Do You Love Blue?

The color combination of blue and white is heaven to me.  Blue has been my favorite color forever.  I love all blues.  For me, they all go together.  You can't go wrong. Combining blue with white makes a quilt, a room, an outfit,  crisp and clean.  Denim never seems to go out of fashion, but blue does tend to go in and out of style, even with quilting fabric.  So I have quite a stash.  A really, really big stash.  You have to buy it when you see it. About 25 % of my quilting fabric is blue.

 

My goal this past year has been to reduce my blue fabric stash. I actually have a bag of scraps that I just want to use up. It's pieces left over from other projects and outdated fabrics.

 

 This is Blue Scrap Quilt 1.0

 I made it using 2 1/2" strips to make the blocks. 

 Bailey just loves a new quilt.

 I even have a collection of blue and white plates.

 

The back was created from 9" and 18" squares. That really put a dent in the scrap bag.

 

I have 2 more tops that are waiting top be quilted. That will leave me with enough scraps to make one more quilt.  This has really put a crimp in my love affair with blue and white.

 

 

My Idea Of A Scrap Quilt

Sometimes I sit in my studio and look at all the fabric that I own.  All of the money that I have spent over the years, has certainly been my form of therapy.  If you had to guess how many yards of fabric 

you owned could you do it?  Would you want to do it? I couldn't guess and the thought of it makes me very uncomfortable. 

 As a former scientist, I can figure out a way to approximate  the yardage in my stash.  I can estimate  how much I have by weighing it.  Do I want to do this?  Heck No!!!  It's depressing enough looking at my bulging shelves.  Much of the fabric is outdated and would not be the focus of a quilt that I would design now.  I shy away from fabric stores and quilt shows, so I am not tempted to buy more, at least until I've used up some of what I already have.  If I need to create a project for a book or magazine, then I would be happily forced to buy current fabric, but otherwise, I've gone on austerity.  And yes, for those of you that are not quilters, quilting fabric is like fashion.  It changes from year to year.

But here's the problem.  I probably have enough fabric to make 100 quilts. This means that I could potentially spend years trying to use it all.  And what about the new projects?? And what about quilting all those quilts?? It all makes my head hurt.

So here's my attempt to start using up some of that fabric.  This is my version of a scrap quilt. It's my own design that I created one step at a time.  That's the way I like to design.  I only used fabric from my stash.

 It measures about 57"w x 68"h.

The center of the design is a hibiscus.  The background fabric behind the flower is a feedsack from the 1930's.  I must have bought it about 20 yrs ago.  Some of the other fabrics have also been sitting on my shelves for a long time.  I am thrilled that I got to use them and now they are gone - in a quilt.

To make this a total scrap quilt, I also cut up fabric from my stash to piece together a back for the quilt.  This was instead of using one big piece.  I was happy to use up more fabric for this.

I enjoy piecing the back for a quilt. It certainly adds interest and it makes the quilt reversible. 

And it helps to decrease my fabric stash.

Scrappy Quilt #3

I brought a bunch of fabric with me to Key West that I wanted to use up.  I made 2 scrap quilt tops for our house in the Poconos.  You can see them here and here.  I had one more quilt on my "To Do" list from this pile of fabrics.   This quilt is for a community project in Israel.  I am heading to Israel in a few weeks and wanted to bring a quilt top with me for  "Quilts For Benji".

Men and women from around the world volunteer to join the Israeli army.  In 1998, a young man from London named Benji Hillman came to Israel to join the army and then lost his life fighting to protect Israel in 2006. These young people leave their family, friends and country and are willing to give their life for the people of Israel.  There is a group of women who want to show their gratitude and appreciation by making each of them a quilt for their bed in the army barracks. 

So I still had a pile of fabric left from my the other 2 scrappy quilts that I made.  Inspiration came to me on one of my morning walks here in Key West in front of The Banyon House.  Check out the sidewalk.

Here is a close-up.

It reminded me of the pattern, "Yellow Brick Road", published by Atkinson Designs.

I made a quick sketch, decided to make it a 12" block and designated the size of all the pieces.

This became my cutting list.  I also decided to make each piece the same color.  For some of the blocks, I did not have enough fabric, so I used multiple fabrics of the same color.

This is a finished block.

This is what the blocks looked like laid out on the floor as a quilt.  (I really miss my design wall.)

I intentionally used the gold fabric for the smallest piece and I really like what they did as the blocks came together.  I was not so crazy about the big patches of blue.

So I added a corner triangle to each of the blue patches and liked that much better as the blue rectangles came together.

I only need to bring the quilt top with me.  The quilters in Israel will make it into a quilt.  It's really a win-win, because then I will have extra room in my suitcase to bring souvenirs home!

Design Dilemma Solved

Thank you for all of your opinions about my scrappy quilt.

I have to tell you that my overwhelming desire to see what the orange peel blocks looked like butted together outweighed everything.

 I really do love the circular pattern that is formed.

But I couldn't let the 9 patches go to waste. 

I am not crazy about how the 9 patches worked out.  It looks a bit old fashioned.  I think when the quilt is on a bed and the 9 patches are the drop, it will look fine. 

 

Finally, The Wedding Quilt

I can finally share the quilt that I made for my son and his new wife. (I was surprised when I found out that sometimes she reads my blog!) This was the first quilt that I made using my new favorite scrap pattern from Moda. Two great things - you cut up all the fabric into 2 1/2" x 7" rectangles. Can't be easier than that. The second great thing is that the pattern is free on Moda's website.

I was saving a bunch of fat quarters for another project that never materialized. The colors were perfect for their house. I just kept sewing until most of the rectangles were used up. That's the beauty of this pattern. I just had to make sure that the braid strips were the same length. I have to add that when I sewed the long braid strips together, I intentionally offset where the rectangles met. If I had to match all of those points, I would have had no hair left by the time I was done. Moda's pattern does the same thing.

One of my goals was also to make it a heavy quilt. My son thinks it would be perfect if a quilt could be as heavy as that lead apron they put on you when you get x-rays at the dentist. The batting I chose was Hobbs Heirloom wool batting and then a flannel for the backing. That quilt turned out to be really heavy.

Before the quilt is quilted, I put a label on the back. I used the label from their wedding announcement. I know everyone has heard it before, but it is so important to document your quilts. Using your computer to make the label becomes such a simple thing.

After printing the label, I frame it out with some leftover strips from the top, add triangles to the corner. It is then fused to the backing and I stitch around it with a machine blanket stitch. Easy.

My wonderful long arm quilter, Susie Racobaldo quilted it for me. She doesn't have a website, but if you want her e-mail, contact me.

Then my buddy helped me to bind it. I really had to squeeze that fabric for the binding. I used the border fabric but had to also use a bit of another fabric. But you would never know unless you looked for it.

I headed to the dollar store to get a gift back. I just try not to use wrapping paper anymore. It kills me that you buy it, spend the time wrapping it and then as soon as it is unwrapped, it gets thrown away. On my way there, it dawned on me that for the same price, I could run into Home Goods and get a reusable bag.

These bags are just gorgeous and perfect for the gift giving of a quilt, and they cost 99c. So I bought all of these. And they have a snap at the top, too. I really don't care that the store name is visible. I think they're gorgeous.

And finally, here's the quilt!

I think they liked it.