Crumb Star Quilt Is Finally Done!

 

At long last, my Crumb Stars quilt is finally done!

I used the pattern August Stars from JayBird Quilts; if you visit the link you can see what it is "supposed" to look like. When I decided to make a crumb quilt it took me a while to settle on a pattern. I wanted something with a traditional block or star; I didn't want to do rectangles or strips or square blocks. I wanted to use the "made fabric" in a recognizable block and I settled on August Stars because I thought it would give me both complexity and simplicity.

I think it worked well! I'm really happy with it. Each star is made of six parallelograms and each parallelogram took about an hour each to make when I sewed them at home. I brought my scrap bag to last winter's retreat and was able to complete the 19 parallelograms I needed to finish the last row of the quilt in about six hours of sewing time. You really can get a lot done at retreats!

You can see what a block looks like by clicking here. A row is five blocks with left- and right- handed edge blocks.

Then I took my blocks home and finished the top and quilted it with Aurifil monofilament and my favorite Quilters Dream Green batting. I wish I had quilted it more heavily because of all the little seams in the stars, but I think it will be okay. The background fabric is a Japanese import I got at Britex Fabrics in San Francisco a few years ago. I only had a yard of it so I could not make the quilt any bigger than this. As it is I added an additional row on to the bottom of what is the smallest size in the pattern.

I used scrappy binding from my stash to finish it. Rather than cut off the jagged edges and bind straight edges I decided to bind the jagged edges with skills I learned doing partial-seam herringbones. After having spent the time I did making those scrappy parallelograms I did not want to cut off anything!

Kawandi Time

 

Kawandi quilting is a technique that comes to us from India, hand-stitched from the outside in and traditionally made with old saris. It's very trendy right now in the quilting world so I thought I would try it since it gives me an excuse to play in my scrap bag, including my stash of scrap batting. 

There are lots of tutorials and videos on how to do this so I won't waste your time, besides I barely know what I'm doing so I can't really claim to give instruction. It's fun! This is a very small project, maybe 12 inches square, made with my smallest scraps.

Maybe something new for Eugenie or Shireen!

Crumb Time!

For this month's Block Lotto challenge, our guild's vice president, Bruce, gave us the task of making a crumb block or "made fabric" block and inserting a tree branch. 

Here is my crumb block. I love doing crumb quilting. It used up quite a bit of my green scraps but don't worry, there's plenty left. 

His sample was around 12x17 inches so I made mine about the same size (improv needs to have some rules) but I used a marbled brown fabric instead of the solid he suggested. I don't think I own much brown solid, just a fat quarter somewhere, and I didn't think I could cut a long enough strip from it for this project.

Here is my completed block. I'm so happy with it! I've never done a Block Lotto before and I've been a member since 2016. So that was fun! I hope I win the lot!*

*For those of you who don't know what Block Lotto is, it's a monthly challenge where we are assigned a block and for every completed block you bring to the meeting, you get a raffle ticket. Then someone draws a ticket and the person with the number on the ticket wins all the blocks!

Crumb Stars- Second Draft

This is the fabric I really want to use for my crumb quilt- it's the Japanese import cotton from SF that I mentioned in my last post about this project. I only have a yard of it so I have to make the smallest size, 40x48 inches.  That's still a decent throw size for me so that's ok.

I like this one a lot better than the solid navy; the geometric pattern is subtle enough to provide some texture and interest without competing with the crumb blocks. So I went ahead and cut up the yard into the strips I need. Feeling confident!

I may also be done making crumb blocks for this project; I have about 31 made and need 76 diamonds for the project but I can often re-stitch the scraps from a block into new blocks. That's the beauty and the curse of crumb quilting; it's a constantly renewable resource, but you can never use it up. Lol.

Crumb Stars

I've been obsessed with crumb quilting lately, and after some back-and-forthing about what to do with the crumb blocks I've been sewing, I've settled (for now) on doing a version of Jaybird Quilts' August Stars pattern with my crumbs.

This is a picture of my test block, which I'm pretty happy with. I have a different navy fabric I'm going to use "for reals" but this gives me a rough idea of what to expect. I didn't want to cut into the other fabric until I was more sure, because I only have one yard and it's not something I can get more of. (It's a Japanese import I got at Britex Fabrics in San Francisco several years ago.)

Here are some more crumb blocks/ "made fabric" for the project. It's blocky because I don't love using triangles in these, at least not yet. Maybe that's something to work up to. 

This all started because my scrap bin was literally overflowing and I needed to get it under control. So I sorted out all of the smaller pieces and put them in a separate bag, where I can dip in and use them more efficiently. So far so good!