SCRAPS, ELEMENTS, AND NEW YORK BEAUTY FINISHES

Over the last two weeks I have spent some time trying to de-stash some of my batiks.  Frankly it is a lost cause, I am not getting anywhere, but it has been fun trying.  

I had a difficult time with this batik quilt top.  While I thought I had tons of different scraps, it seems there just is never enough variety.  However, I figured that it is not supposed to be a masterpiece, the idea is to get rid of some of my batiks. Once I got it all together it seems to have come out rather nicely.  It is going to my charity group and I hopefully someone will love it.

This is my finished NewYork Beauty Tim Holtz Elements quilt top.  I am really pleased with this piece.  It was so much fun and something I have never done before.  Everyone says New York Beauty blocks are difficult to make.  There was a bit of a learning curve with them, but they are paper pieced and that system really does make things easier to get those little sharp points.  The best part was you can put colors and shapes together next to each other and get away with it that you can't anywhere else.

The pumpkin wall hanging is finished as well.  It needs to go off to the quilt this coming week along with the NewYork Beauty.    

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A FINISH AND STASH REDUCTION

I got my curved pieced project back from the quilter this past week.  It was a free class I took offered by my quilt guild given by one of the other members.   I think it will make the perfect table mat for the coffee table in our living room this winter.  

I had my quilter just do a simple circular quilting on it. 

I decided to rid myself of a large scrap bin of Tilda fabrics over the last month or so.  They were just taking up way too much space.  There are 12 star blocks and 13 solid blocks which will make a 60" by 60" quilt, and the fun dots binding. I handed them over to my charity group last Wednesday to be finished up, quilted and giving away to some local group.

Still working on getting rid of fabric from the stash.  I happened onto a YouTube site designed to get rid of little bits and pieces of scraps.  My batiks are taking over the entire storage in my sewing room.  As I  often do appliqué pieces almost all my fabrics have a tencency to look like moths have gotten into my stash and had a banquet.  So this project really works well at slicing them up into various 1.5" to 2.5" strips and a few 5" squares for the corners and paper piecing them together.  They will become a quilt for the charity group as well.  This color group is more limited so lots of repeats, but I have tons of blue batiks and they are next.  

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THE NEW YORK BEAUTY EXPLOSION

 I have been playing around with some New York Beauty blocks for the past 2 weeks or so.  I started out with just going to make 4 blocks, but somewhere along the way I have morphed into a completely different idea with the entire project.  

I got the first 4 blocks done and then decided to add a couple of half square blocks and some of my Tim Holtz Elements fabric had pretty butterfly prints on them, and then things just sort of took off from there.

I added 2 more New York blocks.

And then another, and I am thinking I need 3 more now too.

Working with the Elements fabric is so much fun.

Now just to figure out what blocks I want and fabrics I want to include in the last 3 blocks and somehow get all these odd filler pieces sewn together and manage a perfectly square top.  I also found I needed couple more pieces of Elements fabric, so I am waiting for them to arrive. 

I know, really just a few more!

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FALL PUMPKIN IDEAS

I have been enjoying working on fun projects over the last two weeks.  Once I had some time I realized I have multiple patterns and fabrics bagged up that were set aside to work on someday.  Over the last couple of weeks I decided someday is finally here.    

Earlier in the year I purchased this pattern and decided to dig it out along with some orange scraps I had bagged up with it.

I decided on the wall hanging size and over the last couple of days have two of the three rows of the quilt top done.  I don't think I ever make anything that I do not in some way modify the pattern a bit.  I did decide to modify the lattice between the two rows.  I just found in my mind that the fussy vertical lattice in the pattern was just too much.     

Last week when I finished my summer mini quilt block for my kitchen wall I thought my pumpkin pattern scaled down to size would make a great fall one.  This has turned out to be lots of fun, and they go together in an afternoon start to finish. 

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MINI WALL HANGING AND NEW YORK BEAUTY BLOCKS

I finished all the blocks for my Rosemary & Thyme quilt.  Now just to get all of them up on the design wall and sewn together.  Now that is finished I can get a few mini projects handled and out of the way.

When I first saw a picture of the Rosemary and Thyme pattern on Facebook I thought I could master it by myself.  That did not work very well and I realized that after wasting a lot of fabric trying to figuring it out I would just buy the pattern and get over it.  But this block was my attempt and I didn't want to toss it.  So I took some time this week to make it a little wall hanging and put it up on the brick wall in our kitchen.

I have been working on these New York Beauty blocks.  Dee Christopher does a class every Saturday on the internet.  I get her classes by going to Alex Anderson's site but they are also offered  free on The Quilt Show site under Learn.  These little babies are paper pieced and I have had a wonderful time making them.  I have a lot of Tim Holtz Elements fabrics which I really love.  Not sure how I will finish it but I do have one more block to make, the blocks are 9.5" and I am sure I will do a border around them so maybe in the end 24" to 30" square.

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THREE GIFTS

 My oldest daughter is back in town from Colorado helping getting her husband's brother to Stanford Medical Center here in California for some medical appointments.  She always brings at least a couple of finished quilts and sometimes even a fun project to work on while she is here.  

This quit is a gift for a childhood friend's mother for her birthday coming up this week, I believe she said that Millie will be 96.

My daughter's quilter is really good, they selected this light background and it really shows off the red quilting so nicely.  

Our neighbors across the street gave my daughter some fabric when she was here in December visiting us.  She made this quilt as a gift for her.  It is really pretty long, great for someone tall.

Again her quilter did an amazing job with some really lovely quilting on it. 

The last item she brought was a 36 by 40 inch quilt top from left overs of the red quilt above.  It will be gifted to my charity group along with a binding we prepared for it of black and white dots fabric.

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ROSEMARY AND THYME

Summer has arrived it was 99 here yesterday and this morning 79 at 7am.  Wonderful weather to stay in and sew.   That is just what I have been doing.  I have been on to the second one of my sewing projects I have laid out for myself to accomplish during the next few months.  I tend to get bored after working on any project after a week or more so always have at least 2 or 3 going at any one time. 

Off and on I have been working on my Rosemary & Thyme pattern by CottonStreetCommons.com I purchased earlier in May.  I have blocks 1 and 2 competed.  These have just a bit of appliqué which I love doing.

This is the first of block 3 completed.  I have four more of this block to make and then on to make 4 of block number 4.  Just about ready to set them aside for a week or so and move on to yet another one of my other 2 projects I have lined up.  

But I really do finish projects.  The is my finished curved piecing blocks.  All six blocks completed and cut  at 8.5" and joined together to make a table runner of 16" by 24".  It is off to the quilters now.  

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FREE FORM CURVED BLOCKS

My Wisteria Wall is completely done, all the quilt show boutique items are finished.  I now can play with anything I want in the sewing room and do some fun things just because I want to.  My quilt guild offers classes several times a year.  Some are with professional quilters which we pay $40 to take, and twice a year two classes are offered free for guild members.  These are usually taught by a guild member and are always great fun and good classes.  I took one of them last week and by far one of the best ones I have ever taken.

The block pattern you make is all free form, on a 18" square of freezer paper you draw four circles starting from the middle and out, then you  cut the 18"square into four 9"squares.  Cut out each quarter circles pattern, iron them onto fabric and zig zag down onto stabilizer.

Then bias strips are made and sewn down to cover the zig zag.

I have three complete, two that need bias strips, and one more to

make a complete  table runner at 16" by 24".  Fun class and every one got one or two done.

This is a sample quilt that was shown to us of things one could do with the blocks.

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THE WISTERIA WALL

I finished a project this past week that I started in July of 2015.  It was something I realized when I got into it that I had no idea what I was doing or the skills to really make it happen.

When I got to this point I realized each and every one of the petals on the blossom had to be quilted.  Not being a free motion quilter, I knew I was in real trouble.  So I stashed it away until 2019 and began to work on it off and on through 2022.  

By that time I had all the blossoms, leaves, stems and vines fused on.  I now had to quilt them down.  

Between 2022 and this past week I picked it up off and on continuing to work on quilting down the blossom petals, leaves, stems, and vines.  Often months between working on them.  It was the hardest thing I have ever tried to do.  

This past week I finally finished quilting down the last blossom on it.  I have a sleeve sewn on the back and I am just finishing off the binding by hand.  It is not perfect, there are a few wrinkles in between some of the pieces.  Once I give it a good pressing I hope to eliminate some of those.  However, I told my husband that brick walls, that the red fabric is supposed to represent are not smooth, and the red batik fabric does have some dark shading and splotches, hopefully will  hide the wrinkles.  This piece has sentimental memories for me.  I just could not give up.

My husband's parents had a wisteria that hung over the top of their garage, which I found just so beautiful.  When we moved into our home we planted this wisteria, which reminded me of theirs.  I had been primarily raised by my grandmother without much of a mother or father in my life.  My husband parents were wonderful people and I loved them very much. They truly became my parents.  When our wisteria got to the point that it was completely tearing the fence down we had to remove it.  It made me very sad as both of my husband's parents had passed away and it was such a remind of them for me.  Thus the labor of love over making the wisteria wall hanging. 

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JUST COULD NOT RESIST ONE LAST JOANN'S SHOPPING SPREE

 Our JoAnn's is closing for good on the 17th of this month.  I did make a trip early last month when the closure began and purchased a few pieces of fabric.  Last Friday with them advertising 60% to 80% I decided I would make another trip in and see what was left.  Actually a good deal of fabric was still on the shelves.  Did I need more fabric no, but who could resist that sort of savings.

This unit was the real bargain.  Normally $120 at 60% off right out the door with me for $48.  I do have a wonderful sewing room but there never seems to be enough storage.

They did still require 2 yard cuts, but at 60% off it was pretty hard to resist.  I considered most of them pretty much staple colors that one will find useful, and for some reason despite lots of scissors I am constantly searching for one when I need one.  Of course ran into at least one friend with the same idea I had.  Still a little bit thinking I have a few more days, one could still manage to squeeze in one more shopping trip.  

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