Jelly Roll Scraps

Jelly Roll Scraps are blocks made from leftover 2.5" strips. I tend to group scraps by color, and also have a small stack of 2.5" strips that are full width of fabric. Pulling one busy yellow paisley fabric with pink, green, orange and white in it gave me a color palette. In a scrappy quilt the more the merrier, and there were several pinks and yellows that gave some pop. Soft greens fit too, and a cream with a sage green print gave some light to the mix.

Block layout step 1

Initially planning on 16 10" blocks for a small charity quilt, I stacked up 16 piles of strips to spread out the colors. Each stack was sewn end-to-end with a straight seam, pressed then cut into 10.5" strips. Rather than trying to sew sets of 5 strips together, I started with 4 strips, sewed the pairs, then each pair together, and pulled a 5th strip. When chain piecing it's much easier with even numbers.

There were enough for 20 blocks. After pressing the blocks it was apparent that some of my strips had not been a full 2.5" wide, so the blocks were trimmed down to 10.25" so they were square. Every other block was rotated in the layout to give a bit of a woven effect.

Jelly Roll Scraps top ready to quilt

This was another fun and satisfying project. It's great to work on casual, fun sewing. Pink flannel is ready for the backing, and it will probably be quilted with a butterfly pattern.

I've pulled fabrics already for a small chair cover for the living room with this block, using up a collection of brown, blue and red homey fabrics.

Project Leap Frog

New quilt projects always want to be at the top of the project list. Lately I've been dividing other projects into segments to trade off with working on new things.

The Flight Path blocks are an example. The trimmings from the flip-and-trim flying geese in these blocks became more interesting than these somewhat fussy blocks. Working on small blocks is just so fun and addictive! Plus I found a box of narrow Christmas print strips that really wanted to be used with the small pinwheels.

Christmas Pinwheel block layout

The border is going to be a red print, so the green blocks are in the center and outer ring.

Flight Path top

The Flight Path top is finally ready to be quilted. My stash yielded a pale green crosshatch that will fit for a backing when pieced with a diagonal seam (John Flynn's method.) None of the fabrics are actually Christmas prints.

Finishes, Part 2

Bento Box/Jelly Roll Rescue

This project came to me in a large bag of fabric, gifted to me by a quilter. It was an abandoned jelly roll project, some pieces cut, a few sewn together, all wadded up in a small produce bag. It is not fabric that I would have purchased, still I took the time to take the pieces apart, iron everything and store in a box. The Bento Box pattern seemed like a good option, as many of the cut pieces were already 2.5" squares. I had a lot of fun with this pattern last year (3 Christmas quilts.)

This is not really Christmas fabric, but the colors do read that way. It sat for a long while, the blocks finally came together, and the layout & assembly was worked on at my last quilt retreat. The real bonus was finding the border - in my stash, leftover from a quilt made several years ago, and it is the same print in some of the center's fabric, in red instead of green or white. This photo shows the solid red binding sewn to the top but not yet turned. Again--sunny and dry today so the quilt stand went outside for photos.

Size is 69" x 57" The backing is a Windham soft gold from my studio, and the quilting pattern is "Plain Paisley", which fit since many of the prints are paisleys, including the border. This will be a gift quilt.

It's Sunny, Time for Photos

Many Trips - 100" x 100"

Close up, 2.5" finished squares

 

Backing and Spilled Ink quilt pattern

My largest quilt in a long while is a variation on Bonnie Hunter's "Many Trips" pattern. The goal was to work with my favorite fabrics--the ones that I've been saving. Some are even less than a year old.  The start was a bundle of Da Gama indigo prints that had been purchased from Reproduction Fabrics at least 10 years ago, already pre-washed and treated with Retayne. They became the strong diagonal through the blocks.

 

Playing with layouts in EQ7, I discovered that with 5 strips instead of 6, I could make rectangular designs rather than square. This is most visible looking at the light squares. The other bonus was that all the blocks have the same color order, and the rotation alone created the effect. 3" cut strips show just a bit more of some of the patterns.

 

The backing fabric was the only new purchase for this quilt. It is Luxe Vine Maze by Michael Miller. It has a nice soft hand, and I like that the background is not white. It shrank a lot - 6" in width, plenty of length was purchased fortunately.

 

It was very fun to work with favorite fabrics! The light grey in each block is Aboriginal Dots by Kaffe Fassett, and there was just enough in stash for the quilt.

 

 

Blue Woven is a small charity quilt made from strings. I devised a cardboard template that allowed me to wrap the strings around it and cut many at once. The strong patterned strips were distributed among the 36 blocks. Borders and binding are scrappy too, the backing is a light blue flannel star. Quilting is "Stars and Loops", and it's 39" square.

 



Friday Finishes

Two finished quilts are heading off to new homes today!

Red Fans, 56" square, 8/2016

Red Fans came to me as mostly finished fans that needed to be squared up.  My Sister probably pieced them in the 70's. After a false start with different background fabrics, it languished. The blocks were brought to quilt group and no one wanted them. Finally my stash was searched, and a single background fabric was found (cream with a blue motif.)

I drew up the fans in EQ7 to draft a background piece and finally cut them out and stitched up the blocks in the same day. Backing fabric (already pieced, the right size) also found in the stash, recycled from a quilt that was un-quilted and finished with a different backing. The finished quilt is going back to my Sister.

Fishy Strips, 44" x 34.5", 8/2016

Fishy Strips came from my collection of batik strings. The sets were made from similar colors, the bodies at an angle and the tailfin horizontal. Cut with a melon die, appliqued with triple zig-zag. Without fusible, the triple zig-zag required a tear-away interfacing to keep from puckering. It has a stronger look than the regular zig-zag stitch (which didn't need interfacing in the sample.) The quilt is being donated to charity.

My Many Trips quilt is well underway. I'm using Bonnie Hunter's technique, using 5 3" strips with 5 consistant colors: indigo, grey, cobalt blue, white with black and teal. This is my "use the good fabrics" quilt, a controlled scrappy quilt for my bed. The strip sets are sewn and some tubes are sewn and sliced for re-assembly.

Another charity string quilt is in the planning/starting phase, Blue Strings Shaded, with 7" strips to be sewn in light, medium and dark mixes. The blue strings seem to multiply faster than others.

Happy Learning Quilt

This quilt was a lot of fun to make, mainly because the quilt police in my head were told that it would be a learning quilt. Several different techniques were tried out and change of design was allowed. It makes me smile, and that was the goal. 

Garden Party, 63" x 63"

The quilting was completed in three steps - the background quilting was done on the longarm, including the sashing. The spaces between the appliques are small, so the pebble design was also small. Stitch in the ditch was done on my small machine, as there is much better control. I left the quilt un-trimmed, and headed out of town for a vacation

Close up of quilting

Since the quilt hadn't been trimmed, it was easy to re-load it on the longarm to quilt the appliques. The batting used was puffy but stable (Soft & Brite), and the pebble quilting looked good, but I was wary about quilting the appliques applied with fusible. It was the lightest fusible I could find, and with the interfacing on the background fabric they seemed rather stiff. The quilting went fine, and really brought the quilt to life. The pattern is by Laura Heine of Fiberworks.

Friday Finishes

This is an accumulation of finished quilts from the last couple of months. The Garden Party quilt is being bound and I'll photograph when finished, and a fish quilt of my own design is in progress.

Pink Charity Strings, 47” x 37”, quilted with Orange Peel

Blue Charity Strings, 47” x 37”, quilted with freeform waves

 

Ducky strips,   43” x 43”, quilted with clamshells

Chevron tablerunner,   32” x 12.25”, quilted with Christmas Holly

 

Double Square Star,   38.5” x 38.5”, quilted with freeform waves

 

Yellow/orange/cream charity,   40.5” x 40.5”, quilted with plain paisley