A finished blue crumb quilt top

This post will be short and sweet.  I spoke about this little crumb quilt, that I was working on, all day Sunday.  The post was called, Small blue scraps.... from March 9th, so I won't go into too much details again here.

I'll just say that these strips are 2 1/2" wide with a 1/2" strip connecting them together to help avoid all the seams of all those crumb pieces.  I then cut 3" pieces for the borders.

It took some time to make these strips, but I really did enjoy the process.  With no rush or hurry.  Just sitting there with my machine, iron, a good pair of scissors and a backet full of very small crumbs.  Some mindless sewing.

And for those of you who are keeping tabs........yes........this is a newly started quilt.......lol.  But it's done!!!

This is a 25" square NICU quilt that will be going to Project Linus.

Take care everyone.

Yummy colours

I don't have much of my own to share with you at the moment.  Everything is in a partially completed stage.  I like working on many things, but that sometimes leads to longer periods of time before I actually finish something.

So today, I want to share with you this quilt made by a friend.  This was from 2025.  I call it the citrus quilt.  The colours of all the citrus fruits are in there, from lemons, limes, oranges, tangerines, and even pink grapefruit!!  I just love the colours all together. and the block itself adds a bit of spunk too.  With no borders needed!

The backing fabric was perfect for this quilt too.  It's got all the colours of the fabrics in the top.  Little bursts of sunshine!

This is a one block quilt, where the block just keeps getting rotated.  I'm sure any of you could draw up the paper piece pattern for this.

As for me, I am almost done ironing all the little bitty pieces of scraps and sorting all the recently washed fabrics.  I also have all the strips sewn from the tiny blue crumbs, ready to be assembled into a small quilt.  Maybe later today I can get some sewing done.  

We'll see.  My daughter is here today and currently making dinner.  So maybe I should try to slip down there now.....lol.

Take care everyone.  Don't forget to take some time for yourself.

Small blue scraps....

This is the starting point of making a scrap quilt.  First off, I gather up some of my scraps.  In this case I chose to do blue.  I had two quilts in mind when I gathered these scraps up, but today I'll walk you through the making of one of them.  Keep your eyes on that black basket.

My pieces are pretty small.  I would classify this as a crumb quilt.  I am making strips that only measure 2 1/5" wide by about 10-11" long.  I just grab one and sew it to the first one and continue this process until the strip is the length I am shooting for.  

Now you have to realize that these pieces are my really small scraps/crumbs and that some of them don't even measure 2 1/2" wide.  When that happens, which is often, I grab a similar scrap and sew them together, as seen in the strip on the bottom right hand corner of this next picture.

I keep working like this throughout the construction of my strips.  Grab, sew, grab, sew, piece, piece again, grab, sew, grab, sew....processing a lot of very small pieces.  In the picture below I show you my set up.  The pieces in the middle are the ones that already measure at least 2 1/2" long and the pieces toward the bottom are not big enough.  They will need to find a partner to be sewn to.

Did you notice that black basket!!  It is empty!  I can actually say I am making a small dent in using up my crumbs.  I haven't yet opened that bag on the right hand side of the picture....lol.....but, progress none the less!  Once I have enough strips, I am using a blue solid 1" strip to set them together as you see in the picture below.

I have these four strips sewn together, which makes me feel great!  I'm obviously not done this quilt, but I really enjoyed some quiet, relaxing, fun just playing with fabric and making what other people consider to be garbage into something useful.  

These crumb quilts do take more time, but I am trying to see this as a form of meditation.  Focus on only the small pieces.....grab, sew, grab, sew, piece, piece again, grab, sew, grab, sew.  No rush, no worries, just sew one to another and keep going.  If you are going to try this, it would be much easier if you don't have an agenda.  Don't think of the end product, just keep plugging away to a calmer sole.

Take care everyone.

Basket Case borders are on

Last Saturday, I got the borders put on the Basket Case quilt.  It's still waiting to be quilted, but thought I would share it with you.  I've been pretty busy with non-quilting stuff and haven't had much time to sew.  

This is an interesting way to use up  scraps with a geometric block.  It doesn't matter what fabrics you use for this quilt, as it all tends to mess in well.  For a more coordinated look, can you imagine each horizontal line a specific colour (ie hot tones) weaving in and out of the vertical lines another specific colour (ie cool tones).  It would look fabulous!!

For me, I am always trying to find nice patterns to use up my scraps and the scraps that people give me.  This one is a good one!

Excerpt from a previous post:  This pattern is called Basket Case by Cluck Cluck Sew.  I modified my version to use up what I already had on hand.  The scrappy strips I started with are only 2" wide.

Take care everyone.

A blue scrappy strings quilt

I started this quilt in March/2025, with four small blocks.  I made a sample, just to see if I liked it and check out the sizing.  I know Bonnie Hunter has a free pattern on her site.  I'll have to look it up to see what she calls it.  I am going with my own size, but otherwise the quilt will basically be the same.

I'm glad I did the four test blocks, as I noted that I prefer a longer, skinnier strip of strings.  I also decided that I didn't like one of the background fabrics that I chose initially.  All the new background fabric is cut out and here is a sample of the four new blocks, together to make up one larger block.

There will be two colours for the background that will alternate throughout the quilt.  I will need to make twenty-four smaller blocks of each background.  The quilt layout will be six blocks across by eight blocks down.  It will look like a lattice.  Between my friend and I, we made enough strips to make 20 blocks and on Sunday I added the background corners to them all.

It may be a while before I get the rest of these blocks done, as I have other things I want to get done first, but it was nice working with blue strings for a change from the red strings....lol.  This blue string quilt is only the first.... I have blue strings overflowing the drawer and need to get them into a quilt.

One at a time.....one at a time....

Take care everyone.

Finished all the Rhododendron Trail blocks

Well, as mentioned in my last post, I figured I'd have a full day of sewing yesturday, and I mostly sewed all day.  Other than taking a few hours break to walk to the store in the freezing weather to get a couple of ingredients for making dinner.  It was my turn to make dinner for my son.  He made me dinner the night before.  

My intentions for yesturday was to work on the red string quilt units, to try and finish them.  I worked on everything but the red strings...lol...I guess I had enough of them for a bit...lol...so instead I finished six start blocks for the Smith Mountain Morning quilt. 

What made me very happy though, was that I finished ALL the blocks for my Rhododendron Trail quilt.  Now outside of the appliqué blocks, on my list of required blocks, I only have the Smith Mountain Morning blocks and the Sea Swept paper piece blocks.  I did finish the Sea Swept blocks too for the week, but forgot to take a picture.
 

Not sure if you recall in a previous post, where I spoke about a friend giving me a jump start on some blue strings blocks.  I trimmed them all to size and got those all prepped as ready.  More on those in tomorrow's post.

Overall it was a nice relaxing day with some good progress on a few different quilts.  Today I have the guild executive meeting to attend after work, so no sewing will be happening.

Take care everyone.

A pile of star points

Yesturday after breakfast and cleaning up all the dishes, I headed down to the studio.  Other than a couple of short breaks, I spent the entire day sewing and trimming.

It doesn't look like much, but it pretty much took me the whole day to make these red strip blocks that are for the points of a star block.  Like wow!  I very much under estimated how long that would take me, and I had all the neutral points already cut!

With all of these units done, the only thing left to make are the string corner units of the star blocks.  Then I will be able to assemble the stars.  I now suspect that the string corner units will take me just as long to make as these units did...lol.  I won't be caught off guard this time...lol.  I guess it will be another full day of sewing!!!  Whoohoo!!

I really am trying to get a bunch of my quilts done and off my list.  I am looking to have a more manageable Works in Progress list.

Though I have a little ways left before I can call anything done, some of my friends are working away, trying to get some of their loose ends done too.  This friend of mine, had these orphan blocks that she turned into a finished NICU quilt.  I just put a label on the back for her and it is ready to be delivered to Project Linus.

Take care everyone.  Hope you're enjoying your weekend, doing what you love to do.