More progress on the Dresden plate blocks

Today I finally finished painting in the bathroom.  Took me all day to get the second coat on the wall and two coated on the doors and baseboards.  After getting the kids dinner I decided I needed a break and went down to my quilting room.

I finished basting all the Dresden plated to the white base.  The picture below is the pile of twenty blocks ready to start to appliqué.  There are another five that still need to have the seams turned over before they can be basted.

After walking my son for trick or treating tonight, I cut all the twenty five purple centres.  The picture below is to show you how I would pin baste, so that I can appliqué and get a really good round circle.  When I cannot see the seam allowance I prefer to pink baste,  it is easier to adjust or remove if needed.

This next picture shows the centre sewn onto the Dresden plate.  The next step will be to appliqué the plate to the white.  This purple fabric that I had here from another project is very close to the same purple that was already cut out to be used for the Dresden plate centres, but as I am combining twenty-five blocks and I would not have had enough. For consistency I decided to use the purple I have so that I could also use it for the cornerstones and the first border.

Now that I have all the blocks basted I can put this aside, until I need to bring my grab and go bag.  The grab and go bag is because I don't usually do hand work at home.  I find other times during the day for that, like during lunch at work or waiting at appointments, that sort of thing.

Tomorrow I will clean up/put away all the paint tools and take the day to do some more quilting on the Hexagon quilt.  Hoping to get a lot done on that one his weekend.

Dresden Plate quilt progress

Yesterday after painting the walls in the closet and waiting for that to dry I headed to my friend Carol's place to pick up some solid white fabric to start the Dresden Plates quilt for my Cousin.  I got a white fabric called winter white which is slightly off white.  When you are making things with older fabrics these not sparkling whites work best so the older materials done look dingy.

When I got back, I throw the fabric in the wash, and started dinner.  After dinner before getting together with the kids to read before bed, I was able to iron all the fabric.

Today was the day trip with the girls from our quilting bee.  Four of use got together and went to Font Hill, to The Quilting Bee quilt store.  I never tire of going there.  There is so much to see.  I found the base fabric for my niece and some reds and blacks.  Diane was lucky to find a bunch of fabrics for a quilt she is gong to start for her own king sized bed.  We ate at the Lazy Loon next door.  Everyone had a great time.

When we got back and I put dinner in the oven, I took the time to start cutting the white fabric.  All the white parts are cut and ready to sew.  Twenty five squares, the borders and all the sashings.

I even started placing the Dresden Plates on the white squares.  Centring them and tacking them down, to make them ready to appliqué.  So far I did three of them.  I want to get these ready for my grab and go bag, when I need some hand work.

I have the fabric I purchased today in the dryer.  When I get a chance to iron them I will post them for you.  Maybe when painting the doors and between coats I can do some.

Working away and storage

Yesterday after going to Home Depot for supplies, I managed to finish the plastering in the bathroom, filling the nail holes of the baseboards and priming everything.  In between drying time for the chalk and the primer I did get a bunch of florets quilted as well.  When I went up to start painting though, I couldn't do it.  At this time of the season with the rain and all the primer was taking longer to dry, so I brought out the heater fan to help it along, and headed to Storage Solutions to see what I could find.

Not sure if you remember the cupboards I got from IKEA for my quilting room.  They are 18" deep.  I wanted to find some long baskets to hold stuff, to better utilize the space.  The picture below shows what I went with.  Now I have more room for my light and dark scrapes, and the miscellaneous sized scrapes for crazy quilts has more room too.  The three smaller baskets at the top I had here already and they are now holding parts and pieces for two quilts, plus one extra for future use.  The packaged batting fits nicely between the large baskets.  I love seeing everything in it place.  Doesn't always stay this way, but I do try.

Not much else to report at this time, because I am doing mainly renos around the house this week.  After I publish this post I will be off to finish the painting of the walls, baseboards and doors. Plus doing the silicone around the tub.  Once everything dries I can install the door handles and wash everything down.  

15 Minutes of Play - Improvisational Quilts

While I was going through all my quilting books trying to come up with an option for one of my nieces,  I came across this book.  I almost forgot I had it.  The book is called 15 Minutes of Play - Improvisational Quilts by Victoria Findlay Wolfe.  It's a book about using up your scraps in a creative way.

I heard of this book through Bonnie Hunter.  Bonnie is also an advocate for using up your scraps.  She constantly thinks green.  Reuse, repurpose and recycle.  When you really think about is, you realize that it would be a waste to throw out usable scraps.  They cost you just the same as the yardage did.  I don't know about you, but I would feel a shamed if I through out cash.  That's why I don't throw out my scraps.  I just have to find creative ways to use them.

This book gives you some creative ways to use them.  The ideas are not all completely scrappy.  Some of them, like the picture below have an organized theme to them, for those who need the control of a pattern, but with a bit of scrappiness to use up the scraps.  Other patterns are completely from scrapes and everything in between. 

I like this next one too.  I seem to always be drawn to lines that go on a diagonal.  The affect this one would have is a grid all across the quilt. You can control the scrappiness with the fabrics used for the diagonal lines.  They can be all the same colours or alternate to make a plaid affect.  What ever goes.

The next block is close to the last one but with a twist.  For this one the lines are more random.  They had an example where the lines are all different primary colours and the blocks where of various sizes.  Quite nice and very different.  This could be good in a controlled colour scheme too, if you feel you need to tame the scrappiness.  But sometimes wild and crazy works great.

This next picture is a really great example of a modern looking quilt.  This quilt was named Indications of Rhythm by Margaret Cibulsky.  The book has many examples that can help you use up your scrapes and make a quilt that anyone would be proud to own.  The blocks available give you examples to start with and some nice layouts as well.  Just let your imagination and creativity loose.  See where it takes you.  

In the book on page 5, there are even some challenges to get you going, to help you stretch your limits and explore beyond your comfort zone.  You have to trust me when I say go for it.  You will be very surprises where it takes you.  Within every person is a creative side and it is very liberating to let it loose and come out to play.

More playing with EQ5 for the Romance and Roses quilt

Yesterday while on EQ5 I played around with some design options for a second quilt.  This one won't be started for a while yet.  Before I start this one I have to get some things together.  The pattern comes from the quilt book below. This book is filled with beautiful quilts.  They are mostly on the beige side, nothing in the way of bright or modern.

I bought this book initially for the quilt on the cover.  I would love to one day make this one.  This one is on my wish list of one day......  But if your a quilter, you know that we would have to live to be 200 years old to make all the "one day" quilts on our wish list, and that may not even be enough because we're always adding more.

The pattern is in the book Simple Blessings - 14 Quilts to Grace Your Home by Kim Diehl.  As I've said above, this book has many beautiful quilts.  The one that I will be making is for one of my nieces, called Romance and Roses.  Except, my nice is not into these warm beige harvest colours.  For her I am going to modernize the quilt with colour and minus the roses.  I think I want to use the vine and flowers of one of the other quilts in the book, but that has not yet been finalized.  It may not be until the end that I decide on that part.  

The page above shows a better picture of the colours in the quilt and a closeup of the blocks themselves.  The picture below shows the layout.  For the quilt that I will be making, I thought I would use a light for the background. I am not sure whether that will be a light cream of very light grey with a black or dark grey printed pattern on it.  For the blocks that Kim has in red I was going to do the same, but my reds will range from deep burgundy through to perky dark reds, all the way to even some very dark pinks and red wine colours.  Lastly the second blocks that Kim used green, I will be using blacks and dark greys.  I find just the use of black sometimes give a quilt a more modern appearance, and with the grey a little more so.

The following picture has my layout on the right hand side from EQ5.  In the picture the background is light grey.  Until I go out shopping though, I won't know exactly what the background will be.  That is why I needed to figure out the layout and final size, so that I will know how much fabric I will need.

On Thursday some of the girls from our quilt bee plan to go on a road trip to Font Hill and visit The Quilting Bee quilt store.  While there I may check out if they have anything I could use for the background and maybe some red or blacks as well.  I find that half the fun of making a quilt is the designing, which includes the selection of fabrics and colours.  After the shopping we all head next door for lunch.  Another great place to go.  It will be fun with great food and all the girls.

Enjoy you day everyone.  Though I am on vacation this week, it will be a work week for me here around the house.  My goal this week (I have a huge list of thing to do), is at least to finish the upstairs bathroom.  I am off to do some plastering in the bathroom.

Playing with design options for a Dresden Plate quilt

This morning I did some quilting on the hexagon quilt for a few hours.  When the stores opened we had to do some running around with the kids for more pants, sweaters, socks, etc.  By the time I got home from shopping I was beat.  Did I ever tell you that I do not like shopping.  I don't mind when I am out with someone and just browsing.  But when I have to find something specific, I usually can't find it at all, and get frustrated having to go from store to store.  But it is done.

So after the shopping we came home and after lunch I decided to play around with some quilt designs.  I went onto EQ5 and did a few layouts. I coloured some Dresden plate blocks to resemble the ones that I have.  My cousin asked me to assemble a queen size quilt with the Dresden plates that were already assembled.

There are seven plates in six different colours.  My cousin has decided that she would like to use all the colours together.  I think it will look great.  Keep in mind that what you see below is only an outline, as the colours are out quite a bit.  Even after completing this quilt there will still be some leftover plates.

I say plates because that is all they are at this time.  Until I finished the design I couldn't see exactly how I was going to assemble this quilt.  Now that I know how big the blocks are going to be and how big the quilt was going to be I can start making them.  Now I know how much material I will need.  EQ5 also tells you the fabric requirements.

At this time I only need to get the white.  I have decided to do all the background in white, including the sashing and borders (those are the parts that you see in light blue).  The sashing is in light blue in the picture so that I can remember how to assemble the quilt, but in the end they will actually be white with lavender cornerstones.  The cornerstone will look like they are floating between the plates.  

Once the centre is done I will finish it off with a lavender small border to match the cornerstones and a scalloped white large border.  I feel that the scalloped border goes well with he shape of the Dresden plates and is also something that was common in the '30s-'40s along with the lavender.  In comparison to the lavender the Dresden plates will appear more pastel, which I feel will look nice against the white.  This will be more of a springtime quilt for it's soft colours.

When I finished working out this quilt I started on another one that I will be am making for my niece down the road.  I will save the pictures for that one until tomorrow.

Reversible Crazy quilt

Throughout the quilt making process there are always scraps that are the result of left over material, mistakes that happen, extra blocks that are made, etc.  I try to keep all of these scraps under control as I go along.  Something similar to the Bonnie Hunter way, but with little differences to make it work for me.

If I have yardage, I refold them and put them back into the stash.  If they are smaller pieces I may put them in with my fat quarter collection or maybe the scrap drawer that as smaller pieces.  Some I cut up into stripes that are organized by size (1 1/2", 2" or miscellaneous stripes) and there is a drawer for the extra blocks and miscellaneous parts.  Lastly there is a basket of smaller bits and pieces that don't quite fit in any of the other categories.

One day, a while back I decided to see what I could do to reduce the amount of scrapes in my scrap basket.  In the end I felt a crazy quilt block would be the best option.  I hadn't made a crazy quilt yet and thought, why not now.

In my version I decided to make small 6 1/2" blocks as a reversible quilt with a pretty fabric for the reverse side of the crazy block.  The way it works is, you made the crazy block. I did mine on a piece of thin facing to stabilize the pieces that are mostly all off grain.  Once I had that done I backed it with the pretty fabric and quilted the block.  Picture shown above.

When I had all the blocks done I laid them out to make sure that I distributed the colours evenly.  I followed the method by Sharon Pederson in her book Reversable Quilts, to assemble the rows.  The picture above shows row number one.  I folded the row to show you a section of both sides.

The other day while taking a break from the intense quilting of the Hexagon quilt, I quickly quilted up the pieces seen in the picture above, using a stippling design.  These pieces are the borders for the Crazy quilt.  As you can see in the first picture, there is one side that has the navy fabric and the second side that has the lighter bright blue fabric. In the second picture you see two borders with the same colours on the reverse of each other.

When I finish assembling all the rows I will attach the borders using the same method.  But for today I will get back to quilting the Hexagon quilt.  I am really liking it so far.