I've been braid making tonight! I think I'm about half done with the lengths I'll need.

This is the kind of project I'd never have done without the Accuquilt. Cutting all those right and left tilting wedges by hand? eww. But the cutter makes it so fast to cut hundreds of them. And sewing them together goes fast and accurate too, since all the little dogear corners are already cut off for you.

I can't show you the quilt these are going to border yet, we have to keep it a secret until the day before Quiltmaker magazine subscriptions are supposed to come out. But I'll have a dark navy skinny border between this and the quilt center, then more dark final border on the outside. So even though this looks like a really scrappy hodgepodge of fabrics, surrounding it with navy will tame it down some. And even though you see some fabrics directly across from each other in the pic, they won't be on the final quilt. I'm planning to have the top braid pointing right, the side braid pointing south, the bottom braid pointing left, and the other side braid pointing up. Does that make sense?

Scrappy Quilts for Finn and Michelle

My blogging friend Finn's been posting about Frugal Friday, then she got an e-mail from Michelle who also blogs about making 'Kitchen Sink' quilts from what we have at hand, and using the odd bits and perhaps recycled fabric. A quote from Finn's blog on the left:



"... to encourage all of us all to think frugally and show the long standing tradition of using what you have in any ways that you can, whenever you can.

I'd love to see a wonderful showcase of quilts across America showing our scrappy nature and ability to combine unusual fabrics to encourage fun and frugal creativity."

So these little thumbnails are all pix of my scrappy quilts - many of them made from donated fabric, some of them from block of the month and swaps. The four above, from around 2005, when I first got a good digital camera. These below, from 2006.




I use this one with floral fabrics the most, it lives on my couch and collects kitty-fur, then gets very frequently washed. It doesn't match the living room, doesn't match anything in the house, but used up lots of 2½ inch strips!

These next four are from 2007. Can you tell I got into paper-piecing half-square triangles in a big way? None of these were bought specifically for a quilt, all entirely from stash. I just have a STABLE. (Stash Totally Above and Beyond Life Expectancy.)



I'm finally getting the two above quilted. My ability to get tops pieced far outstrips my ability to send them off, then pay for the longarmer to quilt them.

The two below are already quilted, and given away for a Christmas present. On the left, king sized quilt that used up almost all my scraps and FQ's of blues and beiges - on the right, a pillow to match (and there were also two pillow shams) that used up even the tiny remnants.





And *sighs* not posting the not-scrappy quilts, limiting myself to 4 things per year, I'm only up to 2007. Finn, you'll have to wait for another post for more scrappy Memorial Day weekend showcase! This has been fun, thanks for the idea, Finn and Michelle. :)

Need a quilt name

Here's what I've been working on lately. I took it to the library this morning and laid out a 4 x 6 set of blocks so I could see how it was coming together:


The colors are off in this picture, I attribute that to a bad camera battery and the gloomy rainy day... no daylight from the windows. I just went and bought a new camera battery today. I'll get a better picture when I lay the blocks out for real, and spread out the beiges and blues nicely. I know it's supposed to be scrappy, but don't most of you play around with the layouts, trying not to have two identical fabrics touching, like I do?

Anyway, the whites and beiges aren't as dark and contrasty as they came out here. It will also look much better when I go iron the kaleidoscope blocks flat... but I really DO hate to iron. :) All the depression blocks are made for this king size quilt, and 17 out of the 28 or so kaleidoscope/kite blocks. I'll be making two king size pillow shams too, and a couple of pillows to arrange with them. I'm getting there - but slowly!

I need to come up with a new name for this quilt, that doesn't have anything to do with depression. Depression blocks have a diamond shape inside them, that you see here, alternated with the kaleidoscope blocks... so something - diamond or ... ? Anyone have any ideas? I'm awful at naming quilts.

More Choices

Went to Blockbase today, and dug around for more blocks that would look good next to a 16 patch Depression block. I did find the one I used this morning, it was called "Colorado Star" when it was first published. Then I found two more:


Then I used EQ again to make a quilt that used all the blocks I liked so far... so I could compare them next to each other.


On the top third, the regular star, on the middle third, the electric fan block, and on the bottom third, the pieced star. The electric fan is not really a 16 patch block, but I DO like the curves that it makes around the depression block. Now my problem is, which do I choose?