Good Vibrations

 

I had this fabric in my stash of 1-metre/yard fabrics for use in a 3-yard quilt. I chose it as appropriate for a man's quilt, and started working on it, using the Heartland quilt pattern from Fabric Cafe. I like the strong, bold and slightly funky combination.  

I didn't want to use flowers or feathers for the quilt design for this bold quilt. And, as I have mentioned previously, I'm trying to use pantographs that I haven't used before. This one is Tiger Stripes, a design from Willow Leaf Studio, which has not been reproduced by Urban Elementz. It's not one of my simpler pantographs, and denser than I would normally use with a minky-backed quilt (the minky is black, not grey as it appears in this picture). But it turned out fine. A nice strong design for a masculine quilt.  

Flower Boxes

 

Someone shared a quilt idea on Facebook, where you cut squares of striped fabric and then cut the squares diagonally and then stitch the triangles together in such a way as to get a totally new look. I thought that was a great idea and saved it for later. 
I decided to try this technique for one of the five quilts. I had some of the striped fabric that I used in the border and sashing of I'll Fly Away left over. But the technique from the Facebook post required that I cut precisely to include only one pattern repeat across the stripes. It looked awesome, but that would limit the size of the final blocks and require a degree of precision that I didn't have time to invest in. So I decided to see if Jenny Doan of Missouri Star Quilt Company had anything to offer on YouTube for this technique. And sure enough, I found what I needed. 

Thanks Jenny and MSQC!
And I changed my mind about my fabric choices, and instead chose a floral stripe I had in my stash. I had originally purchased it to make a triangle frenzy table runner, but then decided it wouldn't really work well for that pattern. I had enough fabric to make a bigger quilt than what Jenny made in the video, which is what I wanted. I even have a couple of blocks left over. I pulled some navy solid fabric from my stash and had enough for the border, but not enough for the binding. And not enough in any other colour that might work. And there was nothing in my local quilt shop that would work either. So I took the quilt top into the next closest quilt shop and she helped me find the striped fabric that picked up some of the colours in the quilt top. It worked well. 

I used the Country Garden pantograph, which I really don't find all that pretty. I won't be in a hurry to use it again. It's not from Urban Elementz, by the way. It's one that I bought used, and I don't know if it's even available any more. 
I wanted to deliver this quilt to the recipient in person, as I haven't seen her in a few years. She lives in another community about 45 minutes drive away. But between my daughter's work schedule, when I'm responsible for my grandson, and trying to get ready for vacation, including finishing a king-sized quilt, I just haven't had the opportunity. So, I resorted to Canada Post. 
 

Ribbons and Wreaths

 

I'd had this wreath fabric in my stash for a few years. I don't remember where or when I bought it, but I think it's very pretty. 

One would almost think it's a Christmas fabric, with green and red being the dominant colours, and those flowers in the corners could pass for poinsettias. But the other flowers and the butterflies are certainly not Christmas. And I double-checked the selvage to see what the fabric line was called. It said something about "Australian" and nothing to indicate that it was Christmas. 
So, I was determined to use it in another of the 5 quilts. The difficulty with this kind of fabric is that it works best to use it either as one whole piece, surrounded with a border, or as individual panels. Unfortunately, there is often distortion with printing the fabric and the panels are not necessarily straight with the grain, or perfectly square. And if there isn't a definite border to the panel. one has to decide where to cut. In this case, I chose to cut right through the centre of the flower sashing. And then one might discover that the panels are not a reasonable measurement that works well with an alternate quilt block. These panels are not even square, and measure about 10" x 11¾", for a finished size of 9½" x 11¼", so rather weird dimensions. Which left me with the challenge of coming up with a block that would work with those dimensions. 
Inspired by a design in one of my 3-yard quilt books, I created a really simple block, and chose to avoid red and green as the colours to avoid the Christmas-y look. Instead I used the purple that is in the wreaths, together with green, and a beige Stonehenge fabric in the same colour family as the background of the wreath fabric, for the background fabric in the blocks. And I'm very pleased with how the quilt turned out. 

This is the quilt for which I had to juggle the backing fabrics. After determining the backings for the other 4 quilts, I was left with hot pink, which just wouldn't have worked with this one. So, I decided that the celery-coloured one that I had originally planned for Ashford Square would go to this one, the blue that I had planned for Butterfly Sanctuary would move to Ashford Square, and the hot pink would be used on Butterfly Sanctuary. The other two, which I haven't shared yet, remained with the planned backings. 
I chose Forest Floor for the quilting. It's not a really distinct design, so I really don't like it that well. But it's also not going to compete for attention with the quilt top. Another pantograph that I haven't used before. 
I named this quilt Ribbons and Wreaths because the effect of the cascading blocks reminds me of curling ribbon.

Butterfly Sanctuary

 

For another one of the 5 quilts, I wanted to express hope. And butterflies to me have always expressed hope. While rummaging in my stash of 1 yard/1 metre cuts, I found these 2 butterfly fabrics. 

But I didn't necessarily want to use them together. And then I remembered that I had purchased some butterfly fabric last year. Most of last year's purchases are still piled in a rough tote, waiting to be organized and shelved. Or maybe just used in a quilt. 😁

I'll be honest: I was rather loath to part with this one. It's so beautiful. But not every beautiful fabric can end up in a quilt for me. Just like I can't keep every beautiful quilt that I make. 
Neither of the first butterfly fabrics would coordinate well with this one. Although the lighter one actually has a pink background (I know it looks more mauve in the picture), the pink was too light. 

But this one is a much more vibrant pink and would echo the bright pinks in the white fabric. 

And this one would pick up some of the blues. 
So, I had my 3 fabrics, and then had to choose a pattern. I considered a double focus pattern because both the white and the blue are large prints. I especially wanted a large block for the white print. I ended up choosing Traditions from the book Make It Christmas, as it has a 10" square of the focus fabric and I felt that the 4" squares in the alternate blocks were big enough to feature some of the butterflies in the blue fabric. 

For the quilting, I chose Butterfly Charm. While I am trying to use pantographs in my collection that I haven't used before, nothing but Butterfly Charm would work for this one. And I have used it before as I have made 2 butterfly-themed quilts previously: Butterflies and Blooms and Take Flight, plus I used it once in quilting a friend's quilt. 
And yes, this is the quilt that received the hot pink backing. I had originally planned on using the blue backing that I used in Ashford Square, but as I mentioned, the hot pink just wasn't going to work in the final quilt of the 5 quilts. But it worked fine for this one. I just hope the recipient appreciates pink!

Ashford Square

I finished my 5 quilts, maybe not in a week, but probably about 9 or 10 days altogether, even if they weren't consecutive days. And of the 5 of them, this one is my favourite. I find it very peaceful. The pattern is found in Fabric Cafe's book, Quilts in a Jiffy, and for once I actually named the quilt with the same name as the pattern. 
Like most 3-yard quilt patterns, it went together quite quickly and makes a nice snuggle-size quilt. Especially with a minky backing. 

Originally, I was going to use a celery-coloured backing, but when I decided to make 5 quilts, I had to juggle the backing fabrics to make sure I had a better-coordinated backing for each quilt. I only had 5 minky backings to work with. But the blue is fine. It was the hot pink/coral one that wasn't going to work with the 5th quilt. In the future, I may just buy neutral minky, so it can coordinate with any quilt top. 
Ordinarily, I would have chosen a flower-themed pantograph to quilt this quilt, but I'm actually trying to use each pantograph I own at least once to justify it taking up storage space in my house. And really dense designs don't work very well with minky. I've used my more open flower-themed designs at least once before, so my options were limited. This one is Nifty Feathers, an 8" Urban Elementz design that appears to have been retired, as I couldn't find it on the website. It's a pretty generic design that would work well with most quilts, and works up quite quickly. And as I have said before, the average recipient of a quilt doesn't even notice, let alone care, what quilt design I use on the quilt. 
Now to get this, and the other four, to their intended recipients. 

 

5 Quilts in a Week?

 

Flower Boxes on the longarm; Ribbons and Wreaths (left) and Butterfly Sanctuary (right) on the design wall in the background

My daughter, grandson and I will be going to Ontario for a family reunion this summer. We each are allowed 3 pieces of luggage: one personal item, one carry-on and one checked bag. Because it's summer and we won't be needing heavy clothing, and we're only staying for a week, I'm hoping there will be room enough in our bags for some quilts. I would like to finally finish three bed-sized quilts that I want to take with me to give to their intended recipients. So, I would like to focus on getting them done before our departure date. 
But in the meantime, I wanted to get some snuggle quilts done first. Five of them, only one of which was already started before last week. And I determined to see if I could get all 5 of them done in one week, so that I could focus on spending the rest of my time working on those 3 bed-sized quilts. And I nearly accomplished it. I have 3 already quilted and ready for binding (Good Vibrations, Flower Boxes and Ribbons and Wreaths). Butterfly Sanctuary is ready for the longarm, and Ashford Square will also be ready for the longarm as soon as the borders are added. 
I was making great progress and then on Friday, I hit a snag. I had no fabric that would work for the binding on the Flower Boxes quilt, which necessitated a trip to the quilt shop. But I had already been to my local quilt shop and didn't find what I wanted. So, I was going to go out of town to the next nearest quilt shop, about 20 minutes drive away. And then my daughter got called into work, so I would be responsible for overseeing my grandson's virtual schooling. And since she was working over the weekend (she's working in healthcare), I decided on some "field trips" with my grandson. On Sabbath afternoon, we went to Elk Island National Park. 

It was gorgeous there, and we exhausted ourselves with over 4 km of hiking. That doesn't sound like much, but most of it was not smooth, paved trails like in the above picture. And that was a lot for this old grandmother who hasn't exercised regularly in too long. 
On Sunday, we took in the Edmonton Reptile Expo and the Alberta Aviation Museum. On Monday, my daughter was asked to work for the rest of the week, for a total of 8 days straight. So, even though my grandson is old enough to not require a whole lot of direct supervision from me, I still had to feed him and my daughter (they usually stay with me when she's working) and I haven't done any quilting this week. And today is Thursday. Maybe today...

Quilter's Scrap Pantry: a Book Review

 I received a free digital review copy of Quilter's Scrap Pantry by SusanClaire Mayfield. through Net Galley. I have not received any compensation for this review.

Organizing my fabric leftovers is something that I must make a priority, so that's why I requested this book on NetGalley. And I was looking forward to what the author had to share with me. 
She starts off with basic quilting equipment, supplies and techniques. To me, this seems rather redundant to a quilter with enough experience to have a collection of scraps to organize. On the other hand, starting out organized might prevent the scrap hoard from getting out of control like mine. She then goes on to describe the choices of containers required to keep your scraps organized. I will say that this inspired me to look online to see what might work for me. I already have several units of Kallax shelving units from Ikea in my studio, so I explored what was available for storage in these units. I was very pleased to find these

and these. 

I'll start with this metal mesh bin. I have several of the fabric bins that fit the Kallax shelving. Most of them are storing yarn, but in one of them I had my layer cakes and some coordinating yardage. However, the fabric bin was not sturdy enough to support all of that fabric. So, I decided I'd try this metal one. Unfortunately, it doesn't appear to be sturdy enough to support all of that weight either. I tried to pull it out again to add another item or two and it started to bend. There is a rattan basket available at Ikea that fits these shelves as well and I might have to try one of those for my layer cakes instead. 
The plastic storage boxes in the first picture, however, are great. I bought a total of 8 of them, but will likely buy more as I gradually organize my shelves. The two in the picture contain fabric panels in the top one and jelly rolls and charm squares in the bottom one. They are 13" square on the outside, but I haven't had a chance to see if they will store a 12½" quilt block flat. That would be really awesome if they did. I also find that the boxes that they come in are a great size for storage/shipping. 
So, if nothing else, this book has inspired me to actually do something to start getting organized. 
The next part of the book details her suggested method of organizing. The author cuts her leftovers into smaller pieces of predetermined sizes, ranging from 1½" squares to 6½" squares and then various rectangles as well, plus some uncut strips. She then assembles some of these pieces into units: 4-patch, 9-patch, snowball blocks, flying geese and HSTs. 
I honestly see a great deal of merit in her method. It would simplify and expedite using up one's scraps if you just had to open a box/drawer/bag that had the correct size in it, make your selection and start sewing. However, for me, I have a few issues with this method. The first thing is the HSTs. I rarely trim anything, so I prefer to start with 2⅞" squares, for example, when I want a finished size of 2". I don't want to start with a 3" square and have to trim. All of the effort I've put into saving time by precutting all of my scraps is then taken up by having to trim all of my HSTs. And I hate trimming. The second issue is the flying geese units, which she makes using the stitch and flip method, which wastes fabric when you have to cut the corners off. I hate wasting fabric and prefer the no-waste method, which requires measurements by the quarter and eighth inches. These are not included in her pre-cuts. She has whole and half inches. And to start trying to include quarter and eighth inches would be overwhelming. I think she made the best choice by only including the ones she did. But that doesn't mean that it's going to work for me. Because I never know where, when and how I'm going to end up using my fabric leftovers, I prefer to leave them as the large pieces that they are. That way I can determine what size to cut them when I do get around to using them. And some of my pieces are large enough that they have filled in a gap in a quilt I was working on. If I had already cut them down into multiple pieces of various sizes, I couldn't have done that. So, my boxes instead will be mostly the pieces as they are when I'm finished the quilt they were originally purchased for. I plan to organize them by colour. Just having them organized in individual boxes, rather than all over my studio, or piled haphazardly on a shelf, will definitely help me in my quilt-making and scrap use. 
I'm not totally ruling out the author's method, however. I think I may use it on a more limited basis when I have a particular scrappy project in mind. Currently, I have in mind a project that will require 480 HSTs that are 2½" finished size. That means I will need 240 each light and dark 3⅜" squares. So precutting these as I'm organizing my fabric leftovers makes sense for me. 
Before I continue with my review of the book, I'd just like to point some things out about digital review copies of a book. These are not final, published copies, so there are lots of imperfections. In this particular book, several of the photographs are upside down. And some pictures appear more like some glowing apparition. 

Like this, 

or this. There are also outlines that should contain diagrams, but they are empty. There are paragraphs that are not where they're supposed to be and instructions that are out of order. If I was reviewing a finished copy of a book, then I would likely make some comments about the layout and pictures, but this is not possible with this digital review copy.
Moving on in the book, the next section tells how to assemble the various units to make blocks and full quilts. Normally, when I review a quilting book, I like to make at least one project from the book so that I can discover from experience how clear the instructions are. I wasn't sure if I was going to do that with this book for two reasons. The first reason is that I consider this book more about organizing fabric scraps and not so much a book about making quilts. And the second issue, of course, is the lack of usable pictures and diagrams. It appeared that it would have to be a mystery quilt, if I wanted to attempt it at all. But then I got towards the back of the book and suddenly there were diagrams of blocks and full quilts. And the quilts looked interesting enough that I wanted to try one. So, I chose the medallion quilt. And while I didn't have the precut squares/rectangles and premade units, and I did follow my preferred methods for making HSTs and flying geese, it still was a great pattern. Some of the instructions were out of order in my copy, but they were numbered, so I was still able to follow them. They are in simple, plain English and easy to follow. The steps are very clear.

So, this will be the very first quilt that I have made fully from quilt leftovers. It's a lot of fun and I'm happy with how it's turning out. I wanted this post to include a picture of the completed quilt, but other projects interrupted and I think I've waited long enough to post my review. 
The author finishes the book with instructions on how to bind a quilt (did I miss the quilting part?) and further ideas for how to use scraps. Aside from my personal preferences for how I want to manage my scraps, I feel this is a very worthwhile book.