Sunday Quilty Update, March 23, 2024

“Gradations,” the 4th and final quilt in my half-rectangle triangle series, using Latifah Saafir’s Hurty ruler, is on the longarm.

I am sewing the colorful polka-dot binding on “Scrap Cabin” at night and have almost finished the 3rd side. (Rachel Hauser’s online sewalong in January, Stitched in Color blog.) Sewing binding is soothing, but for me, slow. I must sew tinier stitches than other people do??? I shared this quilt with Patchwork Gals this past week. Boy did it eat up stash fabric in my strip bins.

Here’s my design wall yesterday. “Big Slice” is folded on the left as it is all ironed and is waiting for its turn on the longarm. These two in-process quilts are being made with the Cat’s Cradle ruler. The left-side one is a 4-inch block made with the smaller ruler. The right-side is made with the larger ruler and is an 8-inch block, so will finish at 64 by 64. All the large blocks are done, but I’ll let this big-block quilt simmer for a few days before sewing the blocks together–in case I see something I want to switch.

There are many ways to set this Cat’s Cradle block, including one that makes a star. But I fell in love with the diagonal rows of little blocks and the rows that form with this setting and with this color placement in the block.

This big-block quilt is going to be a donation to the new Tunnel To Towers project here in Charleston, SC, that will house 98 local homeless veterans. (Tunnel to Towers started after 9-11 in New York city for those first responders who were injured. Now it is a national project for mostly homeless vets. (https://t2t.org/homeless-veteran-program/). They have asked the local quilt community for quilts for each bed, and we will do that work with pleasure.

Here is the smaller 4-inch block quilt. The 40-inch center has been webbed, leaving the horizontal rows unconnected, but so that the blocks stay in proper order. Now I’m adding blocks to the top and sides. I will need 16 by 18 rows in total to make this quilt a rectangle at 64 by 72.

When I pulled fabric pieces from my stash, I cut blocks from each piece of fabric for both quilts. The big blocks are done, but I now have to sew the 4-inch block parts I cut. And I will need to cut more along the way. It is a fun block to cut and sew though, so I don’t mind. And, again, ALL of these winter projects have been made from my stash fabrics–exept for some backings.

I am feeling really good about using up so much stash fabric this winter. It feels like making the fabric load much lighter. There is a balance for a scrappy quilter between keeping a stash of many colors and prints/solids and having an overload of fabric.