Scrappy Hearts

First off, I've been working on lots of quilts this year.  I've finished several tops recently. Finished a few whole quilts including backing and binding.  The stack above is all my finished quilts from the last several months.  They are all baby or lap sized.  These were the easy finishes.  Most of them can be found on my quilt gallery page.

This stack here, nestled in amongst all my office supplies, still needs finishing.  These are the bigger quilts.  Eleven in all.  In there is also my La Passacaglia that I finally finished this year (only took 6 years).  

One of the quilts I'm working on now is my scrappy hearts quilt.  I was intrigued by Youtube videos of "making your own fabric" with scraps.  I have so many scraps that my bins were spilling everywhere.  

The thing I find most curious with scraps is how slow they go down when you start working with them.  I've made loads of "fabric sheets" and still my scrap bins seem to be at the same level as when I started.  I just randomly sew together any and every bit of scraps, no rhyme or reason to it.  I love doing it when I need to destress and get my mind off of something.  

I'm using all low volume fabrics for the background.  I didn't want to make the whole quilt with heart blocks just because I was getting bored of making them so I decided to use low volume 9 patches in-between.  Who knows I may change my mind about these 9 patches but I do like the all over scrappiness and think it will look really cool once I get all the blocks together.  Buuutt looking at it through the photo it almost seems too much and detracts from the hearts.  We'll see where it goes.  

I'm making 21 heart blocks and the same number of 9 patches.  Each block is 12" finished.  The overall quilt should measure about 72" x 84".  I don't have any plans for it yet - just enjoying the process.

I'm debating if I should add some dark stitches to the edge of the heart like I did here.  Some of the blocks ended up having lighter fabrics on the edges so I thought this would help distinguish the edges a little better.  Or maybe doing the darker stitches on the outside of the heart instead once all the layers are together and I'm doing the final quilting.  Either way I feel like this quilt should have some pretty dense quilting.  This sort of sums up my quilting process...start with and idea, work on it, ponder it, work on it, change it, decide to live with it,  eventually we get there.

La Passacaglia update

I am just finishing up my last (9th) of Rosette No. 4.  I have been working on this for almost 2 years now.  I last shared about my work here.  After that post it went on hold for awhile.  Then I discovered a video how Sue Daley uses a glue pen with her paper pieces instead of thread basting them and I had to give it a try.  Watching her whip through basting those pieces I was like... Wait. What?!  I don't know what rock I had been living under.  How did I not know about this before now?

Through some more exploring I came upon this site by The DIY Addict.  Her videos helped me figure out how to get my work to lay flatter when I used paper pieces.  You can see in the photo above the one on the left was what a start of a rosette looked like before and the right one was how much flatter some of her tips helped me get them.

So once I got through all the new information I bought myself a glue pen.  Then printed out some fresh new paper pieces.  I use these in addition to my Millefiori Quilts book.  Well worth the cost since you have the patterns ready to print forever and can even print them directly on fabric.  Although I prefer printing on card stock and cutting them out myself.

Here are my rosettes up until now.  Some of these I posted before but now they are all in one place.

You might notice that some of these are done with papers and some just stitched together.  I went back and forth but now that I am armed with some new techniques I hands down choose the paper piecing.

Deconstructing a Shirt to Repurpose

I found this shirt at the Goodwill a few month's back. (I already started deconstructing at this point so the sleeves are gone.)  I love the style of it, the color and the fabric. (Minus the wrinkles of course. Pressing came after it was fully deconstructed.)  It was on the verge of will it fit and I just don't try anything on until I bring it home first.  

I bought it anyway.  It didn't fit so back in the donation pile it went.  But it kept peeking out of the bag at me.  Every time I would go near the bag there was that red saying I'm in here! Don't get rid of me just yet.  I even took it back out of the bag and tried it on again.  But no.  Still didn't fit.  I tried thinking of how I could remake it into some other type of clothing like a tank but the middle was the most snug and I wasn't into figuring out what to use to make it look like I was trying to expand the middle.  I have remade several of my clothes into something for my kids.  I think they like the idea that what they now have is a shirt that was just like mine.  I'm sure I'll only be able to do that for another couple of years at least for my youngest before she thinks it's corny. 

There it is with the sleeves...sort of.  I had a moody child home sick... 

...who's sweat shirt was too small and wouldn't take her Patriots hat off all day.  

Back to the shirt! My scrap boxes have been growing so I've been working on cutting scraps up into 2", 2 1/2", 3" & 5" squares.  I love cutting squares.  It's the perfect thing to do when I want to be at my sewing table and not think too much.  Since nothing else was coming to me and before the shirt made it's way into the depths of my sewing table not to emerge for another couple month's I thought I would just tackle it and turn it all into 2 1/2" squares.  Part of my reasoning for that is because the rayon is so wonky to work with it's best to have a smaller piece that hopefully won't give me too much trouble while I'm trying to match everything up.  I haven't worked with red in such a long time that I'm due.  I guess this isn't red red.  More of a coral-ish red-ish.   Maybe an Irish chain wall or lap quilt, table runner.  I've got enough for a doll skirt..that would be cute.  I guess we will have to wait and see what strikes me.  For now I'll add it to my box of scrappy squares. 

For deconstructing I just cut everything apart at the seams.  Then I trimmed all seams and hems off so it was easier to cut and then just sliced away.  I love that I repurposed something and that I got to keep the shirt after all.  

I was able to get 116 squares out of just the body.  I left the two arms because I thought I might like to incorporate some of the color into my La Passacaglia. Plus I also took off 10 gold buttons I can add to my grandmother's button jars.