{Post 1,002} Scrappy Bargello

I have a new appreciation for the ones who stage pics for quilt magazines.  You will understand why after you see my efforts:

My bed was already made with my Texas Braid quilt on it, so I just put the newly-finished quilt right on top of it and left the pillow shams there.  Inventive, right?

I realized that by adding one more row (making 7 instead of 6) I would have a quilt big enough for my queen-sized bed.  Maybe next time.

I tried to capture the texture of the quilting, but could not.  

~Joan

{Post #989} Quilting Coming Along

It is so hard to get a good picture of quilting.  I admire those who do it often with good results.  This AM I started machine quilting my scrappy bargello quilt.  I finished the center with a variegated dark tan thread.  I did a dwirl and twirl pattern.  The dwirling on Pajama Quilter is neat, but I added about half of the surface covered with "twirls".  See if you can see it in these pictures...

The second picture has a row of HST selvage blocks to stretch the back!  I needed about 3-1/2 more inches.

The following picture shows the pebbles I'm quilting in the 5" wide border.  Those take a lot of thread and a lot of time!!  I'm doing them on my domestic sewing machine.  I might try them some time on my Handi Quilter.  I have nearly two borders finished.  That's over 2 bobbins of thread.

~Joan

{Post #988} Scrappy Bargello Top Finished

This is a big one!  I think it's about 85" x 94".  Truly large.

I like the way the borders turned out.  I had enough of my two favorite shirts to make 2 sides from one and 2 sides from the other.  The second shirt had a smallish chunk off one corner to lack making the whole side, so I just pieced another chunk onto it, ironed it over, and cut it square.  Since the sleeves and shirt bottoms and other places on the shirt have curved edges, there are lots of strings and odd-shaped pieces to work with.  As they are squared up, there are even MORE strings and odd-shaped pieces.  

Here is a close-up of the border that needed one tiny piece to make it complete.  See the brown thread seam?  For reference, the blue and white striped block in the background is 2" square!  Finally figured out how to use the macro setting on my camera.

We went from having 16 here for nearly a week down to having 3 :)  ~  (think what you will...)

I have an eye doc appointment in 45 minutes.  They are notoriously late and slow, so I will have some time to read or whatever in the waiting period.  When I get back, I have a few chores to do, then I'm going to piece the back for this and start the quilting.  I am going to use navy blue thread and do dwirling a la Pajama Quilter.

~Joan 

{Post #987} Side Benefit of Insomnia

Coming right on the heels of my "mostly dead" post...I woke up at 4 AM and could not get back to sleep.  I stayed in bed with high hopes of going back to sleep, but it didn't happen.  So I got up at 4:30.  Eventually I started finishing the piecing for this quilt...Scrappy Bargello.  I just needed to cut and add 4 pieces to the panel, then slice and resew, then sew all 6 sections together, then put on a yellow inner border.  You'd have done the same thing, right?

The first picture is the center hanging over my quilt frame. You can see about half of it.  The second one is it on my design wall.  I had two yellow shirts that were very similar in color, so I alternated strips of the two shirts.

Now I'm deciding if I should make do for an outer border with a variety of dark shirts or buy (eek!) enough of a dark plaid to have the same fabric for the outside border.  I think I'll probably sew dark pieces end to end and hope it doesn't look too bad.  I am going to use brushed cotton plaid for the back...just big rectangular pieces enough to make a backing, nothing fancy.

~Joan

{Post #979} 5/6ths of Scrappy Bargello Center

This quilt center is 5/6ths finished!  I am still cutting up the shirts (laboriously).  I am generating as many strings and chunks as I am using, it seems.  But that's OK.  I may push through and cut enough strips to finish the center of this one.


Here it is shown on my 2 design walls, the one on the right being shorter than the one on the left.

~Joan

{Post #978} Grad Quilt Back & Bargello

So the last few days my sewing has been devoted to finishing the quilt top and back for Susie's graduation quilt.  The idea is to put names of party-comers on the quilt front in the light yellow strips.  The back is for the party-comers (or would that be go-ers?) to write their well wishes.  We contemplated having individual blocks.  She decided she wanted the whole back pieced ahead of time.  I'll frame it with more of the golden grass print.  A little odd, but I like it!!  Close up and then the whole thing:

Here is another panel finished for my Scrappy Bargello.  Need two more uphill sections for this:

It measures 80-1/2" tall and 48" wide right now.  There are two downhill panels on the right.  That will be rectified later!

Off to watch a movie with Susie!

~Joan

{Post #967} Scrappy Bargello Halfway There

My Scrappy Bargello is halfway there.  There are six sections to this quilt.


There are two fabrics that touch in this layout (bright orange in the two on the right near the top and bright pink in the two on the left closer to the bottom), but they won't even be in the last 3 sets, so I can put the new ones between these and they won't be as noticeable.


I sewed on this while I was cooling down from a workout DVD.  It's my reward to me for finishing it!

I was helping my son sort his dirty laundry this AM, and you KNOW I was eyeing his plaid 100% cotton shirts.  I may have gone around the bend on this sewing with shirts compulsion.  A couple weeks ago I was coming home from the store when I spotted a trail of clothes/linens along the roadside.  It looked like a suitcase or laundry basket has slowly leaked...a sock, then a sheet...later a shirt, a pair of pants...PJs...etc.  Wait--a shirt??  It was plaid!  Was it 100% cotton??  You know, I actually thought about turning around and going back to check.  One woman's trash is another woman's treasure, right?  FWIW, I did NOT go back to check.  But the next time I drove that route, I did peek to see if the clothes had been picked up.  Oh, boy!


~Joan

{Post #957} One Quilt At A Time...or Three!

I noticed something unusual...I get more done on a quilt when I only work on that quilt.  What a concept!  But I find myself working a bit here and there on other quilts while the main quilt is in process.  That's usually because as I am cutting for the "main quilt", I cut pieces for other quilts I plan to make in the future.  Plus, there's the whole leader/ender thing.  Ironically, the future is now (I think that's a quote from some famous historian, but I don't know who)...I can barely wait to see how one block of "future quilt" looks, and next thing I know, I'm zipping up a couple blocks, then another...


It's a vicious cycle.  But I was looking back at my recently finished quilts.  Florabunda.  Bow Ties.  Two I Spy baby quilts.  Scrappy Trips Floral/Plaid/Thimbleberries scraps.  Hmmm...there's a pattern here.


All that to say that I finished MOST of the piecing for my Fair & Square quilt last night.  I need to add the black 1-1/2" wide sashing to about 20 blocks, then I'm ready to lay this quilt out on the design wall.  Finished piecing, starching (it pains me to even type the word), and removing paper foundations from the last 29 string blocks.  So if I can find some piecing time today, this might be ready to lay out next week.


Here are the last 11 1-1/2" strip 4-patch blocks.  In spite of having few shirts, there is a lot of variety in each block.  Once again, my goal was to separate the attention-getting fabrics (you know who you are!).

Here is my design wall as of last night.

In the back are a few of the finished sashed and pieced string blocks.  On the right are the two outer border pieces I have done so far.  They are folded in half and are much longer than they appear.  They are pieced from 2" strips.  


What is that on the left side?  Oh...that's what I was referring to earlier in this post.  As I am handling all these plaids, I have been cutting strips for a scrappy bargello plaids and stripes only quilt.  Nearly all are shirt strips.  I just HAD to see what one panel would end up looking like.  I had a picture in my MIND, but I wanted to see one on the WALL :)  This is the result of 40 2-1/2" strips.  The panel is 80-1/2" long and 12-1/2" wide.


There are only 6 panels in the quilt I plan to make, so I am 1/6 of the way there!  If it weren't for the cutting of all the strips, I could have one of those made in a day, I think.  Quilted and all!  Sooooo fast.  Truly, as with any good scrap quilt, ANYTHING goes!!  No matchy-matchy fabrics.  Just toss it in there.  I might use a jelly roll that's been languishing in my fabric storage for one of these.  They are just that fast and easy.  


I thought it would be difficult to cut the tubes of squares from the original panel.  It wasn't.  In fact, I was fairly frightened about the process because instead of cutting my strips 18" as suggested (I couldn't stand to throw away such a large chunk of fabric), I cut mine 16", giving me only 1" total of waste.  So after I straightened up one side, I had just a smidge to trim from the other.  All was well.  Perfect, in fact.  It didn't pain me at all to throw away <1" of fabric total from each strip.  If I had the 3" piece, I would have been racking my brain to come up with a way to USE it!  Really!  Just ask my daughters :)


Off for a busy day.  Graduate brunch, airsoft war, and opening season for the baseball team my son is on.  Glory!


~Joan

{Post #908} Small Scrappy Bargello Blocks

From little acorns mighty oaks grow.  Here are some scrap strips left over from my Florabunda blocks made into small bargello blocks.  They measure 9 inches (finished size).  The starting strips were 2 inches wide.  I am going to make enough for a baby quilt or possibly something a little larger.  I dared to mix Thimbleberries and my wild florals plus a little of this and a little of that.  The more you add, the more nothing stands out.  Who thought T'b could play with other fabrics so nicely?  This is only 4 blocks, but there will be many more.