Wednesday, July 31, 2013

Wip Wednesday

Today we're having our first Linky Party over at the PMQG blog! How fun!

My current Works in Progress (that I can share, some are under wraps!) include organizing my fabric scraps (and organizing my craft room in general), a picnic quilt for myself, a Craftster Swap, and a Guild Swap!

 After hearing my friend Linda's swap organizing techniques and reading this blog post from Squares and Triangles, I finally had a better idea of how I can get this darned fabric corralled! Anything that is a Fat Quarter I organize loosely by color and add to these baskets (I need a new basket, these 2 are packed full and I have at least 20 more FQs that won't fit). Also, lately when using yardage I've been cutting a half yard and then cutting that half yard into 2 fat quarters. 1 for the project I'm using, 1 straight into the FQ bin, and the yardage goes back on the shelf. In theory.


I should mention, my current fabric yardage is ogranized on wire cubby shelving, and scraps are organized by color into shoe box sized rubbermaid containers that they are bursting out of. Plus about 2 grocery bags full of scraps floating around the craft room. you can see why I desperately need a scrap solution! Since organizing by color hasn't seemed to work so far, I am going to try by size.

 I'm methodically ironing and trimming my scraps. If they are close enough to FQ size, I add them to the FQ bin, otherwise I cut 4 or 5 inch squares. Smaller squares or rectangles that aren't at least 4 inch square (so, 2 x 2, 4 x 3, 6 x 3) goes into the small pieces bucket. As these buckets get filled I'll transfer them to labeled bins I have in ready and waiting empty Rubbermaid carts. Yay!

In the future I hope to maintain this by taping a grocery bag to the side of my sewing table and as scraps are generated they will go in there until I have the time to trim and sort properly!

Clockwise from upper left: Small pieces, 4 inch squares, 5 inch squares, Strings (thin strips), scraps to be organized, and long, wide strips. Not shown is another basket with strips that are thicker than strings but not long enough to go with the long strips.

A few years ago I fell hard for Sultry fabric by Basic Grey for Moda. I bought a Layer Cake, used it up, and then bought a full FQ set! Unfortunately, by that time it wasn't really my favorite anymore. I still like it a lot, but the majority of the FQ set just sat around for awhile, and I had no ideas. Recently I decided to make a picnic quilt out of it....for myself! Novel idea! The only quilt in my house that I've made is my mom's. I cut the FQs into 6 inch strips and then randomly started making Log Cabins.



A 4 x 3 grid of these giant blocks and the quilt is mostly put together! It's pretty big but I'm still going to add a border with randomly sized pieces. I want to finish this for our guild picnic quilt in August! I better get on it!



I am also in research mode for a fun swap I'm running on Craftster. My partner has a pincushion collection, so I very well may have a pincushion in my future!

I'm also trying to figure out what to make for the PNW MQG Meetup Tote Bag Swap! We each got a half yard cut of some awesome Robert Kaufman fabric to use in our tote, so I am extra excited to get going on that!

Friday, July 26, 2013

X's and O's Baby Quilt

I finished this quilt last month for a good friend's baby girl, and finally gave it to her today! I'm really pleased with how it turned out, initially I had started working on my own design of something different but I got this in my head and couldn't let go. When she first told me her nursery scheme, I was a bit stumped, but after finding a couple cute purple and brown prints and filling the rest in with more monotone fabric, I grew to really love the combo!

Sadly my camera died and I only had my 5 and 7 yo nephews to hold the quilt up, so these are the best pics I have right now.








Just the top:





I used the idea and block size/construction hints from this blog post:

http://kelbysews.blogspot.com/2013/05/gifts-leftovers-requests-and-progress.html

Friday, July 19, 2013

Trio of Fold-Over Baskets for Guild Swap

This month my quilt guild did a "container swap." Basically any basket or bucket style container works, as long as it is either pieced or quilted. We each got a slip of paper with a little bit about our partners on it. My partner liked polka dots, Violet Craft's fabrics, Mo Bedell's fabrics (and they're both in our guild!), and text/word fabric. I found this adorable tutorial on the list of tutes our Programs Director put together on our guild blog.

I made this one first, using some Violet Craft Broken Herrringbone and some Lizzie House Pearl Bracelet. The Herringbone was pretty much perfect for this pattern, I love how it lined up on the corners! I quilted this in a square straight line spiral.





Then I decided it might not be enough, so I made a teeny one with some polka dots and text fabric.
I quilted this one in a kind of dogwood blossom pattern. I love the look of this when it's done well, I will definitely practice it some more!




Then the two sizes just seemed weird together, so I made a third one in between the two sizes. This is some Mo Bedell fabric (pink) and some DS Denyse Schmidt for Joann Fabrics. I quilted two wavy diagonal lines and then in a wavy square spiral. Kind of fun to do that because it covers any mistakes Cheesy








Sorry that the pics aren't great, my camera died and I am stuck with just my cell phone camera.