Scrap Happy in November

 Well, without Scrap Happy Day every month it looks like I wouldn't be blogging at all! However, this old dog has tried a new trick. I've actually repurposed some existing items instead of working from scraps or yardage. 

When our daughter was having her babies I made several flannel receiving blankets for them. Some time ago she returned them to me with a request to sew them all together into something bigger and useful for the members of her family now, 15 - 20 years later. I have finally tackled that project.  

 I didn't take a head count of the number of blankets before I started cutting them apart. I wish now I had. Spoiler alert: I've made a 60" x 76" top and a 66" x 83" back out of the flannels and still have quite a bit leftover!

 This is a sampling of the prints I had to work with. There are a couple of solid colors and tone-on-tone prints that are not in this photograph. My first step was to cut off the hems of the blankets. They were all only two layers sewn right sides together and then turned and top stitched. A few of them were large enough that I'd done some stitching in the center to hold the layers in place. It was tedious work to take out those stitches.  Only one of the blankets had any patchwork. I trimmed up the raw edges of that one and used it for the center of the new quilt. 

 Then I framed it with the pink print border and cornerstones. That was all the plan I had in the beginning, just cut strips and add them round and round the center panel. 

 Eventually, of course, I had to start piecing the strips to go the distance on any given side. Once I'd reached the desired width (60") I just kept adding strips to the top and bottom sides. I was delighted to discover that I had enough of a pink and white polka dot to make a final frame all the way around the top.

 There are a couple of minor design changes I would have made if I hadn't been working with old flannels. Daughter is less of a perfectionist fortunately. 

 I have only just completed piecing a back out of some of the same prints and a couple that didn't make it onto the front. I'll have to be sure to get a picture of it to share later. And then there are the flannels that are still leftover. I'd like to do something with them as well but at the moment I'm not sure what. There might be enough fabric for another, smaller quilt top. In the meantime, check out what the other participants in this monthly hop have repurposed or made out of scrap materials:

Kate, Eva, Lynda,
Birthe, Turid, Tracy, Jan, 
Moira, Sandra, Chris, Alys,
Claire, Jean, Dawn, Gwen,
Sunny, Kjerstin, Sue L, Vera, 
Ann, Dawn 2, Carol, Preeti,
Viv, Karrin,  Alissa,
Hannah and Maggie

 Scrap Happy Day is hosted by Kate (at the top of the list) every month on the 15th. If you'd like the motivation to use up your scraps or show us how you've repurposed something leave a comment on her blog and she'll be happy to add you to the list!

 

 

Repair Job

I had to take my flannel Lincoln Logs quilt off the bed late last winter when I discovered that one of the dogs had unintentionally shredded one of the patches. You know how a dog will try to fluff up the bedding they're about to lay on.


This particular piece of flannel wasn't strong enough to withstand the abuse. A couple of nearby seams were also compromised.

With the change of seasons upon us I decided it was time to tackle this repair job, intimidating though it was.

Originally I thought I'd just replace the central strip of patches. Once I got the block out of the quilt (which was only tied, not quilted) I realized that one half of the block would also have to be discarded.

After I assembled a replacement section I discovered that the new half was actually bigger than the original half. It didn't look all that good with the original half either. So I remade the second half of the block as well.

The most challenging part was putting the block back into the top. I had to take out a few additional ties to free up more of the top to get it under the sewing machine. The final seam had to be hand stitched in place.

Since this last picture was taken I've replaced the ties and the quilt is ready to use again. I have to say this might have held up better had it been quilted (thoroughly, and by machine) but I still like it as a tied comforter.

Recycling

The first quilt of any size that I made was this one, a simple sashed Four Patch:

This was back when my children were all toddlers and we were living in Texas. Like most young families we didn't have a lot of money so I collected men's flannel shirts from the one thrift shop in town and picked up remnants of new flannels at good ole Wallyworld.

For batting I used an acrylic blanket that was already at least 10 years old at the time. I used a poly-cotton blend sheet I'd acquired in a box lot at an auction for the back and the binding. The layers were tied with cotton crochet thread.

I signed but apparently did not date this quilt. (I wonder why I didn't date it. That seems out of character for me.) I'm guessing it was completed in the late 1980's or early '90's. It has been used a lot. Even though it was one of my first quilts it was never precious to me. In every conceivable way it has always been a utility quilt.

The flannels I bought as remnants have held up well over the life of this quilt. The flannel shirts, not so much. Some were better quality than others, some had been worn and washed several times before I ever got my hands on them. Patches started disintegrating a few years ago. At first I toyed with the idea of simply replacing the weakest ones. The last time I brought the quilt out of the dryer, however, I realized the situation was more dire.

This quilt has been in the back of my mind as I've been sewing my liberated log cabin blocks. Last night I got it out to have a good look at it and came to the conclusion that while the top is no longer salvageable (not by me anyway) I should be able to use the blanket as batting again, and maybe the sheet as well. It feels very appropriate to use the orphan blocks I've been making out of scraps to make a new utility quilt out of this old one. That would just about be the ultimate in recycling!

I Understand

For the first time in my quilting life I can understand the need for more than one sewing machine. I always thought it would be nice, if I had the room or the money for a second machine, but never really thought it could be a necessity. Now I wish I had the room to have two machines set up all the time. That way I could leave out the flannels, continue playing in those scraps, and not have to switch out the needle and the tension settings all the time. I could begin making blocks for DarlingGrandDaughter's quilt without getting the two projects all mixed up. It would also be helpful to have a place where I could sit and do the hand work I like to do from time to time. Right now I have to juggle all my projects and the stuff that goes with them in pretty much one space. This is going to require some thought on my part, to see whether I can come up with at least a partial solution. I only have a couple of months before the Bead Journal Project starts up again. I don't want one type of creativity to suffer because of another.

And speaking of the flannel scraps, I made this little dog using some of them.

He will probably be another drop for The Toy Society, maybe for their Christmas Drop. He's a pancake dog so he has only two legs. DH suggested I figure out a way to give him all four legs.

That's been in the back of my mind and I'd like to follow through before I put the flannels away. I want to shorten the muzzle on the pattern a bit too.

I finally found a piece of yardage in my stash that I like for binding on the Lincoln Logs quilt.

It's a paisley from RJR Fabrics. I don't even remember when or where I acquired it. I was thrilled to discover that there was enough to make it all the way around the quilt though!

Before I apply the binding to the quilt sandwich I'll have to get the little scraps out of the way, one way or another. Flannel picks up everything and this is one big quilt. :- )

Flannel Birdies!

We've had sunshine the last couple of days. And then this morning the dark clouds and the rain were back. {sigh} I wish I could somehow change my thought processes so that I could look outside and enjoy being cozy inside instead of feeling oppressed and depressed by the weather.

On a happier note, I believe I am done swapping out the dark ties on my Lincoln Logs quilt. I didn't take all of them out, but enough to make their presence less noticeable.

I still have to figure out what I'm going to use to bind this beast. It will definitely be a regular cotton, not flannel. Before I put the flannel away I couldn't resist the urge to try making a couple of birds out of the littlest scraps. I like them!

They still need eyes and hanging loops.

I also sewed up this postcard foundation.

I've signed up to participate in the 2010 Bead Journal Project and thought I might warm those muscles up by making a postcard a month between now and when the Project officially begins in January. If you're interested in the Project you can see what others have been doing here. There's still time to sign up too!

Flannel Finish

The preemie quilt is done. The white print stands out rather a lot but I really wanted to include those horses running across the landscape. If I hadn't been so focused on getting the thing put together I might have taken the time to try tea dying those two strips. Ah well, it is what it is.


Of course I still have blocks and scraps and strips left over. At this point I think I'm just going to put them all away somehow so I can move on to other things. I could probably make flannel quilts in a variety of small sizes for the next six months before I used up my stash. Well, maybe not. Some of the flannel I have is not up to my current standards for utility quilts. Back in the day I would buy flannel shirts at the thrift shop to cut up and use in my quilts. In the years since then I have learned from sad experience that you have to be fairly discerning when recycling fabric. Some of those yummy plaids are too thin to last through very many washings.

This is the view from our back porch these days:

Those are some of the members of our local murder of crows in the tree. A moment or two sooner and I would have had the whole group in the shot. Notice the color of the sky. And this is after I brightened it up with my photo editing program! (For some reason our camera seems to take dark pictures.) This is the color we will be living with for the next four months or so. That's the price we gotta pay for the beauty we enjoy the rest of the year I guess.

This morning we had a sunbreak. See that hole of blue in the cloud cover? Once again, if I'd been a bit quicker I might have been able to capture the sunshine.

As it turned out I was lucky to get what I did. This is what that spot looked like just a few minutes later:

So much for sunshine for today! Guess I'll have to go create my own somehow. ;- )

More Flannel, A Little Longing

I worked with the flannel blocks and scraps a bit yesterday. This is what I have so far:


This will finish at about 25 inches wide by 30 inches long. Right now only strips and sections are sewn together. You can see that I have a couple of gaping holes to fill. ;- )

I also spent time with my DMC color chart and the Lincoln Logs quilt, trying to find other colors to use as ties. I selected three, and DH was actually able to find them at our local JoAnn Fabrics store (woohoo! that doesn't happen as often as I would like). So now I'm ready to cut out the most offensive ties and replace them with something less obvious.

I have to say that if I were a healthy person I would have sweet-talked my husband into going down south to one of the big malls yesterday to spend the whole day there. We might not have purchased a lot, but I would have been in heaven browsing in the stores, eating in the food court or in a chain restaurant, people watching, even lugging our purchases around on my arms all day. We could have complained about the pre-Thanksgiving Christmas music and displays. It would have been noisy and crowded. We might have gone to see a movie. (I don't even know what's in the theaters right now that we would both enjoy.) We might have found a few things for Christmas presents or I might have come home with a new pair of shoes or pants or a shirt (all of which I need). For that matter, he might have come home with a new suit! It would have been so much fun. I really wish we could have done that.

Instead I shopped a bit online, by myself. Now I have to wait for my purchases to be delivered. None of it was clothing for me or my husband. (I take that back. There was a sweatshirt on clearance I couldn't pass up for myself.) In spite of the fact that I have to I don't like buying things without seeing or handling them first, and I really dislike buying clothes online, trying them on, and then having to return them. So everything I wear is pretty out of date, stained, or maybe doesn't fit as well as it could. On the upside, I do have a head start on my Christmas gifts. I used to try to make something for everyone every year. That was way too stressful. I'm learning now to take the easier way out. And I don't take it so personally any more if they don't seem to like the gift!

Tying One On

If only! The only thing I've been tying is this quilt.

And now that I've got it done I'm not sure I like the dark ties. They sort of look like flies on the surface of the quilt to me.

There are so many different colors in this quilt that I had a hard time even deciding on the dark blue that I used. Now I'm wondering whether I'll have to take out half of the ties and replace them with something lighter in order to be happy with the final product. {sigh}

I will probably go ahead and bind the quilt and live with it for a while. If I the ties continue to bother me I can replace them a little at a time. That's one of the benefits of tying vs quilting!

In the meantime I have also been playing around with the leftovers from my Hope Squared Project quilt.

This will very likely become a preemie quilt. I had toyed with the idea of making a Priority Quilt out of the fussy-cut house patch but I can use more of the leftover flannel bits in a preemie quilt. I doubt the 4Patches are going to stay on the right side of the top. I'm thinking I will take them apart or make others so that I can have a single row of squares going down both sides. The interior may simply get filled in with strips and pieces. I've got to get finished with this batch of fabrics and get started on the new quilt for DGD#2 so it will be ready for her at Christmas. With all the rain and gray skies we've had lately I need to play with the bright colors that are going into her quilt!

Toxic Whine

I'm not feeling well at all this morning. I was fine most of yesterday. I washed some of the new fabrics that have come into the house recently. (Sorry I don't have the energy to photograph them for you.) Mostly I washed the flannels for receiving blankets and preemie quilts. There's still a pile of regular cottons waiting to be washed, and there's more on the way. Like I need more fabric! RealWomenQuilt is having a sale and I couldn't resist. That happens when I've been exposed. My resistance drops and I go on shopping binges. Well, maybe not binges exactly. I tend to be pretty frugal even when my resistance is down. Still, I don't need more fabric. I need to use what I have.

So it could have been the new fabrics that made me ill. Or it could be that my DH brought scent home with him from work yesterday and neither one of us picked up on it. On Sundays he has to change his clothes immediately upon his return from church to keep me from becoming ill. It's a real drag, let me tell you. (And now you know what decade I came of age in!)

These are the blocks I have left over from the quilt for the Hope Squared Project.


I'm thinking I may sew up a few more 4Patch blocks and make a preemie quilt out of them. One of the pieces waiting to be washed is a sock monkey print that could be really cute for the back.

Today is Election Day here in the States. Don't forget to go vote, or to mail in your ballot if that's the way it's done in your state. We vote by mail here now. I have to say I really miss going to the polls. But I guess in this day of H1N1 flu concerns it may be safer in the long run to vote by mail. {humph} I was planning to drop my ballot off at the courthouse because we live so close to it. Now I'm thinking I may just put a stamp on it and let the mail carrier take care of it for me. The trouble is that I have other errands I need to run too. I'm really not looking forward to going out and being exposed to additional toxins. And the longer I wait to go out the more crowded it will be, thus exposing me to more toxins than if I had gone out first thing. {sigh} Guess I'd better just get in the shower and get going...

Flannel Quilt

When last you saw my current project (on the kitchen floor) I had all the rows together and the top was nearly complete. I put an additional strip of flannel on each end to get the length I wanted. Then I went looking for backing fabric.

I didn't have to look far. In my closet I found two pieces of cotton I'd purchased in 1994 or 1995, intending to use them in a quilt for our own bed. That quilt never materialized (obviously!) and the fabrics were still there, waiting to be used. There wasn't enough yardage in either one of them to make the back out of just one of the prints so I combined them by splitting one in half and inserting the other up the middle. In the shot below you should be able to see the two different, yet similar, prints. (Sorry the picture is so dark. This was photographed in the living room where the light is very poor.)


And here's the top laid out on the backing, waiting to see whether I have a piece of batting in the house big enough to do the job...


Hurray! There was! This quilt is small enough that I was able to layer it up (backing, batting, pieced top) on the living room floor. Then my Dear Husband brought in an eight foot banquet table, set it up in front of the couch, and I tied the quilt with a deep red cotton floss while watching TV.

Yesterday I found an old red paisley print in my stash for the binding. Ta daa! A finished quilt before the first Trick-or-Treater rang the bell!

I was actually a little surprised that I got the binding sewn down so quickly. Perhaps more surprising is the fact that I made this quilt, start to finish, in about 10 days. I didn't think I had it in me to pull off such a stunt! Of course, I don't have a job outside the home or children under foot or anything like that to keep me from the sewing machine. Still, I believe I'm going to bask in the glow of a quilt that turned out well (in my eyes at least) for today and look for a box to ship it in tomorrow... and you know what? There are STILL flannel scraps left over!

Flannel Top

Oops, I got the pictures in the reverse order again. Oh well. Here's how the rows ended up for my quilt for the Hope Squared Project. It's big enough now that I had to photograph it on the kitchen floor. Guess I should have removed Reilly's toy first!


Here's a close-up of the bottom half of the quilt:


And the top half:

I'm shooting for a 54" x 72" quilt. I figure that ought to be big enough for an adolescent girl even though it's not bed size. Right now it's wide enough, I just need to add a bit more length.

I finally put out the rest of the Halloween decorations last night. I've just about decided to leave a handful of them out year round because I like them so well. As it is they'll probably be on display through Thanksgiving!

Flannel Rows

In this post I'm going to show you the individual rows I created from the flannel parts and scraps. (I don't think I mentioned previously that I had in mind for this to be a horizontal row quilt right from the beginning.) As of yesterday I have the body of the quilt top assembled but you'll have to wait to see that in another post. (Aren't I cruel?!) I think I have loaded these pictures in the order in which the rows were created. They didn't necessarily end up in the quilt top in this order.

Row one:

Row two:

Row three:

And row four:

You should be able to click on each picture to get a larger image of it and a better look at the blocks.

Today I expect to be creating borders for the top and bottom edges of the quilt to get the length I want it to have. After that it will be a matter of finding something in my stash that will work for backing, looking to see whether I have sufficient batting in my closet or whether someone will have to go out and get some for me, and clearing off the dining table so I can sandwich the layers. The latter is no small feat, let me tell you! It's not a big table but it currently has layers of its' own that I will have to put somewhere else!

Liberated Stars

I'm still working on the flannel quilt for the Hope Squared Project as part of Margaret's Hope Chest. Most recently I've been making liberated stars. This block is great for flannels. Because flannel is bulkier and tends to stretch it's not a good choice for precise piecing. Liberated stars are not precise!


The biggest problem I'm having is getting enough contrast between my colors and prints. My palette is limited and I am determined to use what I have, not buy more. The star below began with one of the Broken Dishes blocks I made from the off-cuts of my heart blocks.


I currently have three rows complete. I also have enough 4 Patch units to make three narrow rows. I still need about 15" to achieve the length I'm shooting for.

And for the first time in the 20 years I've been using rotary cutters I finally managed to cut myself yesterday. Do you like my skull & crossbones band aids? ;- ) (You can also see the remnants of that eczema outbreak I complained of a while back.)

It's not a bad cut. Maybe a little more than a paper cut. It sure didn't want to quit bleeding though! I sort of brushed my finger with the edge of the blade when I didn't cover the blade between trimming bits. I was only functioning on half a brain yesterday, otherwise this probably wouldn't have happened.

Now I have to get busy creating rows for those last 15 inches...

Flannel Parts

While I'm waiting for all my new fabrics for baby quilts to arrive I thought I would do something with the leftovers from my own flannel quilt. Over on Quiltdivajulie's blog I read about the Hope Squared Project sponsored by Margaret's Hope Chest. Hope Squared is an effort to collect 400 newly minted quilts to distribute to homeless children currently enrolled in the Grand Rapids, MI public school system. Having grown up in Michigan, spending summers not far from Grand Rapids, I felt compelled to contribute to the effort.

Yesterday I gathered up the scraps from my quilt and pulled some additional yardage I've had on hand that I thought might work with them. I fussy cut a sampler print into chunks, made some heart blocks, got a couple of odd sized Broken Dishes blocks out of the off-cuts of the hearts, and created three dozen 4 Patch blocks. (Those are some Halloween ribbons I picked up last month tacked to the left side of my design wall. Still haven't figured out what to do with them exactly.)

I feel like I still have a long way to go before I'll be able to put together a quilt of any size. Those patches for 4 Patch blocks sure make great leaders and enders though! (The 4 Patch blocks you see pinned to the wall are actually two stacks of ten and one stack of five.) The hardest part is trying to decide which fabrics to cut up for patches and which ones to leave in longer strips for strata or borders later on.

There's a fairly short deadline for this project: November 15. I think that will help to keep me from stalling out on it. Well, that and the purpose of the project. The trick is to stay focused. My own flannel quilt may not get tied very soon after all!

Are We There Yet?

First off, the Iraqi Bundles of Love project is coming to a close. You should take a moment to go read IBOL Guy's current post. It will make you feel good.

Second, I want to congratulate Renee S. who is the lucky winner of my Pink Artist needlebook. (I'm going to do my best to get it into the mail to her sometime this week.) And, woohoo, I won a print from Alma Stoller!

Now, back to the back for my Lincoln Logs flannel quilt. You may remember that I'd put a light plaid on all four sides but didn't like the way it looked. I took off two of those strips and cut the remaining two down to half their original size. The next thing I did was to add the dark blue floral you see here on the two sides. That was another piece of fabric I've been hanging onto for years in the hopes of including it in a quilt for myself someday.

Today I added what I thought would be the final strips/borders. This red plaid went on all four sides. But when I measured it against the top it was too short in both width and length. I was disappointed, but not terribly surprised because my measuring has been less than precise.

I only lacked half an inch in one direction. Since there was plenty of the plaid left I simply took off one of the borders and replaced it with a slightly wider one. On the two sides, however, I put in a little more effort. I cut two 2.5" strips (which had to be pieced to get the necessary length of course) and added them to each side. Now I get this cool vertical stripe effect every once in a while along those two sides.

My hope is to be able to take the top, the back, batting and some pins to a local VFW hall tomorrow to get the layers sandwiched. Originally I had planned to have this machine quilted, maybe in a clamshell or Baptist fan type pattern. Now I think I'd rather have it tied. It seems more appropriate somehow. And I can do it inbetween making blocks for DGD's quilt. ;- )

Borders On, Borders Off

Just because I found fabric for the background of the blocks for DGD's quilt doesn't mean that's the quilt I'm working on. ;- )

No, instead I've pulled out my Lincoln Logs friendship top and have been working on that.

It could be that I was inspired by the season or the weather - it's cooler and wetter now - because this is a flannel quilt top. (I last worked on it almost exactly two years ago.) At any rate, I thought I wanted it bigger so I added borders to all four sides.


Then yesterday I started building the back. I've had this flannel print in my stash for many years and have been looking forward to using it in a special quilt. Those buildings are outhouses. {grin!}


I left the outhouse yardage whole and just added strips of other flannels around it. For the photo below I folded the big piece back on itself; it's not really this long and skinny.

I also added another strip of a light plaid all the way around before I quit working yesterday. I wasn't completely happy with it though.

This morning I decided that the borders I'd put on the top weren't working. I took them off. After trying the quilt top on the bed in various directions I decided to just add borders to two of the sides, thus making the top nearly square. I used different fabrics this time and I like it much better.


When I had that done I reluctantly came to the conclusion that the last round of strips I'd added to the back would also have to come off. {sigh} I removed the top and bottom strips but then decided to just cut the side strips down to half their original width.

This still needs to be a bit bigger in both width and length. I have a plan in mind...

Stay tuned to see what happens!