hello

had frost here but enjoying the beautiful day,
Soon will have to be indoors all the time
enjoy
Grace

Glad Creations

Aren't the glad patterns wonderful? Theresa (still the lurker) has made several Glad patterns. Lots of pieces to cut...I have a kit from Glad - Milky Way - with Kansas Troubles fabrics that I should look at before too long. There are several of us taking a class at Glad on a Saturday in December (Road trip!) that should be fun. I do need to inventory kits sometime... HAD to pick up another one at the expo in Madison WI last week. From Material Girls in Nebraska - a bright folksy-fun applique. Total opposite of the subdued colors of Kansas Troubles. Glad you liked the Glad site. Joleen in MN

Glad Creations

Thank you, Joleen! I loved this site. Had never heard of them before. The patterns are very reasonably priced. The thing I liked the most (I think, although it's hard to tell) is that they all are based on traditional blocks. I've found myself getting back to those more and more lately.

Now I'm going to have to update my "to do" list again. And I'll also have to decide which ones (how many) of these I want to put on it.

Kathi

another stash buster

String quilts are another fun way to use scraps and can be gorgeous. Google string quilts and a bunch of sites come up - there is even a project called Heartstrings that makes quilts for charitable organizations. I made a black and white and bright quilt this year and have all of the scraps in a bag along with the directions for a string quilt - on my list of "to do's." Guild starts tonight and I can't wait. We start off with Glad Creations - if you haven't seen any Glad patterns, google them too! Gorgeous stuff. Joleen in MN

A Different Type of Mile-A-Minute

There was a magazine article on another type of Mile-a-Minute quilt that was developed by Carol Coski of www.quiltaway.com in 2000. I made seven of her style of quilts from the truly random mess in my scrap basket. I've got some photos of one of the couch quilts in my Webshots album at

http://home-and-garden.webshots.com/album/174804229QyDpIA

Judy in Ohio

Here is the M-a-M quilt I did last year for my bed -- I needed something the cats could destroy without breaking my heart. :)

Great way to use scraps of all sorts, orphan blocks, trimmed bits of strips sets, and anything else you might have lurking in your scrap basket!

I have done some very pretty ones, with a planned colour selection, but this one was made using everything on hand with no colour selection process whatsoever. Very liberating!

Jean

Found it!

I guess my old(ish) mind was mis-remembering. The quilt is a pinwheel, not a star. I was thinking that if I used a solid in every other square, rather than making it totally scrappy, the MOM blocks might work. Now I'll have to do some experimenting.

BTW, this was a king sized quilt that I made for a friend. She is a seamstress and made me some jackets in exchange.

Kathi

Hmmm.....

Now you've got me thinking. I wonder how the mile a minute would look in that tesselated star quilt that you make as a one-patch and then cut with a template. I'll have to keep that one on the back burner to do when the weather gets colder.

I did make a quilt back once using the mile a minute technique, but with much larger scraps of fabric. In fact I think I used it on the back of one of those star quilts. Now I'm going to have to look through the picture files.

Kathi

Here's the Start of Something "Wonky" ....

I told you I was going to create something "wonky" and after some days of tearing up ideas (too many points, trying to use too many fabrics) I have finally settled on using only six points per quadrant and am happily stitching away. The next crisis will come when I have to decide what to put in the center.

Who me, plan ahead? Where's the fun in that??

Judy in Ohio

Using scraps.

A few years ago I made a scrap qult out of random strips of fabric. I gave it away and have completely forgotten how I made it. I think it was called "Mile a minute" ? Maybe, maybe not... I've got lots of strips and need to use them up ! Any help or direction would be welcome !

Marion

RESPECTABILITY

I saw directions somewhere in the past year about using up scraps of a lot of different shapes and sizes. Simply make foundations of your choice of shape and size out of muslin. Then start sewing scraps onto them randomly, cutting away pieces that don't fit as one does with paper piecing. Then put the blocks together. I'm sure that some long strips vertical or horizontal or both would enhance the whole appearance to look as though there is some intended order even when there isn't one. That's on my list of things to do for guest room. I've also taken a One Block Wonder class taught by a very talented woman in my guild. She and her DH do a lot of teaching. Can't wait to work on that too.

Very long and busy day today and I'm fading fast. I'm off to bed leaving a kitchen full of dirty dishes.

Jane

Jane in NC Says I'm Respectable ... Hah!

Jane in NC made a comment about my collection of wonky stripes fabrics in a previous posting and said I had made the idea of a "wonky quilt" respectable.

Jane, I did not think up that idea all by myself .... blame it on the famous Jean Wells of Sisters, Oregon. Her book with a subtitle of "adventures in art quilting" (which I found at Amazon.com) gets credit for leading me down the path to being a bit daring in my old age.

http://www.amazon.com/Intuitive-Color-Design-Adventures-Quilting/dp/1571207856/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1315859961&sr=1-1

If you click on that link and read about that book there will be references to other books as well. If you have a ton of scraps it is fun to play with "abnormal" piecing, piecing that is "outside the lines" so to speak because this is fabric that has been just sitting around getting well aged and dusty. It is not as if you have invested in new fabric and are afraid of hurting it .... it's old fabric so go ahead and try something a bit frivolous or silly.

If you don't like it, toss it.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Faint heart never filled a flush. (Bret Maverick's pappy said that.)

Judy in Ohio who dares everyone to try something wonky before they kick the bucket.

There are still those of us who check the page every day or so, hoping that someone will post something!!! I used to love the original site. But I, for one, don't always have something quilty to say. Right now, my sewing room is torn up down to the drywall and cement floor because we had to have some foundation work done. The workers came a month later than expected so I have been unable to do anything quilty since before July 4. The work is done but dh has not stepped in to help get my room finished again. Huge Boo Hiss. The room isn't important to him (nor is my quilting) so he's in no hurry. And I've been wanting to start some projects for Christmas.

On a positive note, I have almost all of my new fabric prewashed and ironed, just have one load left. One load to do on that. I got a new washer and dryer and had to learn how to do laundry all over again and haven't tried the fabric. My big board also needs a new covering. So there are all these bumps in the road! I also added borders to a huge quilt that I started several years ago featuring the Vienna Nights fabrics from Moda. I have it marked for a scalloped edge, but haven't been able to sew on the curved lines before having it quilted.

So that's my story. I'm so happy to come and see that someone has posted with comments!!
judy in ar

Finished the "Spinning Wheels Spatter Drops" Wall Hanging

As long as I am babbling today I might as well show that I have finished the wall hanging that I posted a photo of some time ago. I had quilted this thing in metallic threads and then changed my mind .... metallic threads just sank into the fabric over the wool batting and lost their glitter in such a way that it was pretty pathetic. So I spent a lot of time taking that metallic thread quilting out of this 28" x 28" beastie. (But it is all part of getting older and wiser, isn't it?) I selected a Superior Threads variegated thread called "Joseph's Coat" and had a grand time with that stitching on the black fabric. Each diamond shape got its own color, of course.

Photos of Colorful Items Even Though They Are Not Bed Quilts

I'm beginning to think that there are no quilters left on the WWQP Bulletin Board any more. There are chatters over on the chat page but I've not seen anyone post a photo of a quilt on this page in a very long time so I'll just use it for a brief "show and tell" of what I did yesterday and what I plan to do in the days ahead. Yesterday there was a one day mystery adventure that promised a table runner that was sponsored by "Merry Mayhem" at Planet Patchwork. I chose Christmas colors and used snowflake fabrics I found at JoAnn's ... no great investment in case the project turned out to be a disaster. It was quite simple and I might be tempted to do this thing again because it was indeed very simple and it was done in a day despite the fact I had an aching back.

The other image shows my design wall more or less plastered with fabrics I begged off of my friends at another forum. I plan to enter a contest sponsored by a guild in Australia and I need lot of "wonky stripe" fabrics. I put out a call to my buddies on the other forum and they, fabric fiends that they are, came through with a flurry of envelopes with bits and pieces of glorious colorful "wonky" stripes that cannot possibly go together. But I shall try my best. LOL

Judy in Ohio