Giving Lots of Attention ...

... to my rotary cutter. 

Not a lot of sewing but Hippy Ya Hey! I'm having fun playing with fabric. Mostly flannel. In every colours I have. 

What am I going to do with all these freshly harvested pieces? 

(This is a nice image of whom I call my Super Seam Ripper btw.)

For one, I need to finish this crumb block quilt. 

I did a few more crumb blocks, 

all the while, I had a nagging feeling that the crumb part was done. Sure enough! I found the crumb blocks, chilling on the shelf, waving at me while I search every drawers!  Well, I now have too many blocks done. Care to guest what will be part of the backing? 

That's what I love about making quilts. It's like homemade cookies. It never goes to waste. 

I needed a break from all this cutting and looked at blogs. I visited Marly's Quilts page. She has a new project and Oh! My! Gallbladder is full! This is an easy and quick quilt to make with my flannel. 

Armed with a new blade in my rotary cutter, I took off, head first, into the jungle of flannel and  ...

... it's fun!!! This corona-coaster is really doing a number on me because cutting is my least favourite thing about quilt making. 

You wouldn't say that seeing this, now would you? The plastic bag on the right is full of little pieces for more crumb blocks for a one-day-I-will-make kind of project. 

Of course, it didn't just disappeared. It is piling up somewhere else but it's in neat piles. I'm so happy! 

Lots of bigger pieces, big enough to be folded. Some long pieces that are wide enough to become a scrappy binding so I am leaving them like that. 

Then, there's this. I am only catching up with the bigger pieces as I forgot to cut those sizes at the beginning. If I were to put the 2.5 X 4.5 pieces in one pile it would be over 4.5" high.  Maybe I'm cutting for two quilts? Haha! 

I took another break from cutting and got these done. 

Split 9-Patch for placemats. Only half of one placemat is made. Not even assembled. At that speed, we might have new placemats for Christmas. 

This is what Marly made me do, lol. (kidding) Don't expect too many like this one as all these pieces were given to me. I don't buy pink flannel for good reasons. The layout will have to be different from what Scrap Snap shows. Something will come to me eventually. Right now, I'm enjoying the fact that the flannel is being used. 

Have a great one. 

;^)

Joining 

Cynthia at Quilting is More Fun than Housework

Frédérique at Patchwork and Quilts 

Judy at Small Quilts and Doll Quilts

Sarah at Confessions of a Fabric Addict

I Didn't Mean To

Look who is sporting triple borders! 

It's Stubborn Jacob! 

It was a lot of work to straighten this quilt out but I succeeded because I'm stubborn (as per my mother). (Cathy said that my middle name should be Persistence. I like that! ♥)

Anywho! 

Yes, I almost called it Stubborn Jacob and then ... second thoughts, it's too pretty for such an awful name so how about Jacob's Summer? Blue sky, green grass, blue lake. I like Jacob's Summer. 

I believe I do have enough of the dark fabric left to do the binding, whenever JS is ready to be bind. Yay! Thanks for all the encouragements. :^D 

June is Pink month so ... 

I got my bag (scrap basket not made yet) of pink and purple out. It's bursting! Okay, so some chop, chop later and ...

... I still had to separate them as there was still too much scraps for one bag. Oh well! 

I did manage to get two buttons and a spool out of the bag. 

For the crumb blocks, I had to pay a little visit to my stash as variety was absent. 

What's that? Are you asking about the split 9-patch block beside the crumb blocks? Yes, well, let me tell you something. 

Sometimes things just happen. It creeps up on you so slowly that you are barely aware of what is going on until it's too late. That's what happened! 

It went like this.  

Remember the big bags of scraps I received recently? Well, of course I had fun and lots of Ahs and Ohs were heard but I like to put away the scraps and I am running out of room. 

Since there were a lot of triangles in the gifted bags and the container of 2.5" squares scraps is full, I decided to do something with those two. Something simple like placemats which I do need by the way. 

Split 9-Patch is very easy to make and could be my leader-ender as I take care of another UFO, right?  Right! (insert chuckles here)

Sew triangles together, trimmed them down, dig some 2.5" squares out, got some 3" squares out to make more 2.5" HSTs.  Everything was going so well. 

Somehow, one container got empty. Whoop Whoop! So was my cup of coffee. Got more coffee, came back down to the basement and ... 

"Any other container with fabric that I could use in the placemats?" 

How about that small one beside the sewing machine? what's in there? 

All kind of pieces from different projects and they can all go back into the scraps bins. 

There were also lots of 2.5" squares (which I need) sewn together in a 4-Patch design. Hmmm! Maybe I can make one placemat with 4-Patch blocks? 

You can see on the right hand side, the previous empty container got a new job; it's now holding scraps sewn together to make crumb blocks. This will be kept close at hand and be a second leader-ender thingy. 

Oh! Did I got to the bottom of this container too? 

Look at the space beside my sewing machine! Am I really cleaning up my sewing room? 

GOSH! I better sit down and wait for this feeling to pass! Lol.

You know what? I can really work on a big UFO now. I got space and plenty of HSTs and squares to make 6, 8, 25 placemats! On the top right side corner of the last photo is a big pile of triangles still waiting to become HSTs!!

So...

It is time for these flannel crumb blocks to become a top. Yay! It's the third and last crumb block quilt I need to make for the boys. 

Now the real sewing fun can begin ... have a great weekend! 

;^)

Joining: 

Wendy at Wendy's Quilt 

Sarah at Confessions of a Fabric Addict

Denise at For the Love of Geese

Angela at So Scrappy

Cynthia at Quilting is More Fun than Housework

Frédérique at Patchwork and Quilts

336

I need 336 inches of fabric for the last border around Jacob's Ladder. Then I need another one 340 something long for the binding.  o_o

I love this fabric and I think it suits JL beautifully. 

But do I have enough? You see, it has been used before and it's not a meter anymore. 

I really hope my math are accurate otherwise ... I have a lot of dark blue strings, haha! 

I got a surprise this morning. A friend dropped two big bags on my porch. 

Guess what's in the bags? 

Of course, scraps!! What else would make me so giddy? Gift bags full of not-so-small scraps. My evening will be fabric therapy with a glass of wine. :^D 

And now for a real Ta-Dah! moment, here is 

Amid Joy all finished. 

It was a little sew-along hosted by Temecula last December. Nope, it was December 2018. Whaaaat! That long ago? Time flies but I ain't anymore, lol. 

I called it Amid Joy because I recall the fun I had making this one ... and how easy life was back then. 

Not the best machine quilting, but it was a good practice run. I've repeated those little leaves in the green border.  

A simple cream on red floral for the backing. It finishes at 30.5 inches. 

Another one off the UFO list. Only 30 more to do.  

Neeexxxt!  (hehe) 

Have a great weekend. 

;^)

Joining my friends at 

Sarah at Confessions of a Fabric Addict

Angela at So Scrappy 

Frédérique at Patchwork & Quilts

Fixed It and Would You?

This week, I managed to fix the spools blocks. (It was an easy one or three.) They all sport a new "thread" to be tall enough to fit in the quilt. (see last post to know more about this adventure)

Before and ...

after.

Now to fix the bigger problem.

Jacob's! 

If you don't know about my latest migraine, trial, challenge, you can read it here.

This quilt, which had more than one sewing machine making the blocks way back when is totally crooked.

It measures 86 inches long. Every column!
The rows are something else.
The bottom ones are 60 1/4".
The middle ones are 60".
The top ones are 60 3/4". Yeah! I had so much fun. At one point, I considered taking it all apart as I did with Field of Poppies (a.k.a. Good Fortune). But I restrained myself.

I spent 4 hours, measure, unstitch, measure, sew, measure, unst....(Good enough!) and calculate how large the blue border had to be in order to fit the pieced border.

I sew the blue border, added the pieced border and

ended up short. What! Went over the calculations again until I realized that I hadn't cut the corner of the blue border at the beginning and it was 1/4 longer than what it should have been. Unstitch the pieced border, cut the blue one properly, sew back the pieced border. Thank goodness for Super Seams Ripper. I distanced some blocks to reach my goal. Phew. My calculations were right. Yes. Finally got it working!! Whoop Whoop! On to the next side.

On a very windy Friday, I tried to take a few pictures. Most of them look like that. I hung it sideways because it is too long.

For a fraction of a second, it behaved and I was able to snap this picture. I love this quilt. The blue border looks very weird to me but it is what it is.


Now, would you add another border to frame the pieced one?

Or would you just leave it to the binding to frame it?

I think I'll go play with pink. It's less stressful, lol.

Enjoy!
And thanks for all your suggestions. You know I appreciate them all.

;^)


Joining
Sarah at Confession of a Fabric Addict
Angela at So Scrappy
Denise at For the Love of Geese
Cynthia at Quilting is More Fun than Housework
Frédérique at Quilting Patchwork Appliqué

I Had To Laugh

Blocks freshly pressed from this morning.

I must be fully awake this morning compared to other mornings because I have FINALLY noticed that the spool blocks ...

(Aren't they cute?)

... measure 8.5 inches X 8 inches. Yes, you did read that right. Lately, every thing I start, I have to redo. But this time, I had to laugh. Gosh! It's the third one I make and not once have I noticed anything wrong with this block? That's laughable! At least I only have three to redo and not like an entire quilt! lol.

After I am done fixing the spools, I'll start on the light and bright green of January and I will do it right this time. ;^D

Have a great one.

;^)

Joining Angela at So Scrappy
Cynthia at Quilting is More Fun than Housework