Big, Big Paws

I've been working on a quilt that is sort of counter intuitive for me, but I have to say that I'm really enjoying it. No itty, bitty 1" strips or squares in this one. This time it's 6" squares and HSTs. And...more grey.

Just after I mentioned that I tend not to use grey that often, I ran across a photo of a Bear Paw quilt that's been on my radar for quite some time - grey with a terrific collections of brights that often read as solids and the odd funky large print.

It was a little scant on details initially...

but as more colours filled in you could see it starting to build.

Eventually, despite the not so great lighting in the sewing cave, you can see that it has started to really come together....M

A Few More

I've been sewing around the remains of a few unmade blocks using the 1" strips that were sitting on my sewing table (note to self: find a name for this block) so I decided to put them together.

Naturally, the first scrap that I picked up wasn't one of those that I had left behind but a new piece of black floral that had followed me home from the church. I hesitated to use such a dark print but I have to say that I absolutely love the block.

This one challenged me a bit because I just couldn't land on a colour to use for the outer border. The yellow works nicely but it will be one of the challenges of trying to use only the scraps that I have on hand and not cutting into yardage. It was a close call!

This yellow strawberry print is an oldie and I know that I am coming to the end of it. It will be missed.

I'm debating if I should pick a palette/style or just work with random and see how things turn out. The green outer border on this one is a sweet print but I was uncertain about its fit until I saw it on the wall with the others.

Group photo. Here they are all together on the small design wall near my machine. They all play well together and am more convinced now that the darker prints will be key in maintaining interest throughout, but they are hardly what you would call fabric guzzlers - nine blocks used nine 2.5" squares, 108" of one-inch strips and 162" of 1.5" strips.

So, this will be my view and inspiration for the coming months (read 'years').

I seem to be spending a lot of time finding just the right combination of prints for each block so hopefully I get more spontaneous as time goes by. I'm also doing a really good job of messing up all of my strip bins. Me thinks that I'll have to figure out a system of sorts that allows me to plan several blocks in advance and then sit down and sew. In the meantime, I'm enjoying the view....M 

 

A New Life for My One-Inch Strips

Not being able to waste even the tiniest bits of fabric, I've been resolutely saving 1" strips for some time now and my basket is overflowing (there's also a second smaller one on the cutting table). While trimming remnants over the holidays I got to wondering if I would ever use them. Maybe I should just throw in the towel and start dealing with larger pieces because heaven knows, there's lots of fabric here to work with.

But then I saw some inspiration on Pinterest that had me rushing to make a few test blocks: framing a 2.5" square with 1" strips and then a 1.5" strip. It's a 5" block and just as cute as can be. LUV! 

My inspiration had the narrow strip sewn like you would sew a Courthouse Steps block with two short strips opposite each other and then the two longer strips opposite each other. All of the narrow strips were one colour, but mixing them up just seemed like much more fun. Double LUV!

I found myself wondering what it would look like if I just stayed within the same colour family and sewed the strips more like you would a Log Cabin block, just circling that centre square. Just too much fun! Given that my strips are relatively short, this approach would give me much more flexibility because I wouldn't need to find enough for all four strips.

I wrote a quick reminder as to the lengths that I would need so that I wouldn't have to keep measuring every time.

This block was sewn the same way but it's hard to tell because I used a single print throughout. Nothing says that I couldn't make it a combo and use both styles because it would be scrappy anyway.

Of course the inevitable was going to happen. Any remnant shorter than 2.5" but longer than 1" was cut into a 1" square, maybe for tiny nine patches? Crazy, I know, but fun!...M

Template Time

It's been forever since I've made a quilting template but we needed one to mark the quilting pattern for the Double Wedding Ring. I'm thinking that a purchased stencil may have been used for the portion that is already quilted but there was no sign of one when the quilt was dropped off for us, so I brought it home to try and figure out a way to do it.

As a reminder, my mission was to create a template for this pattern. After a little pondering I decided to just make an oval for each quadrant rather than attempting a stencil for the entire pattern, so I rescued a cereal box from the recycling bin and proceeded to draft one. It went quicker that I had imagined.

I just measured one of the ovals from the existing pattern from end and then determined it's overall width at the mid point. Once I had that cut I made it 1/4" wide and cut the centre out.

The maker had pressed the centre panel of each block so as to mark it's centre, so I just positioned one end of the petal point at the centre of the block and the other end pointing towards a corner. For the circle that encased the petals I was lucky enough to find a plastic container the same size as the outer ring and then marked an echo line 1/4" inside of that. Easy peasy.

It took several hours to mark the remaining 32 blocks that need quilting but I was determined to do it all in one day. For whatever reason, it was tricky getting a light pencil line to show up well on the fabric but I eventually got to the point that things moved along. I don't like a heavy quilting line but also wanted to ensure that the quilters could see the pattern.

It's been up on the frame at the church since early January and we are seeing good progress. Because the edges of the quilt are scalloped, we first hand basted all of those outer circles so that everything was stabilized, which took a fair bit of time. Eventually we were able to begin quilting and this past Friday we finished the first column of eight blocks and were thrilled to roll it for the first time. Woohoo! Only 24 more to go!....M