Tidying up and Little Quilts

I love Patchwork and Quilting!

When I am working on a quilt project I like to keep all the fabrics for that project together, and sometimes that could be for weeks, months and even years!  The fabric choices are usually from my "finely curated collection" and many have waited a long time to get selected for use.  And, when a project reaches the point when I know no more fabric will be needed, the tidy up is very satisfying.  These are all the trimmed up leftovers from the Good Hope mystery, started 6 January this year.  (Two tops, backs and bindings waiting their turn to be quilted.)  The trimmings are strips of 3.5", 2.5", 2" and 1.5";  squares of 4.5", 3.5", 2.5", 2" and 1.5"; some strings and crumb pieces; various size wonky-ish pinwheel blocks from bonus half-square-triangles.  And, new to me, thanks to Cathy at https://saneandcrazy.blogspot.com/, some "nibbles" - ends of strips after cutting off squares from strips, here 2", 2.5" and 3.5".  If I really like them, pieces of fabric bigger than a quarter metre get put back into cupboard with similar coloured fabrics, just five pieces this time.

And with that tidying up out of the way I had some space and time to work on the Little Quilts of Love.  These are  made from donated fabrics, and are now all finished.

 

 

Once a month the co-ordinator of this project hosts a group of quilters at her home to cut,  press, trim, sew, finish, label (and have lunch).  Some fabrics are donations received, and others are sourced at local shops.  She and I cut 10 kits for others to sew...I came home with three of them!  One now finished, and the other two in progress:

 

 

Lastly, my monthly Quilt Group is doing a Block of the Month, these are October's, a 12" block.  The fabric selections are based on Rainbow Scrap Challenge's "light neutrals" for this month

A Second Back Pieced

Our local regional quilt guild ran a mystery earlier this year, The Spice Route by Dewald Compion.  Each of the Guild's mysteries have been locally themed.  Cape Town was a way station on the spice route between Europe and the East Indies during the sailing ship era.

Although I liked the final reveal, I didn't want to make a large quilt, so turned the units into two smaller quilt tops.  This is the back for the second one (sideways to fit on wall.)

And these are the two tops.

 

 

I like doing mystery quilts, and this time I used made fabric as one of the colours. Brown to me represented the spices.  By using the leftovers on the backs I'm pleased that there are no brown crumbs or slabs left!

Piecing a Back

Last year I started piecing the backs for quilt tops, based on the RSC colour of the month at SoScrappy.  I think that this might be the first one for this year, and yes I know, it's October!  Light neutral is the declared colour for October, and as I just started on it, I remembered in time to take photos to share some of my processes.

I first fold the quilt top in quarters (in half, and half again).  This top is a square one, and although I normally fold in both directions, this time I folded twice length-ways, because there was another top also pinned up!

The fabric choices generally start from left-over fabrics from the front, or I look critically at my stash and choose less favoured fabrics (you know, those ones you wonder why you ever bought them, or have been in the drawer forever and never been/never will be used.)  Then I fold each of them twice (into quarters) and pin over the folded top, overlapping slightly, until the whole top is covered, plus a bit extra to allow for seams, trimming and to be a bit bigger than the top.  

This is the covered top, minus a few pieces I've removed to start the next step.

Then I select one of the smaller pieces, press it well and then trim off any selvedge and trim it with square corners.  Put up open on the design walls  (these are 4 loose 1m x 1.8m x 38mm polystyrene boards covered with brushed cotton).  This continues with each piece, placed like a jigsaw/tetris game, sometimes moving some to make all roughly fit.   The brown strata surrounded by green will be sort of centred on this back - trying to use up as many scraps as possible!

 

 

This is the idea for the back, sketched out about four months ago, and the piece of paper kept with the top and fabric waiting for this moment. 

 

 

Now all the fabrics pressed and trimmed, ready to start joining together.  The piece at the bottom left is folded once so may not all be needed.  The quilt top is folded in quarter and temporarily pinned up so you may see some of it.

 

 

I try to join similar length pieces together.  Each seam gets pressed and any extra trimmed, and the now larger section put back up to see what will be suitable to add next.

 

Here is the back all stitched up.  Except for the edge that will be loaded first onto the frame, the sides are about three inches wider and the bottom about six inches wider than the top which is enough for the quilt frame.  The late afternoon light makes it look pinkish!

 Happy to have this ready for when I have the desire and time to quilt.  The binding will be scrappy brown.

Some Sewing and Some Finishes

 Summer is almost upon us, the days are longer and warmer and not too much wind yet.  Not warm enough to swim though.

The big news from here is that I worked my butt off very hard this week preparing our old house for photos for listing with the estate agent.  The garden looks immaculate, and most of the house was tidy enough.  When I gave up wondering where to put some of the clutter, I just opened the nearest cupboard door or drawer and shoved things away.  Not the most sensible way to deal with things, but it worked, for now.

Hopefully the house will sell reasonably quickly and then we face the The Move.  Half of my sewing stuff is in the new house, so the rest will be the next big project.  Am sort of getting excited about this.  Tidied up some of the new garden this weekend until it was too warm to be outside.

Walking continues three times a week, this was a beautiful rainbow taken on one of the days in September;  didn't realise that the rain was heading our way!  Last week I graduated from walking the field to being out on the road.  That rugby field was muddy all through the winter!

Had a haircut last week, and this uplifting board faces one at the basins!  Words to live by.

 The past few weeks have given me some time to sew.

These are a couple of the six-inch 365 blocks that I cut out back in June, time to prep some more.  I think I'm about half-way with this project.  Started in 2016!

 Next up is one 30-centimetre (hand-pieced over paper and appliqued) Dresden plate block as part of a group quilt.  I saw all the other blocks this week, and they are amazing.

 

Crumb slabs, the colour for September at Rainbow Scrap Challenge was Aqua.

Locally we have:

 "A community of quilters making Little Quilts of Love to donate to the parents of stillborn babies."  https://www.facebook.com/LittleQuiltsOfLoveSouthAfrica

These are some of the quilts I assembled from extra units made for/left over from other quilts.  Sides are between 50 and 70 cms, have flannel backing and are only quilted on the edges.  Soft, cuddly and comforting.

 

Last, but not least, I can now share the three quilts I made for my sister's school.  Two of the three age groups each painted a 8 or 9-inch block, the theme for 6-9 years was nature and the 3-6 year olds, was about themselves.  The 9-12 year olds were given precut fabric and asked to design a 7 by 7 block with the fabrics - that was great fun, as they shared and hard-bartered with each other for colours they wanted/needed.   All three quilts were beautifully edge-to-edge quilted by my good friend Tracy at The Quilting Co as getting to my frame was going to be a real challenge!

 

 

On to some sewing of the neutrals for October!