In February, I dug out a whole bunch of quilt blocks (29!) from a scrappy 10" block swap I'd participated in back in summer of 2013. Yes, nearly ten years had gone by since those blocks were made, and they had not yet been sewn into a quilt top. I was determined that now was the time.
I laid them all out to see them (because I had long forgotten what they looked like) and to play with an arrangement. What I hit upon was that I would like to make something twin bed sized--hoping to get at least one set of bunkbeds this year for the grandkids to sleep in when spending the night, I would need quilts to fit twin-sized beds. After thinking on it for a day or two, I decided what I wanted was 7 rows of 5 blocks each, with skinny 1" off white sashing in between blocks and rows. Which meant that I would need a total of 35 blocks, six more than I had from that 2013 swap.
Luckily, in the past almost ten years, I've accumulated a lot of fabric scraps from sewing so many baby quilts, LOL. Plus other things like pillowcases, aprons, oven mitts, toddler sized sundresses, etc. It wasn't hard to pull enough complimentary and/or coordinating fabrics to whip up six more blocks. And it was fun to choose which block patterns I wanted to use, all from my two boxes of Quilt Builder's Card Deck which gives cutting instructions for multiple sizes of each block pattern. No painful brain math required, I just picked a pattern I liked, looked at the back of the card to see what sizes and shapes I needed to cut for a 10" block, and then cut fabric and sew! I'm really happy I splurged on those card decks last year.
After making those six new blocks, I again played with layout for which blocks went in which rows, then cut sashing strips and started sewing everything together.
By the time the ice storm came on Feb 22, taking out our electricity for nearly 5 days straight, The blocks and rows were all done, and the top just needed borders. I had decided I wanted to do a scrappy border, and dug through every fabric bin I have, pulling out anything small enough to not be of much use except as small pieces, such as the 2" x 4" strips I had in mind to create the borders with. The vast majority of which needed ironing before being cut, so when the electricity went out, my quilt project got put on hold.
I instead, during the daylight hours that I had 'free' time in, stitched on the fox counted cross stitch I'd begun in January. It was almost completed by the third week in February, and all that was left was to do the back stitching. Some people don't like backstitching on their cross-stitch pieces and frequently leave it off, saying it's good enough without (my Mom, for instance). But to me, the backstitching is what makes the design pop, and therefore is a necessity.
When the power was restored (116 hours after going out-- 4 days and 20 hours), and I'd gotten caught up on laundry, etc, I got to sit down at the sewing machine and put together the quilt border. I'm really loving the top with the borders on.
That's as far as I'm going with this quilt for now. I'm undecided as to what fabric to back it with. I'll have to look through my stash and see if I have a big enough piece. If not, then I have to decide if I want to do a pieced back using two or more fabrics, or if I really want it all to be the same (and then go fabric shopping. . . )
Meanwhile, last week I ran across a tutorial for a cute Spring table topper. It was calling my name, so after getting the scrappy quilt top completed, I went stash diving for fabrics to use to make the table topper. Even though pink isn't a color I use often, I do have some pink fabrics, including a couple cute fat quarters. Those told me they wanted to be a table topper, so on Monday night I cut pieces and on Tuesday after work I sewed the topper together. I have yet to sandwich and quilt it, but feel pretty sure it will be finished and adorning my dining room table by Saturday night.
No comments:
Post a Comment