Playing with Fabric

One of my favorite things with most of my hobbies is that I get to play with color and design. That's especially true with quilt-making. The colors, the patterns, the combinations ... I love them! I recently found that my local Walmart was clearance-ing some of the Pioneer Woman one-yard fabric packages. I love a good deal, so I bought some!

Here, I'm preparing to make some quilt-y kaleidoscopes. It's hard to tell in the picture below, but each of these triangles is actually a stack of SIX identical triangles.

With the six triangles, I'm planning to make hexagon kaleidoscopes. One of the fun things about these kaleidoscopes is ... The same overall fabric makes so many unique designs. (To see some of my other kaleidoscope quilts, just click the "Kaleidoscopes" label on the blog sidebar.)

But also, the same triangle set has three distinct possibilities. The triangle below can be turned into any one of the tree hexagons beneath it. 

  

And again, this triangle below can be turned into any one of the tree hexagons beneath it. 

 

Kaleidoscope quilt designs are lots of fun. I'm having fun playing with fabric! :-)

Colorful Quilt Top

Last year for my birthday, my mom gave me a gift card to my favorite quilt shop (QuiltWerks!), and I had the fun of picking some awesome fabric to play with. 

My quilt shop had these cute precuts (called "Prairie" from Riley Blake), and I decided to get a couple of packs of 5-inch squares.  

I've always loved the colors and prints that are usually seen in 30's reproduction fabrics. The combination of colors and prints is just so refreshing and fun! Fabrics from the 1930s is what I think of when I see these fabrics (even though I don't really know what does and doesn't constitute a "30's reproduction" fabric print).

I needed to find a pattern that would maximize my 5-inch squares ... This fabric is definitely too cute to waste! I was incredibly inspired by Amy Smart's Ganache Quilt. And, since it's made of triangles and squares, it was perfect for me: I could cut my quilt components with absolutely no waste! 

I took one stack of 5-inch charm squares and cut each piece in quarters -- so I had four small squares of each print. I took the other stack of 5-inch charm squares, and cut each piece in half diagonally -- so I had two triangles of each print. (I don't have the actual pattern, so I don't know how the inspiration quilt was made. But after looking at it, this is what I came up with.)

Since I loved the look of Amy's quilt, I wanted mine to look like hers ... mostly. The thing I wasn't sure about was the background. I'm always nervous about white backgrounds on quilts ... but I still wanted that light and fresh look. So I went with pale gray for the background color.

 

I love how the background seems light, but still practical! (This cat of ours has a radar-sense for fabric. Anytime quilt-block-layouts are happening, she appears out of nowhere to inspect.) 

This quilt top still needs a basic gray border, and I need to figure out what I'm doing for the back of the quilt. (Lately, I've gotten bored with plain backings on quilts, and I love the idea of reversible quilts that are kinda fancy on the front AND on the back. Because, who has time to make ALL the quilts? I sometimes need to combine two quilts into one! So, I'm still deciding what the back of this quilt will look like.) I took this quilt top for show and tell at my quilt guild, and my friend Cindy took this picture below (Thanks, Cindy!)

Ah, Layouts!

Part of the fun of putting quilts together is getting the quilt layouts just so. Getting the color placement right. Adjusting here and there. 

I'm getting to the layout part of this project. The picture above shows 12 blocks placed side by side, but I'm still figuring out whether that's my final layout.

Since this is a quilt-as-you-go project, I quilted each block separately. Then I trimmed them all nice and neat.

Full disclosure: sometimes the designing and layout phase is just ... messy! 🙂

But I think it's coming along. Once I figure out my layout, I'll quilt the next components and start assembling!

When Tuesday comes, I'll be linking this post to this week's "To Do Tuesday," the link party at Quilt Schmilt. I'm looking forward to seeing the other projects that are featured there. 

***Edited to add: I'm still figuring things out: "To Do Tuesday" is probably supposed to list a "To Do" list for my projects, and an update on how the list is going. 

So ... for this one, my next steps are:

    1. Finalize a layout

    2. Cut & Quilt the next components (setting squares and borders)

    3. Trim the newly-quilted squares & borders

    4. Prep the attachment/binding-strips and start attaching components

Green strings

In my neverending quest to turn scraps into useful things, I've had some fun making string-blocks out of scraps. 

It's really satisfying to turn a pile of this ...

... into a little something like this! 

Next up, this one will get some borders and become a baby quilt for a friend.

Aqua quilt-y pieces

The beginnings of quilt-making projects are always fun ...

Here are some pieces of the latest!

Progress is happening ... I've got a bunch of string-blocks made for the bigger blocks in this design.

Next up: I need to trim the string-blocks and cut out the white (background) pieces.

More pictures soon!

Pumpkins!

Because I really have a lot of fabric, I started another project! (Shocking, I know!)

I loved the pumpkins quilt that Jo's Country Junction recently posted about, based on a Bonnie Hunter pattern. I don't have the pattern, but I love the idea, and it seems simple enough. The quilt quickly went on my mental list to make someday. (It also went on my {huge} Pinterest list of Quilt & Sewing ideas -- see this Pin!)

Without pressure to worry about whether I finish this this fall or next fall, I got started on some string pieces. I'm foundation-piecing big strings onto paper that's cut at 8.5" x 7". My blocks will be bigger than the pattern, but that's a good thing. 

I cut my scraps into usable strings that are a variety of widths. So far, I'm liking the variety, and it's fun to see, with scrap projects, how different each piece turns out.

 

I've got quite a few orange scraps to use; we'll see how long the variety holds out. The first day I worked on them, I got 9 pumpkin sections done; the next time, I added 18 more. 

I'm not sure how many blocks I'll make; the pattern had 49 small blocks (+ borders) for a lap-size quilt. If I do 49 big blocks, I may have nearly a twin-size, which is nice. But I'll probably just see how long my orange scraps hold out, and let that guide my number-of-blocks.

I have no definite plans for a background fabric. So. We shall see. It's a fun start!

Knitting finish and start!

About a week ago, I finished these socks ...

AND I started these socks!

It's always fun to knit with self-striping yarn! This is a new-to-me pattern called Geek Socks from Knitty. 

Weekend stitching

Every now and then, the weekend provides extra time for creativity!

Here's the latest ...

Crumb quilt beginnings

Not long ago, one of my favorite quilt blogs mentioned a scrap-quilting technique that intrigued me: using adding-machine paper tape as foundation paper for long strips of crumb quilting. The middle of the post in the above link talks about it, and references this post from QuiltedTwins which explains the process simply and well.

So I've been trying it! Fun! So far, I've got 155 inches of yellow crumb quilt roll, and it's about two-and-a-quarter inches wide.

In some ways, I'm on a quest to use up more fabric. (In other ways, using fabric seems to convince me that I should definitely buy all fabric that's bargain-priced ... so that's kind of a problem.) :-)

Anyhoo, this is a fun way to use up a bunch of random scraps. While I suppose this sort of "border" is more time-consuming than some, it's also lots of fun.

The paper gives a nice stability to a piece of "made fabric" that would otherwise be impossibly skinny. (Like other blocks that are "foundation-pieced" on paper, the paper will get taken off in the process of completing a quilt, but for now, the paper is great.

In between seams on the paper-piecing, I used my Christmas trees as Leaders and Enders (see Bonnie Hunter's awesome explanation here), and so now, I've got another 50 trees almost done.

 

So, check back in a few days for more on what I'm doing with this crazy adding-machine tape foundation pieced crumb quilting. (Can you tell I don't know what to call it?! Haha!)

Kaleidoscope Roses

I love rose print fabrics turned into kaleidoscopes!

This was a long piece of fabric from my mother-in-laws's attic.

When I was trying to figure out how to use this fabric, I realized how long it's been since I've made kaleidoscopes.

To make hexagonal kaleidoscopes, six layers of fabric are laid with the printed design exactly matching, and then 60° triangles are cut, so that six identical triangles result.

I gave myself permission to be not-quite exact, knowing how hard it is to get exactly identical triangles out of fabric that might have shrunk, or stretched, or printed funny. I've discovered that perfectionism on kaleidoscopes is time-consuming and frustrating, and isn't necessary for a pleasing result. :-)

So, this has been a fun project.

O Christmas Tree ...

I recently bought a new tool and wanted to try it out ... The Tri-Recs ruler set intrigued me, and to make blocks out of triangles that are different than my usual 60-degree or 45-degree ones, it made sense to have the special ruler set.

It happens that I had collected a bag of super-random Christmas prints for pennies at thrift stores, and I thought it would be fun to make a Christmas Tree quilt ... something like the ones I've pinned on Pinterest ... this pin or this pin or this one.

In between other things (and to test my most-recently-cleaned-and-oiled sewing machines), I sewed together a few dozen of these:

I think they'll make a fun Christmas quilt ... eventually!

Little Red and White Patchwork

I recently came across a bunch of red fabric for a bargain price in my thrift-store shopping.

Looking for a simple/fast pattern to make, I found this pin on Pinterest.

So, here's the beginning of a little quilt top (un-ironed, and photographed with my phone) ...

I'm not sure if I have enough contrast between the "reds" and the "whites" in some cases. And also, some of the solid reds are maybe a little too intense. 

But for now, I'm going with it. It's a fun, fast design ... 4-patches made from squares cut at 4.5", and 16-patches made from squares cut at 2.5" -- my favorite sizes!

I started off doing these Leader-and-Ender style, then spent a little while putting these few blocks together.