Variations on a conversation

In going through my fabric this summer, I really tried to look critically at what I had. Conversation prints that were difficult to work into quilts were used first. It was interesting to see fabrics that I had bought, oh, ten years ago and never had used-- I was extremely fond of the Judie Rothermel Little Boy Blue fabric, for instance. I had it in both the pink and the green. The watermelon fabric has shown up a lot-- I bought three yards of it and couldn't begin to tell you why. The bumblebees were a nice sized print, but the color was hard to work with. Luckily, it used up the last of the caution tape yellow solid fabric that had seemed like a good idea at some point.

Heading to My Very Own Blanket tomorrow for the last time this summer, and will be able to turn in 11 more quilt tops, making my total this summer 53.

P.S. I Love You

Found this in a baby quilt pattern book. The colors worked out okay (the white has cherries with green stems), but the blocks seem huge. The center square is 3 and a half inches. The upside to this quilt is that the strip piecing made it go very quickly.

Peachy Keen

Peach is a color that is hard for me to work into things, so I had it in a pile of fabric to give away. Luckily, the strips I had involved a lot of orange, brown and green, so this was perfect for the fabric.

I'm so BLUE

Did strips and strips of 6 and a half inch pieces, then put together four quilts. Three of them involved this blue fabric that someone gave me.

Random weekend sewing.

Had loads of this butterfly fabric that someone gave me. To get a variety of colors in the plain blocks, I did enough for FOUR of these! I only had one block left over. Pretty good.

Another Around the World. The tree fabric on the border was copyright 1994. That piece is gone now!

Random nine patch blocks that I had in a baggie. This turned out pretty well,

especially since the beige fabric was one I was having trouble using.

Variations on a theme

Someone gave me some dog print fabric that is very nice, but on such a large scale that a 6" block is the smallest I felt that I could cut and still be able to see the pattern. It also is very busy, so I went with very plain fabrics, so here are variations in blue, green, and red!

And that makes 31

The Easter fabric was fun to use, and playing with the colors in the print was the best part. The sashed squares are so easy to do, but look nice, and the triangles were something I had cut and left in the UFO pile because I couldn't remember what I was doing with them!

I'm trying to make 50 quilt tops for My Very Own Blanket this summer, and it might be within the realm of possibility that I finish!

Coordinating Colors

Once I cut the sashed honeybee quilt, I had just enough of some of the fabrics to turn into (surprise!) an Around the World.

Churn Dash

Made enough blocks for three quilts and bordered them out in different ways. As busy as the brown flowered print and the sailboats were, I figured I needed a very simple pieced block. I have one more with sailboats to put together.

Four patch

Some things turn out better than others. I had bunches of 4 patches, so just picked out fabrics to alternate with them. The blue I like; the green with bumblebees and the Valentine prints not as much.

A UFO UFO

Love the spaceman fabric, but for some reason had these pieces in a box and hadn't put them all together. This is why there is no rhyme or reason to the placement of the orange and purple!

Around the world

Default quilt of choice, but they usually turn out really well. I have numbers permanently pinned to my "design wall" and hang random 3 and 1/2 inch squares when I cut them.

More quilts, nothing spectacular

More giant conversation prints.

Another Around the World.

More of the hourglass blocks.

A UFO-- FINISHED!

More conversation prints

It's always a challenge using fabric that people have given to me. I had pumpkins and cats and turkeys and corn, which I made up in a very simple framed pattern with 7 and 1/2 squares. Used up some orange fabric that was giving me fits as well.

Then, I had some fabric with people. I cut all that was there into 5 inch blocks, and created two patterns to use all of it up. The blocks that were more warm colors got the yellow, orange and red solid blocks, and the cool blocks got a nice, bright blue. And yes, that's the Jewel Box pattern-- I sewed 2 and 1/2 inch blue blocks to the corners of the 5 inch white blocks.

Lobsters and giant bunnies

Meh. I was a good thing that I went through my stash today and sorted it. Any fabric that made me irritated went in the giveaway pile. None of it was fabric I had bought!

The nice thing about both is that they were quick pieced in strips, but they are not very inspired.

Hourglass

Someone gave me a nice piece of Debbie Mumm holiday fabric, so I picked out some of the colors in it and did about 100 of these hourglasses. I cut five inch squares (because it was easy to do with my rule), drew diagonal line across them, and sewed on either side of the line. I rotary cut diagonally the other way in order to make the triangles. The first ones were a little lopsided, but they got better.

Of course, I ran out of fabric, so added a dark blue border to the second quilt, then used a light fabric. I had cut some 3 and 1/2 inch squares out of a lot of green and rust fabrics, so used those to border out the 12 extra hourglass blocks that I had left over. Well, I had 14, but two were really crooked.

It's fun to play with different color combinations with one set of blocks, and using "planned over" pieces makes the quilts go together very quickly.

Jewel Box

This was super easy. Took a bunch of 4" squares, then added 2 and 1/2" squares to the corners. I normally don't like to sacrifice entire squares and cut off half of them, but sewing the corners this way made them square off beautifully. I had border fabric already cut, which is why two sides are maroon and two are blue! This is great to make with all sorts of scraps.

Summer 2011

I only quilt in the summer, and last year my library was being renovated, so nothing got done. Since I've been quilting since 1980, and have a huge stash or fabric, I'm trying to use it up. I donate the quilt tops to My Very Own Blanket, an Ohio organization that gives quilts to foster children. I'll try to include pattern information when I can.

My favorite pattern is Around the World. I use 3 and 1/2 inch squares, arranged in an 11 by 11 pattern. It helps to pin a finished top up when I'm selecting new fabrics-- I keep slips of paper with the number of

pieces I need for each position of the pattern. These go together quickly, especially since one of my standard sized scraps to cut at the end of a fabric piece is a 3 and 1/2 inch square. Conversation prints are good for this.

My son's baby quilt is in this pattern in yellows and blues, with a lot of fruit and vegetable prints. He used to lie on it for hours and talk about the fabric.

This one used up a lot of random Christmas/Winter fabric that I had. Hopefully, it's bright and cheery enough that no one will mind!

Two down, forty eight more to go!