Huge Craftsy sale

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I love Craftsy! I even bought a whole pile of their quilting course already and have been eyeing some pattenrnmaking and sewing ones. Right now they have a up to 50% off sale.

Prices are crazy good.

Do you use Craftsy for anything? I had always dreamed of a site being built like this and I have to say – they did it right.

Free Motion Floral Sampler Quilt

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A finish! Yay! This might be my first finished quilt of 2014, ugh.

For this quilt, I used the leftover blocks from my Summer Quilt. You can do this with any collection of 10″ squares. I had 25 blocks and some were duplicates.

This would look really awesome in solids or low volume prints or even alternate value prints.
I should just call this my @angelafmq sampler quilt ... ;) every block is a design from her first book.

Take your 25 blocks and lay them out on the floor or design wall until you get a pleasing arrangement. Sew two together for each row until you’ve sewn a whole row. Sew all the rows together.

(or grab two at random until you get most of the way through the stack and start sewing those pairs together. Make sure you leave enough single blocks behind to finish each row.)

Back view for texture. #quilt

For the backing, I had fabric that was 54″ wide and used that. Baste well with batting of your choice. Mine needed work.

For the quilting – this is the fun part.

I used my walking foot first and stitched in the ditch for each seam, leaving a nice square sewn for each block.

Scroll quilting.  I need practise there too. Hard to do in a square. :)

In each square, I quilted a different free motion design using the Bernina Stitch regulator on some and my free motion foot. I worked my way through Free-Motion Quilting with Angela Walters
and some of Leah Day’s free motion quilting designs as well. Have fun here! I used a white thread in the top and bottom on all fabrics.

For the binding, I trimmed the back so it was 2″ all around and folded it over to the front, then sewed it down. I screwed up trying to trim the corners so I won’t show that bit – just know there’s a gap. Sigh. I really need to work on mitring my binding, especially the “bringing the backing to the front” kind, which I don’t do often.

Nice and crinkly from the dryer.

This quilt I am leaving in my own stash for an example of the kind of quilting I can do. I hope eventually to maybe quilt for customers, so this should give them something to look at to pick quilting styles if wanted. At the very least, it showcases my skills now and I can compare it to another quilt a few years from now.

Scrapper’s Delight

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I’d like to say I started this quilt after I sorted my scraps, but no – I did this while sorting because the thrill of discovering long lost bits of favourite fabrics was a big draw.

I got Sunday Morning Quilts a few months ago and love every other one in the book, so given I found so many strips and squares, it was only natural I start a Scrapper’s Delight.

While sewing, I also watched the entirely of Rosemary and Thyme on Netflix, so there’s double duty tasks for you.

Snippets, the smallest I'll use.

And this is the part where I have to admit even more to being super obsessive about my scrap sorting. I set aside the smaller blocks (under 2.5″) that I would use for the middles, and and odd sized widths of strips (basically not 2.5″ and not less than 1″).

Scrappy sewing organization.

While sewing, I also resorted some of the smaller piles of strips and blocks by *length* as well. This way, when I sewed my smaller blocks together and need a strip to sew alongside, I could lay the block next to a variety of strips and find one closest to the size I needed. Sure, I could trim any piece, but the aim here was to not make even more scraps.

Scrapper's delight quilt blocks. I'd like to say this made a dent, but...

It also really helped me to choose truly random bits of fabrics for an even more scrappy look and not being drawn to ones that would match or co-ordinate too much. The only ones I would full out discount was ones that were the same prints in different colorways, or ones too similar in color.

I chain piece a lot, so I would do at least 4 blocks at a time, sewing a new strip to each one, pressing those, then choosing a new piece for the next side. All those blocks and I only had to use my seam ripper once.
And a few more blocks started. I want to keep going but I want to go see my grand babies too. They win :)

The only other issue I have is I tend to get wobbly when flipping and pressing, so some blocks wound up a bit wonky without straight lines. This works in a quilt like this – not so much when you’re going for accuracy. Then again, I know I also threw caution to the wind and tossed in some strip I know were not cut straight, especially when I saw my pressing issues.

Not the final layout, but here's my scrappy progress.  Loving this quilt. Will likely make two.

In a quilt like this it’s also fun to lay the blocks out and try different patterns. I’ll probably stick to the layout in the book though.

The other things that struck me was the segment of quilts (usually older ones, more traditional) that don’t save scraps, don’t make scrap quilts and even turn their nose up at scraps, disposing of them entirely.

So many scrappy quilt blocks.

I mean – there’s a LOT of fabric in this quilt. This stack of blocks is heavy.

I was planning on making maybe even two of this quilt if I had enough scraps (not quite) and selling one. In all my posting progress on Instagram, a friend called dibs on it and will buy it when completed, so it’s now spoken for. I just have to have it finished by Christmas with time to mail to Alabama. 😉

Likely it will be stippling all over, nothing fancy. It’s a big quilt, definitely bed sized. Those blocks finish at 12″.

Scrapper's delight quilt top. Bed sized by the time I finish.

More scrap sorting

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Wow, I completely spaced on all the rest of the scrap organizing I did and the quilt block piecing. I think I was so head-down concentrating all I had brain space for was posting to Instagram.

When last I wrote, I was eyeball deep in organizing my scraps. I’m happy to say I survived, but I have at least 3 more quilts added to the “to make” pile. Although I did clear out 2 grocery bags of unwanted fabrics.

I have some fabrics downstairs to go back in these bins , but I figure I got rid of half a bin, easy. Not counting what I'm making the first scrap quilt from.

I also finished organizing, ironing and refolding 3 large bins of fabric. That wasn’t all the fabric, but that did most of it. Now if I need 2.5″ scrappy strips of any length, I have almost a full jelly roll, plus a great stack of 3-4″ wide strips from short to long. I also have bags of various squares sorted by size and a nice bag full of strings for my mom, plus another bag full of triangle bits.

I even have a bag of teeny snippets for ticker tape types of quilts.

This is just the scraps – not counting flat folds or fat quarter sizes or larger. I did discover I had no or very little fabrics in quantities of 2 or 3 yards or more. If you make any quilts larger than baby size you see how that is an issue, and that was maybe only 6 prints, tops.

As luck would have it, I went to our local fabric chain with my daughter-in-law to pick out fabric for an outfit for her brother’s wedding. While there, I received an invite to a member’s only FIFTY PERCENT OFF SALE the following Monday evening.

I’m telling you, I could not get there fast enough and the place was packed.

50% off pretty much all the fabric they had. I bought 28 meters of quilting cotton. They even gave me some empty cardboard bolts to take home to store it on.

Fabricville had an invite only 50% off sale. This is what 28 metres of fabric looks like. All cotton.

5 of cream solid
5 of pink
5 of yellow
10 of white
3 of an extra wide grey broadcloth with a linen look either woven in or printed on.

I chose these solids since I use these the most and have very little in my stash. I cannot wait to get going on more.

For now, it makes me super happy my stash is organized and I can get my hands on specific cuts and sizes with little effort.