Category: Quilting in South Carolina

…is filling up again!

On the left is a very old Kaffe Fasset print I bought many years ago at a sale in Maine where a fabric store was closing as the owner was retiring. And because it is an old KF print, it has sturdy fabric, not the sheer fabrics the market gives us today, fabrics that require starching to even cut them properly. LOL, no more on that rant this morning.

I was thinking of using this fabric for the Cat’s Cradle quilt top next to it as I’m trying to use up stash fabrics, but these two critters are fighting. I’m going to use this old KF print for a backing for another 8-inch Cat’s Cradle quilt top that uses solid fabrics in the colors in this print. I’m VERY happy with how the match of my two cut pieces matched up with the method I use. See the seam on the left? (I blogged about matching prints some time back.)

And now, the 4-inch Cat’s Cradle top is on the longarm.

And you can see this fabric actually has lines of pattern running lengthwise. I didn’t really notice that at first.

I’m excited about this new 8-inch Cat’s Cradle project with these unusual colors (for me). And I think I have collected enough of these colors for this new quilt now.

My online quilt project from Rachel Hauser of Stitched in Color is coming right along. I am using 2 1/2 squares from those stored in my 2 1/2-inch square bin, and I’m loving the blue sashing and the darker purple/blue (Kona “Nightfall”) for the triangle star block. I added a neutral outside border so I will have full stars on the border. Right now these squares are in the leader/ender category.

And I’m sewing together the Kites in this top. I like the movement with this arrangement. The long lines of one color are functioning as sashings–as are the single blocks that separate the double blocks. I found an adorable backing (a Tilda print) for the backing. This quilt will be for a girl, thus all the pink.

Below is the block I’ll use to show my Charleston Modern members who come to tomorrow’s Sit and Sew how to mount a quilt on stretched canvas. I did some very subtle hand-sewing on the green center, which added just a little texture.

My changing design wall shows how my quilting rolls along. And it is so much fun.

This past winter I worked on making a series of quilts using Latifah Saafir’s Hurty ruler (which makes half-rectangle triangle blocks sized 12 inches down to 1 inch). My goal was to use materials from my stash, with the exception perhaps of some backings if warranted. I do like plain backings for busy quilts.

Each of these quilts has its own blog post entry. But I thought it might be nice to see them in one place–to see the design progression I made–in the order of making.

In “Arrowheads” I wanted to play with the design that gets created when the left or right angle cuts in the half-triangle meet and form an “arrowhead” triangle shape. See the upper right corner for an “arrowhead” triangle. I organized the blocks to make that fat triangle on a diagonal line from top right to bottom left. In places, these “arrowhead” triangle are more subtle than others.

In “Diamonds” I wanted to play with the long triangle that forms when you combine 4 of these half-rectangle blocks. In places I made diamonds, yes, but I didn’t want a quilt of all diamonds. So away from the center of the quilt, I often just used the half of a full diamond block. I also made some diamonds and long triangles in much lighter fabrics, to vary the rhythm.

In “Dancing Hourglass Diamonds” I used the “hourglass” rectangle triangle block I discovered in this year’s Tara Faughnan’s online Blocks 2 class. Once the rectangle triangle block is made, one cuts block on the diagonal and combines the parts with OTHER cuts. Note that you have to have all left or all right cuts on the Hurty ruler for these diagonal cut pieces to line up.

I made some solid little diamonds to pull the eye around the quilt, but take a moment to gaze at the quilt to see what happens–magical bigger diamonds form to join the dance around this quilt.

I was thinking of a red or green border and found this blue leftover in my stash–from a wideback used in another quilt. The minute I laid it next to the quilt top, the quilt started singing. Out loud. Insistent. Who knew?

In “Gradations” I played with the range of sizes available in the Hurty Ruler. I chose sizes that would add up to creating a downward row of 48 inches–in order to make a center with the darker color in this block oriented to the bottom on its side. This center sat on the design wall for several months until I ordered the fabric used in the border triangles and on the back.

A nunber of people have asked me for the name of this fabric: It’s “Pixie Petals in Sapphire,” made by Coming up Roses for Moda (fabric 39788/13).

There may be one more in this series one of these days as I just realized that by mainpulating color, you can make a straight line with this block.

Hmmm…

Rachel Hauser of the Stitched in Color blog is starting a new online sewalong, starting May 11th. Rachel is predominately a scrappy quilter, and I love her work. You may recall I did her “Scrap Cabin” quiltalong some months back–as I fell in love with her border for that quilt.

Well…

Her new sewalong features her quilt “Parsnips”–which has a sashing treatment with which I also fell in love. Her green sashing color is much more intense than I could get my camera to capture from the front of her downloaded pattern.

Here’s a better picture of how she used colors:

Rachel used rectangles, but I have a bin that has a ton of 2.5-inch squares, so I’m going to use squares.

And I was guessing the size of her sashings before she released her pattern, so mine are just a bit bigger. I’m using my “Tri Rec” rulers to make my triangle sashing blocks, but Rachel has included templates in her pattern.

I’m sewing together my squares as a leader/ender project for right now. And I’m adding an outer neutral border so I can have the whole of these cute stars along the edges. My block of squares measures 16 inches and I’m sewing it in 4 pieces. I don’t know yet how big I’ll make this quilt.

Clearly I’ve never met a ruler I didn’t like. I recently saw an involved quilt that used the kite block, and I was so intrigued that I ordered the recommended 5-inch version.

In the process of trying out the ruler–it’s awesome–I seem to have started a quilt using a kite block. I’ve drawn a plan now and am cutting out more sets of 4 blocks.

I really like the movement in this arrangement and will use the single rows as if they are sashings. I already see where I want to move that light blue single row–I think it needs to be a block on its own and there need to be more blocks with light kites and stronger outside pieces. And that’s how my quilting goes…

The 4-inch Cat’s Cradle quilt top is done, ironed, and pinned to the design wall while it waits for its backing and for its turn on the longarm–which gave me the design wall room to play with Parsnip and the kites.

This quilt needs a name. Right now, I have no idea…

And I will say I’m not done at all with playing with these Cat’s Cradle rulers. There are so many different settings in the “Cat’itude” little book by Deb Heatherly.

This week is flying by so fast…

Now I need to stop and get “Big Slice” done and off the longarm. But that means I need to stop playing, which is always so hard for me to do.

This quilt is made with the 8-inch Cat’s Cradle ruler–the bigger ruler than the first original one, which stops at 4-inch blocks. Each use of either ruler produces TWO blocks, so you can vary the square color if you like. Or, if you are reversing light and dark, you could also vary what are the light triangles here. This quilt measures 64 inches square. And, of course it used a lot of my scrap stash.

Isn’t the red striped border perfect? I think so. The whole project is just so…cheerful. I’ve had this Blue Jay fabric for some time in my stash. I used it on the back of another quilt years ago. And I had enough left to use it on this quilt.

This quilt is a donation to our Charleston, SC, Tunnels to Towers project that will house 90 homeless vets. I so hope that the person who chooses this quilt (they will be able to choose) does so because it will brighten his/her day just by looking at it.

I will make another version of this quilt again–meant to be a donation quilt likely and to have a nice leader/ender project in the making. It’s easy, fun to make, is scrappy, and uses a lot of stash fabric.

PS: the 4-inch Cat’s Cradle top needs only its bottom 4 rows sewn now. YEAH!

Here it is with the blocks unsewn, except for some of the center blocks.

I’m sewing these blocks into rows and sewing rows together.

This quilt feels like a monster project right now, LOL. But, slowly and surely. And I do love it! It is so colorful and interesting. Boy has it eaten up stash fabric.

“Big Slice” is on the longarm with one pass done–and is waiting for me to finish her and put on her binding (which is cut).

I’m still drawn to the “prickly” version of this block–I made one and posted about it when I turned it into a stretched canvas piece.

Tara Faughnan made a quilt with the “Big Slice” block that is very engaging and interesting. You can see that on her Instagram or on her newsletter page. I hesitate to reproduce it here as that probably isn’t legal.

Meanwhile, I’ve been distracting myself by playing with two other projects as kind of “leader/ender” projects.

But…

More on that later!

“Gradations” is the 4th and final quilt in my half-rectangle triangle series, using Latifah Saafir’s Hurty Ruler. I am so happy with this quilt. It was so fun to make. The center sat on the design wall for some time until I saw the fabric I used in the outer border. Then, poof, I was off and running.

I used that fabric for the backing and binding–and cut it so that the strips ran sideways rather than up and down.

I made another block to go on stretched canvas. This block is from Tara Faughnan’s Blocks 2 class and was one of the choices for her Big Slice wedding ring block–which you can see further down in the quilt top I made.

These blocks are kind of hung “willy nilly” but they also work just fine in my sewing quilt room. They all make me smile. The middle piece is a quilt and is not on stretched canvas.

My 4-inch Cat’s Cradle ruler quilt top is coming along. I can see the end. I like making this block a lot, so there’s no pain involved here. Each block makes TWO blocks.

“Tunnels to Towers,” my donation quilt is off the longarm and has had its binding installed. This is the 8-inch version of the Cat’s Cradle block. It’s now downstairs getting its binding sewn down at night.

Next up on the longarm is “Big Slice.”

It’s kind of funny how lots of projects come together all at once. Funny and Fun.

Have a great week everyone!!!

You’ve seen pics of this quilt off and on, I know, but I do like to do a final photo when a quilt is all completed. “Scrap Cabin” is a Rachel Hauser (Stitched in Color) design, and she held an online sewalong in January to make her second “Scrap Cabin”–this new one, meant to have more color combinations than just two. I also chose to use two color families in each of the nine blocks. I fell in love with the border she designed.

And I’m still in love with that border. I especially love how she designed the border’s corner blocks. So clever…

This quilt used up A TON of my stash strips. I even had to cut some strips out of bigger pieces of fabric in my stash to get the colors I wanted. ***If I make this quilt again, I will keep the neutral pieces very light and not use the lighter greys in my stash as the lighter neutrals look a lot more lacy. I did figure that out by the border as I had not seen the full impact of the lacy border effect until I started making it.

I kept the backing plain–and did buy that fabric. The panto is “Check and Chase” by Hermione Agee. I love the texture and the curves this panto added to this quilt. I used a parchment colored 40 weight Cotton thread (Signature).

This quilt is my 239th quilt made.