Quiltalong - 2022

Thank you my lovely, it always amazes me how many blocks you can get out of what seems a relatively small amount of fabric

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Yesterday I managed to get the triangle corners on all 32 short strips and the first of 2 triangles on all 64 long strips for my Diamond Trip quilt. Yay for babies napping!

I’m doing a second row of stitching on each strip, so that when I cut off the excess fabric, I’ll get a tiny HST. Now the question is, what to do with 160 mini HST’s. They’re pretty small. Just under 2” each, so put together with a scant 1/4” seam allowance, they’d be about 1.5” finished.

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2" is pretty small but you can create all sorts of fun patterns with HSTs. 160 would make a whole pile of mug rugs!

I’m considering making a pillow. Using 12 squares by 12 squares would get me an 18” pillow. Maybe something like this…

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I love all the scrappiness!
@immaculata, it does look like the animals are playing peekaboo! Combining the fabric together the way you did worked nicely. In the blocks where there’s a body part, but no face, it just looks like part of the fabric pattern rather than “animal butts and beheaded animals.”
@Edel, you zipped right through that quilt! I really like how the contrasting blue binding with the burgundy sashing.
@marionberries, your rainbow blocks are looking really good! I’m excited to see how you put them all together.
@MistressJennie, I like your pillow idea for your scrapped scraps!

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I AudiobookLover, offer my favorite and least favorite projects for September’s prompt.

I have two favorite projects that I am currently working on. One favorite is the Candy Corn Quilt Shoppe wall hanging quilt that I am currently working on. I’m not a big Halloween person, but I love how the Halloween colors and fun blocks add to the whimsy of this quilt. I have also enjoyed the challenge of making a second version of this quilt for my mom without the fabric kit and embellishments. It’s been fun figuring out which fabrics would work best for hers and how I will recreate or substitute the embellishments. I worked on these quilts throughout the month of September and the first half of October last year. I recently started working on them again this year and am really hoping to have them finished by the start of October.

The Candy Corn Quilt Shoppe (this is what my version with the fabric and embellishment kits will look like when finished):

Quilted blocks I stitched out for mine and my mom’s quilts:

My other favorite is my Laura Heine bee collage. I really enjoyed the process of creating the collaged background. It was so much fun to add all the different details and figure out how to best place all the different elements! I just need to finish the binding on this one. For some reason, I sometimes have trouble when it gets to the final binding stage and I ran into so many issues with the binding of this small little quilt. When it seemed that the binding was finally going smooth, my needle broke and I had no replacements. At that point, I finally accepted that it was not going to be finished in the time frame I was pushing for and I set it aside.

My least favorite was another collage quilt. I made this wine glass for my mom for Mother’s Day. I did not find the process for this one even half as enjoyable as the process for the bee. I think the big difference was the backgrounds. The background on this one is a bunch of collaged fabric pieces, but it didn’t have the same fun factor as the background on the bee. I’m very happy with how the quilt came out, but it did not feel like fun to work on it.

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I love your Bee Collage! I’ve eyed that pattern/kit at my local quilt store for a few years. Now that the baby has arrived I want to make it even more. Her middle name is Beatrix, so we call her Ada B, which morphed into Ada Bumblebee. I feel like it would be awesome in her room.

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I have also seen that class at our Quilt Shop. Now that they are back having classes, I might check into it!

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What a cute nickname, @MistressJennie! You should definitely make one for her room. I would love to see all the ways you would go about personalizing it just for her!

@AIMR, I highly recommend taking the class. Having someone show me what to do definitely made the entire process a lot easier!

Quick tip - I’ve seen a lot of quilt shops/people doing tutorials suggest using steam-a-seam lite. According to Susy, the ‘Laura Heine certified’ instructor who taught the class I took, Laura Heine is so adamant about using regular steam-a-seam that when there was a shortage a few years back, Susy called and asked if she could just have students use the lite version and Laura told her no, she needed to cancel her class rather than do that. Susy showed us some quilts that she had used the lite version with and the edges of the appliqués were curling/fraying a smidge and looked like they had gone through the washer and dryer though they hadn’t.

Other interesting tidbit, Susy became Laura Heine’s traveling companion during the last class I took with her. So now she goes to all the big quilt shows with Laura, so there’s a chance that if you go to a show with a Laura Heine/Fiberworks booth, you just might meet Susy too!

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While digging through my stash I came across another ugly fabric. I really need to think about how I can use this one up.

It’s a 1 meter piece of cotton, fairly similar weight to quilting cotton but I think it was intended for garment sewing. I don’t think I bought it but it’s been in my stash for 15 years or so. The pattern is quite big and it has the colour of dried blood.

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My BOM quilt this year is a mostly solids/saturated.color theme. I fudge here and there as I can’t seem to stick to solids, not my favorite. As the Sept BOM just didn’t fit this quilt I made an alternative. I’ll make Sept’s BOM later this month.

-I marionberries offer September leaf for my small personal finish.

Here’s the quilt for now. I need to finish this before mid November…just three more blocks.

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I believe I have the match to that in a baby blue! lol

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Could it do for any Kitchen crafts or Christmas gifting? Gift bags?

use it as a lining in a bag, or as a sample/test pattern, or as an inner layer to reinforce lighter fabric (maybe the wrong side so the pattern isn’t as strong).

Or donate it somewhere. Someone will love it!

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It’s not easy to donate fabric craft supplies here. Thrift stores don’t want it and if you place an ad in a freecycle group, all you get is PMs asking if you’ve got diamond painting supplies! I’ve traded with friends but the issue is you get their ugly fabrics in return!

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I can’t count the bags of ugly fabric I’ve been “gifted”. I use it for pressing cloths, pillow inserts, sample/test clothing patterns, rags, garden ties, drop cloths for spray painting or spray glue, in the car to protect the trunk or seat from messy items, frost covers in the garden, backing to sewing/quilting projects that need extra support, etc.

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Am I the only one that doesn’t think it’s ugly?? :confused: :thinking:

I mean, I wouldn’t wear it, but there are plenty of things that could be made from it without offending anyone

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Oh, such as?? I’m open for ideas!!

I don’t think it’s extremely ugly but the blood colour is a bit odd and I can’t picture it as anything. The print is so complicated that it doesn’t seem “right” for a lot of things. Maybe as a curtain or a lamp shade? But I only have one meter.

The colour isn’t showing like that here, more of a browny colour - I know that might seem dried blood but that’s not what I’m seeing.

I’m trying to think of what I have made with ‘ugly’ fabric.

And it’s more than I thought!!

Currently, I’m in full on tote bag / pouch making mode and I can see this being a decent pouch outer or liner.

If Tote bag - either a frame of something contrasting or an inner pocket. By frame I mean a good pattern panel with this as edging.

Then mug rugs are great for odd bits of fabric, you can use them in so many ways to make patterns

And, bowl cosies for the microwave (if cotton)

Maybe the base fabric for a half pinny

The base for a needles / crochet hook wrap

Some ideas to ponder…

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I love this as a colour descriptor! (Perhaps not the colour itself)

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