An unexpected favorite!

This is the story of a quilt I thought I would not keep, and it turned out to be one I happily use every single day!  

It seems like a lifetime ago, but in March, when the world was starting to quarantine,  Gundrun Erla of GE Designs was hosting a virtual quarantine quilt along with her pattern, Elvira.   It sounded like fun, and I got the pattern, and decided to start using up my stash.  (Okay - I say that every year, but I am making some progress!).  I keep my fabric in smallish bins sorted by color, and I had three bins full of various greens.  The greens, especially the grayer ones, are not a color I often use, so I thought this would be perfect.  I figured that I could donate the quilt.  I ironed the fabrics, and sorted by value to see what I had.   

The Elvira pattern, found here, is very nice, with big swatches of color.  I cut my greens up, and had pulled some unloved reds to complement the greens.   I started making some of the blocks, and found I really didn't care for it.  My green variety just wasn't coming together in such big pieces.  I was also furiously making masks, worrying about everything, and trying to finish up three studio art classes remotely.  I hit a wall, and just stopped working on that quilt. 

Since I had the greens (and reds)  all cut into rectangles, I decided to cut them up further into triangles.  

I started sewing them together at random, and then put them up on my design wall to see how it looked.   I had made a few triangle quilts before and liked how they generally turned out.  You can find those here and here.

I guess these pieces were just enough smaller that they worked nicely together.  

I ended up finishing the quilt in  August, and taking some proper photos in October.   The finished quilt is a nice lap size  - 61 inches wide by 72 inches tall.  Perfect for my reading chair.  I ended up quilting a triangle pattern in each triangle, keeping the lines about 1/2 inch or so apart.  I just moved from one to the next with a little loop, leaving an unquilted ridge between each triangle.  

I'm not the only one who finds this a most comfy quilt!  

I am sure I will find some fabrics that will better suit the Elvira pattern.  In the meantime, a quilt made from fabrics I didn't really like ended up being one of my favorites.  

I still have a few finished and gifted quilts to write about.  For a new project, I am currently working  on the 2020 Bonnie Hunter Mystery Quilt,  Grassy Creek Mystery.  These are fun, and a great way to learn new techniques and get great tips.  There is plenty of time to join in the fun.  Details can be found on Bonnie's blog, here.  I am documenting my progress right now only on Instagram, but I will certainly blog about it when it is complete.  Check it out  and follow me at @snugharborquilts.

Thank you so much for visiting my blog!  Stay safe!  

Take care,

Gretchen 

 

The Rag Rug - still a work in progress!

 

So, I finally finished sewing together the rag rug from my giant ball of cord made from scrap material and scrap batting.  I have made a few other smaller rugs, but this one just kept going, and finished up as a 6 foot by 5 foot oval.  

Unfortunately, the edges are tight, and the rug cups up significantly.   I tried weighting down the edges to see if I could flatten it out, and I corraled my trusty quilt holder husband into helping me pull it to try to do the same, but it still is pretty off. 

Even Judy can tell that something is amiss! 

I started out with that huge ball, and took my sewing machine to the dining room table, knowing I'd need more space to hold the weight of the piece. 

It started out looking good! 

It soon got too large for my sewing surface, so I piled up books and boxes to enlarge the space.  

I had a bag of older threads that I don't usually use for quilting, and decided to use those for this project, which uses an unbelievable amount of thread! 

As the piece got bigger, I added more supports, and checked it occasionally on the floor to make sure it was more or less flat.  I wasn't too concerned about the few errant little bumps.

I think the problems happened near the end, when I was rushing a bit to clear the table for our little ZOOM Thanksgiving.   I probably needed to really slow down and support it more.  

Even near the end, it didn't appear to be too off.  

Here are the empty spools from this project!  

What to do?  I am thinking that I might take off the final 5 or so rounds to see if I can redo them.  A friend had suggested sticking it under my wool run to flatten it, but I think the edge cupping is too much.  I thought about cutting it, and then sticking in a wedge, but that would look crappy!  I like this rug, and want to do it right, but I am also trying to finish a college class, and get ready for Christmas, and get to work on the Bonnie Hunter mystery quilt.  I may roll up the rug, and tuck away until after the New Year.

Anyone have any other suggestions on how to make this work, or what I could have done differently?  I'd appreciate any feedback or thoughts.

Take care,

Gretchen 

Too muchI

            I have several quilting projects on deck - a table runner for an overdue gift, a few mixed media pieces that I have had in my head for over a year, and this years Bonnie K. Hunter mystery quilt.  The info about that mystery quilt is here.

            Before I start any of these projects, I needed to clear out some of my scraps.  I feel a need to get my quilting stuff organized before I embark on a project.  Anyone else feeling that way?  I started with making a few more masks for my family, since it appears that masks are here to stay (and the damn cats have eaten! the elastic on several of my masks!) 

            I have lots of scraps.  I have been putting them in collapsible bins, and now find I have too many!   I pulled out one packed bin, and started cutting 2 1/2 inch strips.  

     Some of the bins are on shelves in the basement.  When my son visited this summer with his dog, I found the cats hiding in the scrap bins!   It turns out that some of those were scraps which I intended to use, so I cleaned those up, and am substituting little scraps of batting and fabric that I would otherwise throw away!  

I started cutting, and filled this huge basket with strips.  

Before it was all filled up! 

          I was operating without a plan.  I tried sewing some strips together and then cutting them, but wasn't really feeling it.  I think the strips are too big for me for this type of design.  

            Once I rejected all those ideas, I ended up deciding to also use up the two bins I had of batting that I had cut to 2 1/2 inch strips when I made a few small jelly roll rugs.  I just started folding and sewing and then clipping the batting into the fabric.  Luckily, I have found some good audiobooks to listen to while working on this project!  

 

What a mess this room is! 

Of course, I had help! 

Betty inspecting my work

                   

Judy making sure I was going to use up all of the strips! 

        

            I did use up all of the strips and the batting I had cut.  Now I have an enormous ball of fabric cord, ready to sew into little rugs, or maybe even one big rug!  I didn't measure, or figure out how much I needed.   I just kept sewing until all the cut strips were used.  

            We'll see how this turns out.  I have plans for some of the other scraps (lots more around) and will keep you posted! 

Thank you for stopping by and reading. 

Take care and stay safe,

Gretchen  
 

Cora's Quilt

 

    I realized that I never had blogged about this little disappearing 9 patch quilt I made for Cora, the grandchild of one of my cousins.  I had finished this quilt in January, and got it mailed out, but never got to blogging. 

    This was the second quilt made with some 5 inch squares I cut from material from the Sugar Sack collection by Whistler Studios.  

On the design wall

     In 2018, I had been asked to make a version of a table runner from these fabrics for Easy Quilt magazine.   My blog post about that piece is here.

   I had enough fabric remaining to cut lots of squares, and did the disappearing 9 patch for Cora, and also made a shadowed quilt for little baby Louise.  My blog post about Louise's quilt (Lil Nancy Drew) is here.

      I finished the quilt with a nice loopy overall design.

     Betty found the quilt quite comfy!  (I always wash them before I send them off!)

     I've been trying to wrangle the mess of fabric scraps before starting any new quilts.  I'll post about my progress next time!  

Take care,

Gretchen 

The saga of the spider web quilt!

     At the end of 2019, I had finally finished the center of the spider web quilt I have been working on for my husband for the past eight or ten years.   I had fiddled around with border designs in EQ8, and posted here about it in 2019, but then managed to delete all of my quilt design files in EQ8.  Arrggghhhh!  Getting back to designing is still on my 'to-do' list.  Flying geese were part of the plan. 

     I still had plenty of scraps left over, so I borrowed a quilting friend's flying geese ruler and made lots of 6 inch flying geese.  The ruler was very very helpful!  I've made them before using a variety of techniques, but these all are sized the same, and look nice and neat.   I didn't make enough to go all the way around because I thought that might be too busy visually, plus I was getting to the point where my scraps were a bit too small. 

     I used a reddish fabric for a little border strip, and then positioned the flying geese strips around on my design wall.

     I was thinking that I was getting close to finishing the top, when I became stumped about the corner blocks.  I ended up making a few 6 inch square blocks to see what might work.  After hours of work, it turned out I didn't like any of them.  

     I ended up with two corners with flying geese, and placed them all going in one direction, and just used plain gray fabric for the other two corners.  Since I am handquilting, I thought I might do something with those plain corners with quilting.  I do like the end result now since the focus remains on the crazy spider web design of the center.
     I pieced the quilt back from some neutral striped fabric and some novelty fabric (typewriters for my writer husband!) (pictures below), and began the pinning process.   I used to hate this process, but now find that listening to audiobooks makes the task go quickly.  I am currently listening to the Masie Dobbs series of audiobooks from my local library. 

Clamped down tight on my craft table

Good to have an inspector checking my work! 

Inspection is exhausting work!  The backing fabrics, and napping cat!

     I am in the midst of handquilting, and will provide an update on that process in the near future.  In the meantime, this is keeping me warm when I am watching TV at night! 

     Thanks for stopping by my blog.  Feel free to ask me any questions, or let me know what you think of this quilt. 

Take care,

Gretchen