The cute factor

Pretty...

Cute.... 

It's all in the size.  

The block is from Kim Brackett's "Scrap Basket Sensations".  The first rendering is 12", the second is 7".  Small is always cuter!  I challenged myself to find a way to cut these blocks from a set of two identical charm packs, and it worked.  I'm still making the larger one from two jelly rolls of "Blueberry Crumb Cake" but will now do a small version using the Sandy Gervais fabrics.  Probably don't have enough left of the charm packs to make the pieced border so that's up in the air.  

On other fronts, I finally finished my Wild Geese quilt with the plain border.  Much, much better.  I'm finally happy.  I know that some commented they liked the pieced border better, and I could see its' charms, but this pleases me. 

Where is all this red coming from?

I just finished piecing this little quilt.  Me.  The person who doesn't like red.  What is going on with me?

I never was a big red fan, don't wear it and don't decorate with it (I think a red room would raise my blood pressure and get on my last nerve) but recently I've been making a lot of quilts featuring red.  Not as much as this one, though.  It's red in a big way.

It's a mini version of the quilt I made for my nephew's son two years ago.  That one was more red/white/blue/gold, this one is red/brown/tan/teal/ivory.  That pattern stuck in my head and when confronted with charm packs of "Friendship Collection for a Cause" I knew I had to go for it.  Luckily, I had that red yardage in the closet that blended very well.

Next I want to make a mini version of the one I sent to my nephew's younger daughter.  I loved all the quilts I sent to them, but don't want to make a second one in full size.  These little quilts will do just fine!

And, done...

I think I'm going to call it "Race Track" in honor of slot car racers (see my previous post for this reference).

New charm pack noodling

Carrie Nelson calls this pattern "Getaway".  I've never seen it before but it's interesting.  Especially in this small scale - the center of this little quilt is 24" square.  It will have a neutral inner border and a HST outer border.

The shape of it reminds me of a slot-car track.  Remember those?  In my younger days they were are popular as toy train sets.  If you were really lucky, your dad humored you and set up a permanent installation for it in the rec room in the basement.  Of course, being a girl I didn't have one.  Or a  rec room.  Or a basement, for that matter.  I always thought it would be sooooo cool to have a TV room in the basement, like I had seen.  We had a cellar with a sump pump.

A return trip to Rouen

Ah, French General.  The red fabric that finally made me love red fabric.  And now they have
Rouenneries Deux.

I'll get the rows joined today while I do laundry, and then decide on a border.

This pattern is called "Cindy Lou Who" because it was originally made by Carrie Nelson in Christmas fabric with a very Grinch-y green accent.

Addendum:  I replaced the photo with one where the rows are joined.  I decided that I needed more of the taupe-y gray for the outer border and red for the inner border and binding, and didn't have anything that would work.  I'll have to do some shopping.

Spool(ish) blocks

I'm not sure what the traditional name of the spool-looking blocks is, but this pattern is another Schnibbles by  Carrie Nelson.  The fabric is Eva by Moda.  I'm making this because, well, I did once before.

Except that one was big.  When I bought the first Schnibbles book, which has patterns for making a large or small quilt of the same blocks, I fell in love with the pattern.  I found yardage here and there from the Eva collection and ended up making a full size quilt that looked almost exactly like this.  After it was finished, it didn't have a home designated, so it went in the quilt storage cabinet where I looked at it and wondered what I could do with it.  Then last year my brother-in-law's mother-in-law had cancer surgery.  When he visited last fall I decided that the quilt was perfect for an older lady who needed a little comforting.  I whipped up a label and sent the quilt in its way with him to give to her while she was recuperating.  I'm told that she loves it.

But I missed the quilt.  I liked the colors and the pattern.  However, I didn't need another large quilt - my storage area is becoming stressed by my productivity.  When I stumbled across a couple of charm packs of the Eva collection online, I grabbed them up.  Now I'm halfway to piecing a small version of the quilt I liked so much.  This one will take up much less space!

I want to quilt little cobweb shapes over every spool blocks, if I can figure out how to do it and not ruin the quilt by my ineptitude.

Another Schnibbles done

These little quilts are addictive!

Making curves where there are none

These little blocks aren't joined yet but even so you can start to see the trompe l'oeil curves that the eye seems to find amid the straight line piecing.  You can emphasize this by quilting curved lines in the rectangle shapes that come together at the pinwheel ends, rather like the seams on a football.  The pattern is "Little Red", alternately called "Radio Flyer", by Carrie Nelson, and the fabric line is "Love Letters" by Laundry Basket Quilts.  Oh, I wish I could have gotten a charm pack of the coordinating batiks to use with the prints!  I love this fabric.  You can't see much of the prints when working this small (the blocks finish at just under 4") but the colors are gorgeous and rich.

LIttle spools, done

I'm enjoying making these small quilt tops.  It's nice to finish something without slaving over it.  Nothing against Orca Bay, but at times I thought it would kill me!  By the way, I'm taking Orca Bay to my longarm quilter today.  I finally decided not to add another border on the outside and leave it as designed.

Little spools

4 1/2" seems to be the perfect size for spool blocks.  Any larger, they seem to lose their charm;  any smaller, I lose my patience.

Color wrong, color right

Contrast this:

Versus this:

Other than plain 3" squares versus quarter square triangle squares, they are the same pattern.  WHat a difference correct color placement makes!  I should have saved all the red and blue charm squares in the bottom one for the flying geese instead of doing it totally random and scrappy.  Oh, well, live and learn.

Not your typical stars and stripes

No red, white and blue here, just lovely pastels and charming blue stars with rose centers.  Kind of like a banner for spring.

I just made the last star block and couldn't wait to show it off.  The charm squares came from a forgotten corner of my stash closet.  I can't remember where they were purchased - maybe from the Sewing with Nancy store site.  I know they're not Moda or any brand I recognize.  I have a whole ziplock bag full of them, from several groups.  I've sorted out others for different small quilt designs.  Stay tuned.

My aim is to stockpile 6 or 7 small quilt tops and go on a machine quilting binge later this spring.

Tiny little star blocks

Little bitty, tiny and cute.  And before you comment, no - the seam isn't supposed to intersect the point of the V between the star points, and yes - there is supposed to be space between the star points and the edge of the blocks.  I read the instructions twice.

These little stars finish out at 4 1/2", so they are fiddly and tedious to make.  But I think they're adorable.

O what a quilt

Playing with some more charm squares today.  These little "O" blocks went together surprisingly quickly.  I have more matching charm squares and can't decide whether to make the quilt larger or leave it at this.  When joined and bordered it will be a 32" square wall quilt.

Playing with charm packs

One thing I found in the stash closet when I cleaned out recently were several pairs of charm packs.  I don't even remember when I bought them, they're that old.  One was "Origins" and the other was "Punctuation", if I remember correctly.  Neither is something that is exactly my style but they were fun to work with because of the variety.

I was working with a pattern in the book "Another Bite of Schnibbles".  I just love Carrie Nelson's small quilts!  I started making a small quilt named "Nash" and, don't you know, I messed it up.

Do you see what I did?  Look at the center blocks.  I was listening to the news on the radio and neglected to make sure that I cut the strippy blocks in half all the same way to made those triangles surrounding the pieced blocks.  I was crushed!  I put it together anyway and I guess it works somewhat, but I could kick myself.  I have the center assembled and I'll add the borders tomorrow.

So I wanted to make one correctly.  I cut out the same pattern in the second charm pack set, and had enough to make it rectangular instead of square.  This time I didn't mess it up.

Outer border will go on in the morning.  Notice that the center strippy blocks are right this time.  Sometimes you just have to smack your forehead and go "Stupid!"

Big and beautiful

I keep trying to make quilts with large blocks. The instant-gratification portion of my personality doesn't want to slave away on 6" or 8" blocks unless they are for a wall quilt (or unless I get suckered into it in a mystery quilt). But every time I make a 12" test block it looks clunky and unappealing and I end up resizing it, like "Stars Over Rouen".

But I fell in love with a pattern in "Schnibbles Times Two" called "Nice Day". The version made with a layer cake had 12" blocks. It had too many strikes against it. 12" blocks. Piano key border. Oversized subunits and setting triangles to be trimmed to size, all things I don't enjoy. I debated reducing the size of the blocks and cutting everything exactly. Still, I deliberated. Then, when I found the layer cake for Moda's "Cherish Nature" I had the fabric that would do justice to those large triangles and make the book's construction methods worthwhile.

The collection had such pretty patterns and colors it was a shame to cut it into small pieces that wouldn't display them to full advantage. Butterflies, honeybees, bird eggs! They had to be showcased.

So, without further ado, I give you my latest quilt top, called "A Nice Day For A Walk In The Park": Not to mention it's my favorite color combination in the whole world.

Even the backing is cool. Bird eggs!

This one is going to the longarm quilter next week. It's going to be my new favorite nap quilt.

Schnibbles

I am currently entranced by this book: It contains some of the cutest simple quilts, in large and small versions using layer cakes and charm packs, respectively. I'm not normally a "quilt book" kind of a person but for Schnibbles I'm making an exception. To the right are two 4.5" blocks I made this morning for the smaller version of the quilt named "Short Story". I'm still scratching my head about the name. Looks more like an hourglass to me. Regardless, it will be part of a small quilt comprised of scrappy Christmas fabric. It could be a nice decoration for the coffee table during the holidays, or I might give it away.

I read the instructions for this block yesterday, including use of the Companion Angle ruler, and they must have stuck in my head because last night I had nightmares about trying to make this quilt. In my dream it kept messing up and coming out wrong. What an awful night I had! I had to get up this morning and make the two blocks to prove I could do it. In the process I realized that the directions for using the Companion Angle ruler on the small block were not correct. That must have subconsciously stayed in my memory and produced the dreams.