Scrappy Spider Web Quilt Top

 

Scrappy Spider Web Quilt Top.  Mostly made with scraps, although my scrap pile does not seem to be going down much!

The black stars make the colors pop!

This has been on my bucket list of quilts to make in my lifetime.   Check!

Cathedral Windows Revisited

 

Here's a follow-up post to the Cathedral Windows Revisited from a few weeks ago.  I finished one of the blocks --almost entirely by machine.  Although the prep work in preparing the white background squares seemed to take longer than you'd expect, actually sewing down the bias edges over the colored patches did NOT take long at all.  I was amazed!

You can't really tell from this angle, but there's a little bit of stuffing behind each of the colored patches. I used some left-over quilt batting -- about 2 teaspoons worth!

  Here's a shot of the colred patches laid out, but not yet sewn down. 

 

I'm taking you backwards and deconstructing the white background squares.

Here is the background grid without the colored patches.  The colored bits cover the edge-joined seems shown above. 

 

Here's a close-up of one of the satin-stitched edge-joined seems. I am still working on the perfect technique for this -- stitch length and width.   

 

Here it is from the back. 

 

Once the patches are sewn in, it makes a nice orange peel pattern on the back. 

The little bit of stuffing on the front side helps add the definition.

Did I mention that at this point, the block is finished--done and quilted. There is not batting in this kind of quilt.

 

Here's a detail shot of that stitching pattern from the back.  I can see that I may want to be a little more conscious of what's happening on the back and I'm stitching those bias edges over the colored patches. 

This is only my first try with the new method. I was so impressed, I thought it was worth a follow-up blog post.

I don't know how long I'm going to work on this, but I went through my scrap bucket and cut all the 2-1/2 inch squares I could wrangle from it.

I have a lot of Avalon muslin left from dying days.  Turns out it was treated with some kind of permanent press thing which seems to prevent it from taking up the dye color as I would have hoped.  So it needs to be put to some other purpose: It seems to be working well as a substrate for Cathedral Windows!

Cathedral Windows Quilt - A New Project and a New Tutorial

Cathedral Windows 2

After purchasing a couple of vintage and antique cathedral window quilts, I am inspired to give it another try.   I worked up some of the white foundation / background patches this weekend, and I've been cutting 2-1/2 inch squares from the scrap pile ...  We'll see how this test piece goes and just how big it grows!

I stumbled upon this video for making a Cathedral Windows Quilt (mostly) by machine.  It inspired me (along with my recent collectables)  to give it another try with some different techniques that I think will make it go a little easier and faster than my previous try at it.   Hers came out so nice, and I do have a lot of scraps around these days.  Although I am not planning a bed-size quilt, I may do a wall-hanging.

Although Cathedral Window Quilts traditionally have no batting, she did  stuff the windows with a little poly fill batting.  I thought that was a nice touch, and something I want to try.

Here's the small one I did years ago.  It still pleases me to see the patches of color -- I can tell you what projects each one came from.  

I don't have that kind of intimacy or past with the vintage Cathedral Window Quilts I purchased--although I have a healthy respect for the work, skill and materials used in those -- and the fact that I did NOT have to do all the work on them. 

Crazy Crumb Blocks -- 67 So Far

 

 

Here's a perfect example of a crumb block. 

It's a variation of a crazy quilt block, made with scraps. 

And it truly is scraps because I can tell you all the other quilts these fabrics previously appeared in.

If you are a long-time reader, you might even recognize some of them.

 

Here's a sampling of the 67 in the stack so far ...

SOme of those hourglass and windmill blocks were leftovers from the Farmer's Wife Pandemic Quilt. Gotta use them up somewhere.  Lots of other bits and pieces from that project visible here.

 

Crumb blocks are a little more linear than traditional crazy quilt blocks. I'm mixing it up between the two styles.

 

I am planning to add some kind of long triangles as sashing so they are set kitty-whompus rather than a straight grid.  That's why I laid them out crooked.  

It really gives you a flavor of what colors I like to work with -- the pallette.

 

 

Here's the stack of 67 blocks -- so far.

How many do I need?  How far am I willing to go?

Yet to be determined.  

The scraps are sewn to a foundation square and then trimmed down to size. The foundation fabric is usually the ugliest thing imaginable -- not white -- so that if I miss a spot, the foundation fills in with some color.

 

 

This is the unsorted and overflowing scrap basket behind my sewing machine.  Whenever I feel like sewing, but have no specific project in mind,  I grab a few bits of color to make some of these authentically scrappy crumb blocks.   Usually 2 or 3 at a time.  

 

Even though I have 67 5-inch blocks now, never actually seems to make a dent in this pile!

My lovely black locust tree is in full bloom.    The smell is intoxicating, with those flower clusters like wisteria or grapes. 

Here's a shot from the back yard-- proving that I don't spend all my time at the loom or the sewing machine. 

Managing Scraps

I just finished the Scrap Quilting class at Craftsy with Pepper Cory.  I have at least one of her books in my stash somewhere--I think it's on marking quilts.    It's so nice to listen to her tell stories, and share her wisdom.  She really enjoys what she does.  It's like she was right here with me -- an old friend at Quilt Camp giving me directions and pointers on how to do something.  In the class videos, she comes alive in a way that's not possible in a flat instructional quilting book. 


  

And I loved seeing her use her old Singer Featherweight whom she called Jessica.  I had to laugh -- I called one of my old cars, Jess!    I think I'll name my own Featherweight Pepper, or maybe even Cory in honor of this most comfortable teacher and friend.  It's important to have a good working relationship with your equipment.  What better way to get along, than to name it?

I didn't actually make any of the projects Pepper demonstrated in the class, since I'd made similar ones in my past quilting history.  So for me this was more entertainment to watch Pepper, and listen to her stories. 

String Quilt
I didn't actually use the old phone book pages that Pepper recommends for this project.  I remember seeing this method a while back and being intrigued by it enough to give it a try.  In this digital day and age, phone books are not so common as they used to be.   So I had to scrounge to find one (if you can believe that!).  And once I tried it -- Sure, it makes a good foundation, but I did not enjoy the ripping and the picking out the paper bits that got stuck in the seams.   The ripping process distorted the blocks.  For me, it worked much better to use blank muslin blocks as the foundation.

This string quilt was not so much scraps.  I'd purchased multiple sets of black and white 2-1/2 inch strip sets to have good variety to choose from.

From the leftovers, I made a Mondo Bag, sewn with my vintage Featherweight Singer Sewing Machine.

My goal was to learn to get a handle on my growing scrap bins after 15 years of quilting. I did a lot more fusible applique back in the day, and I told myself that I needed all those choices and colors and textures and sizes of scraps because I might need them some day ...   But it's getting to be too much now.  Time to use them!

Chinese Coins Quilt
I'd done a scrappy quilt after buying a set of 200 4-inch squares.  All the pieces were different, and it came out looking varied and beautiful.  But something was strange about it -- and I finally realized it didn't have the emotional power that a true scrap quilt has, where you can point to a scrap and know exactly where else you used it, and when you purchased it.  Or that it came from a piece of clothing from way back when ...  You can give its full pedigree.  That kind of quilt has the power to settle you down, and start a walk down nostalgia lane with all the memories it brings back.

Don't get me wrong : I adore this Chinese Coins Quilt as a whole.  But the individual parts -- the individual pieces -- don't have that emotional impact mentioned above. 

Wedding Ring Quilt
Last summer when I was working on Rosita's Wedding Ring Quilt for her grand-daughter's wedding, I was just mesmerized because I knew all those little scraps and pieces were leftover from Rosita's lifetime of quilting.  That quilt was full of her story / herstory.  Powerful stuff, when you know that.  I'm sure Kayleigh knows that, too!

Then of course, you have to use the new stuff, to MAKE it part of your story.  To give those scraps their history, to make them yours.

Composed Fabric

I'd been keeping scraps and cutoffs for making composed fabric, but I think I'm over that.  Many of these became Journals.  My sewing room was too full, and something needed to give -- something had to go.  So I gave a big garbage bag away to someone who will use it for stuffing in cat beds for the local animal shelter.   Reduce - Reuse - Recycle!

In Pepper's class, I was hoping to learn how to tame the leftovers from any given project, to be disciplined about cutting them up into strips or blocks  of varying sizes and just wait until you have enough to make something -- Like my friend Laura does.  I'll have to ask her for some lessons on that in October at Quilt Camp.  I know basically what she does -- and still I'm afraid to commit to cutting something down like that -- what if I really needed that larger piece later on?

I think I need to get a few books on the topic of managing scraps from the Public Library and see what is recommended.   And figure out what will work for me ...

Maybe I just need to figure out what kind of scrap quilts I like to make, and have that in mind as I'm cutting down and saving scraps.  For instance -- Am I shooting for another Chinese Coins Quilt, or something with 2-1/2 inch strips?  Or something with 1/2-square triangles to make scrappy stars?  I'll have to ask Laura what her standard sizes are ...