A Promise Made, A Promise Kept

When I was working on my Swoon quilt, I kept all those little HSTs as I am sure most of us did. I promised myself I would go back later and make something out of them. How hard could that be? They were all cut after all, just needed sewing together. HA!

So, they sat...for awhile. Then I sewed a few together.  Then they sat...for months. Then I sewed a few together. Then they sat...Ok, enough sitting. I pulled them out this morning and finished sewing and pressing.  Then, I started playing on the design wall...

Chain piecing is the fastest way to go, but there were a lot of these little guys.

Here they are, all pressed and stacked.  There are 140 of them. I think I may have lost a couple. A couple of the stacks have odd numbers.

 So, what do you think? This arrangement?

 Or this one...

 Some pinwheels maybe?

 How about this...wait, I see a problem here.

There, that's better.  What about this one?  So this is my latest dilemma with these. Leave me a comment and let me know what you think. I would love to finish this. I will let you know when I do.
Have a great week!

Briar Rose Scrappy Goodness

Remember when I posted my Briar Rose quilt and said I was aiming to use up every bit of it? Well, I am off to a great start. After I made the Rainbow quilt and the baby Rainbow quilt, I took all the scraps that were left up to that point and created a few blocks.  I haven't figured out what to do with them yet, but they are done. Wanna see?  Good.

 I took the small strips and separated them into three groups, based on how they looked against three pieces of fabric I picked out. Then I made a stacked coins block. This is the pink background.

 These are 25 squares for my Bee mate in Sunday Morning Quilts Bee. She is making the Up Up Away quilt in scrappy blues. I used all the small triangles left from the baby rainbow.

 This is my selvedge piece. I think I may be going to make a zippered pouch out of these. I have to look at them some more to decide.

 This is my first foray into selvedge sewing and I like it okay, but I don't think it's really me.

 Here is another color set of stacked coins. I am really loving how these look. Not sure what I am going to make from them though.

 I took this close up to show you the sweet vine and leaf pattern on the background fabric. I have had this forever and could never figure out how to use it.  I have one more set, not done yet but the background fabric is blue.

 These HSTs are all from the larger Rainbow quilt. I just fiddled with them until I decided I was happy and stitched them up.

And that brings me to this. This is the stack of what is left. Lots of pretty big chunks and two complete half yards. I have no ideas what to make with this. I am going to think on it, but I would love some suggestions of patterns to try with these. I am pretty sure I can get a good size lap quilt out of these.  So let me know what you think. Thanks for stopping by. I'll let you know what I end up with.

What was I thinking Block of the Month

Have you ever done a block of the month? Me neither. I had some crazy notion it would be fun and easy to just do one block per month. Ha! So I sent away for one back in 2009 and after just two blocks, I gave up. The blocks kept coming in the mail, and then the finishing kit. Now I had all but forgotten it until recently when I reorganized my sewing room and found all this:

 What is interesting, to me, is that this is so not a color scheme I would usually choose, so I am not sure why I did.

 Lots of cute little details like the Yo Yo flowers on this one, each with a button in the center.

 I tried to like it again and talk myself into finishing it, but I thought "then what?" I really do not want this quilt.

 This is the finishing kit and there are several yards of fabric in this zip bag. If I even liked the fabric, I might keep it. But alas, I do not.

So, if you were me, what would you do with all this? Keep it and put it in a drawer forever? Donate it? but to whom? Give it away? Help me out here, please. I would hate to think nobody wants this poor quilt kit.

Studio Spotlight-Linking Up with Ellison Lane

Jennifer at Ellison Lane has been having a Studio Spotlight party this week. We have seen some amazing spaces and some great uses of small and shared spaces. Now, I am linking up my studio space here today.  If you have not visited any of the spaces, go look, and be inspired. In full disclosure I did not tidy up a thing for these pictures. This is the real deal.

 This is where my scraps and older fabrics live. Scraps above and larger pieces of mostly older fabrics below, somewhat sorted into color groups.

                      Books on the bottom. The other two shelves need some organization.

A bit dark, but this is my main machine. I also have a Singer featherweight that was my grandmother's. It needs a tune up to be usable.

                              My sewing table is a trestle style desk from Target.

 Books on the bottom and newer fabrics all folded neatly. I used Jeni Baker's fabric folding method for this. I try to fold all new acquisitions now and put them here. I love the method for any cut up to a yard. She has a video if you want to see. Search her blog, In Color Order.

 A very busy wall and my fold down cutting table from IKEA. Underneath it is an old coffee table full of magazines and fabric and stuff.

                               My design wall is an old flannel sheet hung up with tacks.

 This piece in the corner is newly relocated to hold sewing patterns and other notions in the drawers. The wardrobe side has quilt tops on hangers that are waiting to be quilted and my table cloths as well. This piece I refinished a couple of years ago. It was a baby wardrobe that was my husband's as a baby.

One of the most special things in my sewing room is the photos of my Granny and her sisters. I sometimes talk to her when I am sewing. I like to think she is always with me.

If you want to see what my sewing room looked like two years ago when I first moved everything in there, I blogged about it here.

Thanks again to Jennifer at Ellison Lane for this fabulous series.

Making It Monday

I showed pictures of my Briar Rose fabric bundle a couple of weeks ago. I know the interwebs are saturated with that fabric line right now, but I have a need to share what I am making with mine. In a first ever (for me) I am trying to find uses for all of my Briar Rose. When I am done, there will be no scraps. Here is what I am making this Monday:

                                  My bundle: the before picture.

 The first cuts for the Briar Rose Rainbow Quilt. You can get the free pattern on the Windham web site. The quilt was designed by Rae of Made by Rae. Fun and easy quilt, but oh so pretty.

                   My selvedges. Never sewed selvedges before, but I am now.

 Second cuts. My daughter was watching me assemble the first quilt and said, "You should make a smaller version. So I cut these 2 1/2 inch squares from some scraps.

 Here is the finished quilt top.  I hope to get it quilted soon. I have a lot of tops in the queue right now.

 Here is the original with 6 1/2 inch blocks (6 inches finished size) and the baby with its 2 inch finished size blocks.

 A close up of the baby so you can see the scale of the blocks. One bee just fits a block there.

And I started sewing the selvedges together. I think I am going to make a zippered pouch out of this. I still have quite a lot of the fabric left and am awaiting inspiration. Looking at the scraps is giving me some too. The shapes of the scraps help me to come up with ideas. What ideas do you have? Have you ever done this with a fabric line? I just can't stop!
Have a great week. See you soon.

Sunday Morning Bee Quilt...Done!

I have finally finished my Sunday Morning Quilts Bee Quilt.  Wow, that's a mouthful. Anyway, it is finished.  My month was April, so now that it's August, I am finally finished.  I chose the Gumdrops quilt from the book as my quilt. The one thing I did was to change the color scheme. I think it turned out quite nice. What do you think?

 The lovely Loulouthi backing. Even my hubby loves this fabric. He says it might be better than the front.

 I don't ever do this any more, but I pulled the backing around to the front to make up the binding and I have to say, I love it on this quilt. I even put my label tag on the front this time.

I had two beautiful strips that were made entirely of batiks. I couldn't make them work here, due to the length of the strips and I didn't want to just cut them off to fit.  So I found some batik in my stash and made this instead:

Don't you just love it? I do. And if you're wondering about the white patch in the top left of the quilt, I had to add to those rows to extend them and make them all the same size as the others. With bee quilts you have to finagle sometimes to make it all work out.

Thanks for stopping by. Have a great day.