Thursday, April 30, 2015

Aleah English Paper Pieces!


Last Sunday my daughter Aleah (age 10) worked on her English paper piecing.  She is really good!  She glued the fabric around the 2" hexagons a few weeks ago and when she got started whip stitching them together this weekend she had this done in about an hour and a half.

I'm not usually a feet in picture type of person, but it gives you a sense of scale.
Her inspiration fabric was the blue veggie/dish fabric and we picked other fabric that coordinated with it from my scrap drawer.  I might try to convince her to make another one this size and we can make them into a potholder/trivet.  But she might decided to keep going.  I'll let you know what happens.  

Monday, April 27, 2015

That Quirky Scrap Quilt (along)

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I have had this quilt idea floating around in my head for awhile.  I want to make a quilt so bright, crazy and ugly that it is cool.  Like one of those quirky vintage scrap quilts.


This is my mock up.  It has squares, 4-patches, half square triangles and quarter square triangles.  It has a lot of aqua/turquoise and yellow and a bit of every other color under the sun.  The units are 4" square and the quilt is 52" x 64".  I think it is going to be awesome.  Or crazy ugly - there will be no in between with this quilt.

I want to finish this soon (goodness knows I have enough works in progress!).  So this is what I thought I would do.  I will post instructions for the quilt every Monday.  If you would like to quilt along that would be great!  If not, no big deal, but I will have deadlines for myself to finish.  Win-win.  :)

Here's the schedule:
April 27 - Fabric requirements (see below)
August 7 - The big reveal! 


Fabric Requirements:
About 6 yards of scraps  (to get the "quirky" look use at least 24 different fabrics)

If you are not sure that crazy and quirky is your style, here is another layout option.


I am really loving the rainbow look - I may have to make two.  :)

To give you a feel of what size of scraps you will need, the smallest pieces for the quilt are 2 1/2" strips and the largest are 5 1/2" squares.

So this week, pull out your scraps, decide which ones you want to use and (if they are as wrinkly as mine) give them an iron.

I hope you will quilt along!

Friday, April 17, 2015

Moving Along With the Guild Challenge Quilt

Yesterday I trimmed up the blocks for my challenge quilt.   Leaving the size and piece # pinned on them really helped.  It would have mess otherwise.  Most of the blocks have both pieced and whole strips.  I really like how they look mixed together.


The mix of colors is so calming.  I am hoping it turns out as well in reality as I imagine it will.  Right now I am thinking of quilting it with a wood grain design.

In other news, I cut down a tree this week!  It was small but I am still impressed with myself.  :)  I also divided hostas and peonies, burned leaves and planted peas, lettuce, spinach and turnips.  It looks much more impressive when I write it down than when I look out at the yard at everything else that needs to get done (like cutting up said tree so it isn't laying in the middle of the yard!).  Baby steps, baby steps...  I am loving the spring weather and our beautiful flowers.  They make me happy.  I hope you have a great weekend!


Monday, April 6, 2015

This Might Become a Thing


I made another ball this weekend.  


Pink, orange and yellow with a pop of green.  


It is nice to finish an English paper piecing project in a day or two instead of a year or two.


Friday, April 3, 2015

English Paper Pieced Ball



This just might be my favorite thing I have ever made.  Love.  Love.  Love it.  I love the fabrics, the rainbow of color and each and every little hexagon and pentagon.  I first saw a ball like this at Lily Quilts about 5 years ago, but had never made one until now.


The modern quilt group in Des Moines is having a pincushion swap at our April meeting and I was starting to stress out about what I was going to bring.  I had pinned tons of ideas but was really nervous about working with all of the curved little pieces most of them use.  So I stayed in my comfort zone and made an English paper pieced ball that can be used as a pincushion.  No inspiring overcoming-your-fears post today.  But why overcome fears when you can make something this cute?  :)


I used this tutorial by Kristy Daum that includes the hexagon and pentagon templates.  (For more step-by-step instructions on how to English paper piece visit my Hexagon Flower tutorial.)  Construction was fairly straight forward and is put together like a soccer ball.

The hardest thing about making the ball was picking the right fabrics so that the ball blended from color to color.  (I know, life is full of hard things.)  I started a little heavy on the reds and oranges and so I ended up light on the cool colors.  But that is a minor thing.  When I make this again I will also pay more attention to matching thread color with fabric color.  I switched out thread regularly, but used gray a lot and it didn't blend as well as I was hoping.


Here is a shot of me holding the ball for perspective.  It fits nicely into the hand.  I've been trying to cut down on the number of toys we have, so I am not sure if I will make any for my kids, but I have already told them that I will make a set for each of their kids.  You know, when they are the ones that have to police picking up toys.  Cause that's what grandma's do, right?

Linking to Finish It Up Friday.