The Wearin' o' the Green

Happy St. Paddy's Day! I'm not Irish, but they say everyone has a little Irish in them on St. Patrick's Day, so, on the eve of the big day I've got a little green parade for you - my little 6.25" Crown of Thorns blocks made from the God's Green Earth trimmings.

The pile isn't huge - I've got 12 made now - but the blocks are so stinkin' sweet and fun to look at.

Much of God's Green Earth is still on the design wall and all of the blocks are now together, so it's time for the final layout. I've enjoyed having it on the wall because it's beautiful to look at as I sew but I have others that need to be laid out on the wall too so it's time to put all the pieces together and see where I land.

There'll be no green beer for me tomorrow, but I think I will enjoy a snack of my favourite Irish cheese/crackers with a glass of wine to celebrate the arrival of the weekend.

I'll leave you with a wee Irish blessing as you ponder your celebrations:
  May the road rise up to meet you,
  may the wind be ever at your back.
  May the sun shine warm upon your face
  and the rain fall softly on your fields.

What a lovely thought with Spring just around the corner....M

Stuck in My Scrap Basket

Most sane people would cut the 1" strips for the Omigosh nine-patch strip sets from yardage to move things along and see some real progress, but to me, this is the perfect excuse to use up all of the teenie, tiny scraps that I save.

I have weeded through my largest scrap basket - a real catch-all - finally pitching anything that I couldn't get even a single one-inch square from and pressing the bits that remained. Once I'm through with it I will move on to other baskets of scraps that I've sorted by colour and finally supplement it with yardage, but I've got a ways to go.






The tiniest of pieces are being trimmed into 1" squares/strips. It's such a kick to give those little scraps that I just couldn't part with a purpose. They are the last lovely bits of some of my favourite fabrics and some day they will be a quilt. Yay!












A few unexpected treasures have also been unearthed, like these strips of a fruit print that mom used in a quilt - just wide enough.

It was all too much for one of my rotary cutters though, who gave up the ghost...

You wouldn't think that it would be worth the effort but after just a little sorting and pressing I've cut two nice little piles of cream and coloured strips and a small collection of 1" blocks. It would have been so easy to just pitch the works but then I wouldn't have all of this, would I? I am so thrilled to finally have that basket dealt with and now I'm keen to see how many two-inch nine-patches this makes.....M

From Here to Eternity

I've been distracted. Again. There are already two quilts that I consider my 'forever' projects - Minnie and Anna Levens - and they will now be joined by a third, the late Sue Garman's Omigosh. I have succumbed. This one will be done by machine whereas the other two are my hand stitching projects, which you would think would give it a definite edge, however, it involves seemingly billions of 1.5" nine-patches. OMG!

I debated long and hard over this one (I mean, seriously, those little blocks finish at half an inch!) and then before Christmas cut a few strips to see if I liked working on it and, ultimately, liked the blocks. I had a hard time committing. It got put away over the holidays but the other day I pulled it out again and played a little more. I  finally realized that it all came down to colour.

Many of the quilts that I'd seen done up in this pattern were made from reproduction fabrics and that's where I started, but they just weren't doing it for me - it's not a palette that I use in our home and I just couldn't get excited about it. I toyed with quitting but it just wasn't letting me go so I sewed a few more blocks. Now that I see a small collection of the 1.5" nine-patches made from my scraps it has made all the difference.

And, when they came together into the larger nine-patch (a huge 4.5"!!!) well - again - OMG! I'm toying with a slight change to the design but still need to work that out. Either way, it may well take me from here to eternity to finish, but it's so darned cute that it will be fun trying....M

The Back of the House - A How To

A lot of you seem to be as taken with my little 6" Crown of Thorns blocks as I am. Not hard when they are that small and that cute! I've had a question about how to get accurate joins, so I thought I'd share a few pics with my method, if you are interested in trying it out.

Start with accurately trimmed HSTs - all diagonal seams to the dark side - four light squares and four green squares, and lay out your block.

Sew the blocks in rows using a scant 1/4" seam allowance.

Starting with the light centre block of the centre row, press both seams out to the dark side, alternating the press directions as you go. The next two outer seams will be pressed inward. Some people use spray starch to help things stay in place but I just use a little steam in my iron.

Sew the remaining rows together, alternating the direction of pressed seams so that the seams nest nicely into each other. It's a good idea to sew all the rows before you sew the rows together so that you can confirm that all the seams are going in the right direction before the block is assembled.

It's also a good idea to pay attention to what you are doing so that you don't end up with something like this and having to spend some quality time with your ripper... :D

Nesting the seams makes a huge difference in your ability to get accurate piecing, especially with such tiny pieces. And believe it or not, me, who usually pins everything, doesn't pin a thing, even with pieces this small!

I press the two top seams towards the top of the block (away from the centre square) and the two bottom seams to the bottom of the block (again, away from the centre). If I were going to sew the blocks to each other I would have to think about whether there is a better way to do this so that you can nest those seams as well, but I'm thinking that they will be assembled next to a plain piece of fabric, so no nesting will be necessary. This is what it looks like from the back.

Give it one last press...

and then send it to join the others.

I thought these blocks would take forever to assemble but the biggest time commitment is trimming the blocks; it's key if you want consistently good joins.

Hope that helps; let me know if you have any questions and I'd love to see any blocks that you might try.

And speaking of tiny, Anne and I put together a few blueberry pies the other day and the last one was this little cutie. It was headed for the freezer....M

Springtime Scraps

A rather listless attempt at cleaning up my cutting table and almost any other horizontal surface in my sewing room kept leading me to little piles of scraps that hadn't made it to the scrap bins yet. I was tempted to sort them by colour and put them away, I really was, but there were a few pieces that I picked up that I really liked and knew that this was the very last that I had of them, so I decided to make something with them instead.

My pot holders get a good workout and a couple of mine were starting to look more than a little ratty, so scrappy potholders it would be.

I did quilt-as-you-go piecing with randomly spaced rows of quilting, stitching directly onto a batting. To join the front and back I just added a few more rows of stitching, so from the back the rows are not as dense as they are on the front. Don't you just love that Martha Negley pink/coral daisy print? I think it's my very last little bit of it.

A little pick-me-up-pink for the binding...

and WA-LA! A set of happy little potholders.

One is backed in mauve...

and the second in a green (it seemed in keeping with all the scrappiness that the backs be pseudo scrappy too).

And, they have already been pressed into action in the kitchen, so I am enjoying my little scraps every day....M

Golden

It can be very hard to surprise me with Christmas gifts - I tend to pick up on the slightest little hint - but this year Betty did it, and did it in spades. She made me this gorgeous, gorgeous little quilt in an whole array of yellows.

The ironic part of this gift, is that I made the blocks! Several years ago - I'm thinking probably five or six - I started playing with my yellow scraps. Little hits of pink, coral, mauve and blue found their way into the mix. I didn't know what I was going to do with them but I think I ended up with between 30 an 40.

As luck would have it, my niece Julia, who was taking graphic design at the time, made a quilt top for one of her courses based on the Golden Rectangle, so I gave them to her to use in a border. She hasn't added the border yet but it sounds like she and Betty have been chatting about doing just that.

Long story short, Betty was inspired to use some of the blocks and make a quilt for me - sort of like klepto quilting, but I'm thinking more like mucho value-added klepto quilting :). I. Love. It!

The blocks float beautifully on the sashing fabric - it's interesting enough to create some contrast but subtle enough to let the blocks shine. It would have taken me ages to figure out that this was the sashing to use (BTW, the yellow sashing print came from my stash too!). Random free flowing lines of stitching in perle cotton soften it.

Tiny little scraps hold such a strong appeal for me. I totally love sewing them together and I love seeking them out in finished quilts. The tinier the shard, the better. Sometimes I wonder that I buy yardage at all because I gravitate to the itty bitty scraps.

The blocks finish off at 3.5" and it is 30" square, so it gives you a sense of what size the pieces are that make up the blocks. Thank you Betty, this was a truly wonderful surprise and it will be cherished....M