I Have Finished More Projects Than This

 But I know it's been a ridiculous amount of time since I posted.

 

This is a lap-sized Potato Chip Quilt using my Tula Pink scrap stash. I used guidelines from Just Get It Done Quilts but you can easily find a "pattern" which is just to cut 2.5 by 4.5 strips and piece the quilt from the center out, so it's kind of just like one big block.

I used a lot of scraps for this but did end up buying a "scrap bag" of Tula from Etsy just to round out the variety of fabrics. In a perfect world each fabric would be unique but even I don't have that much Tula. In the end I think it was around 40x44 inches.

I debated keeping it because I really like it but in the end I decided to give it a friend who doesn't know she's getting it just yet. I hope she likes it!

One Quilt, Three Ways - Christmas Tree Edition

 

made with kit leftovers

I really like this Christmas tree pattern. As you can see. The pattern is called "Christmas Tree" and the pattern maker is Frivolous Necessity. You can buy it here on Etsy.

    made with Tula Pink leftovers

 It finishes to about 30x38 inches, not really throw size but for a baby quilt or a wallhanging it would work. The first two I gave as gifts; the third one hangs in my husband's office near our tree every holiday season.

 

made with kit leftovers plus stash

 

This last one  matches a tree skirt I made about ten years ago, and another, larger scrap Christmas quilt made with the same fabrics. I love how different all three trees look. 

Each quilt has a different star at the top. The bottom tree has the star that actually came with the pattern. This was the first one I made, and I didn't want to do that star again so for the other two I found a star pattern online the same size and did something different. 

All three are quilted with vertical lines. The third in this series (the first one I made) has wavy lines and the other two have straight lines. 

I love them all!

 

Another Modern Christmas Tree

 

This is the third one of these I've made, from the pattern Modern Patchwork Christmas Tree by Frivolous Necessity. The pattern is available on Etsy. I made this one exclusively with scraps from Tula Pink fabrics. It's definitely not a traditional Christmas color scheme but I think it works! I gave it to a relative who lives in Florida and likes bright, tropical things. I used a higher-loft batting than I should have and it came out really wavy!

I think it's fun how every time I make this pattern it looks different. I should do a post comparing all three quilts I've made, two with traditional Christmas palettes and then this one.  We almost kept this!

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!

The Garden Quilt!

 

The Garden Quilt!

This is a scrap quilt from a pattern by quilter Deborah Fisher, from her book Quilt Giving. She came to a guild meeting several years ago and talked about her approach to quilting, her charity work and her pattern business. 

The guild put together a round robin quilt using her Garden Quilt pattern and I helped piece the rows. The quilt in the photo above is one that I made after working on the group project.  It's very large (I should measure it) and I hand quilted it with high-loft, very fluffy batting. 

It's one of my favorite quilts to cuddle with when I'm watching a movie or need to feel comforted for some reason. I made another one as a gift for a friend and I hope they enjoy it as much I do this one.

You can find out more about Deborah at her site, Fish Museum and Circus.

Color Blocks Wall Quilt, Pattern by Tina Curran

This was a fun quick project. I actually managed to chew through a lot of my smaller scraps for this; it's more pieces than you might think at first glance! The pattern is Color Blocks by Tina Curran. Curran is a prolific quilt artist who does a lot with Victoria Findlay Wolfe's partial-seam herringbone technique but this quilt is just some scraps arranged in a rainbow. 

I say "just" but I really love it. It finished around 36x36 inches which is a great baby size but actually turned out to be a nice lap size for me as well. 

I used Aurifil monofilament to quilt a relatively simple pattern of swirls (I tried to do a beaded-curtain pattern tbh but I'm not sure how well it turned out) and black binding. I used my favorite Quilters Dream Green batting and it quilted up beautifully as usual.

Christmas Scrappy Lattice

This is a quilt I made with more scraps from the same Fig Tree kit whose scraps I used for the Christmas tree I showed in my last post. The pattern is called Scrappy Lattice and it's by Bonjour Quilts.

I was able to go through quite a few of the scraps but there is still probably enough left for another small quilt. The quilt shop I bought the kit from gave waaaaaay more fabric than I needed!

The author gives fabric requirements for fat quarters and scraps but I think I figured out that you can use a layer cake too. I'm going to re-crunch the numbers before I cut into the one I want to use but I think it will work.

It's a fairly simple pattern that I think came out cute. I made the Baby size which comes out at 42x54 inches- for me this is a reasonable throw size. It's going to be gift along with that tree from the other day, for a friend who needs some holiday cheer.

I do want to make another with a Nordic-Christmas-themed layer cake I have; I'll let you know how it goes.

Modern Christmas Tree Wallhanging

This is a wallhanging sized modern Christmas tree made from the scraps of a very large Fig Tree block of the month kit that I completed a few years ago. 

The large quilt is still sitting unquilted; I suppose I will have to hand quilt it one day. It's pretty epic.

I also made a throw sized quilt from the same fabric but I don't have a picture to share with you right now. Both will be gifts this year for a friend who needs some holiday cheer.

I don't have the pattern name for the tree; I can't find it right now in my sewing room and I can't find the pattern online at all. It was pretty fun to make though it's a lot of organization of small pieces and careful work. It's a great scrap-buster project. 

Finally Finished Something (Tiny)

So in my last post I told you about my herringbone; here is my miniature herringbone. 

The strips were 1.5 x 3.5 inches (I think); no pattern, just kind of winged it.

Here it is next to the larger, human-sized quilt, for scale. After I made the larger one, one of my friends teased me about my Baby Yoda obsession and said I should make a mini version for Eugenie. So that's what I did.

I used scrap of batting and Aurifil monofilament for the quilting which I did by machine. I learned that running a line of quilting along the non-jagged edge (the edge that gets trimmed off at the end and comes out straight) helped to stabilize that side of it for the binding.

I really love how it came out. The jagged binding is a bit of a hot mess if you look up close but that's OK. It would be fun to make a pillow version too. The colors are just right up my alley.

Partial-Seam Herringbone Quilt

 I finished my herringbone quilt, finally! I finished it a few weeks ago but just got around to posting on my socials recently.

I used scraps from the library quilt and some other fabrics that I thought would work- girly pinks and blues, fabrics that make me happy, and lots of scraps. 

I had always wanted to make a braid quilt but didn't like the type that has you cutting off the edges of each row to make straight sides. Boring! So when I discovered Victoria Findlay Wolfe's partial-seam herringbone technique I was determined to learn it. It comes from her book Modern Quilt Magic.

There is no specific pattern but the strips I used were 2 1/2 inches by 7 or 7 1/2 inches, I forget to be honest. But you can make the strips any size you want as long as you are consistent. You can even piece your strips as long as they are all the same size when you sew the strips together.

It took about 2-3 weeks to piece the top (maybe longer? I can't remember now.) And then it took me about 7 months of pandemic time to hand-quilt it. I used my favorite Quilters Dream Green batting and a fun red fabric for the backing.

I also took the opportunity of this quilt to learn to do the jagged binding because I didn't want to cut the points off at the top and bottom. That was actually not too hard but a little challenging. It was fun to have a learning curve at the beginning- the partial seam herringbone- and the end- the binding- of the process.

I think the herringbone would work well with a jelly roll, and it would work well with a collection of scraps. There is also a designer named Tina Curran who makes some great pictorial patterns with Victoria's technique. You can find her Etsy shop here. I've bought a couple of her patterns and they are sitting in my digital "maybe someday" pile.