Butterfly Wreaths -- Quilted Scalloped and Bound

I finished quilting the scallops for Butterfly Wreaths.  It wasn't as hard as I expected it to be.  I wound up having the exact amount of thread I needed to make that last row of quilting. I switched to another slightly darker thread, which will be fine because it shows on the back and not the front. I followed the instructions to make bias binding, and I wound up having the exact amount of fabric for binding this quilt. When you add in the seam allowance, the scallops don't wind up being as deep as they looked when they were being cut.

Here's what it looks like from the back. There are several different colors of thread on the back, but it isn't obvious and adds interest. It looks so pretty, I'm not sure where to add the label.

The wind posed this shot.

It isn't finished yet!  I will wash away a little bit of stray marks where I marked the cutting line for the scallops, and then will be adding these beads in the light squares. I have to justify all the beads I buy to embellish quilts, and I have enough of these leaves for all of the squares.

[Edited to add: I am going to call this finished for now. This quilt finishes at an awkward size - too small to be a wall hanging over the couch, and too big to fit comfortably on the bulletin board.  It will probably serve best as a table topper, which means I shouldn't be adding embellishments on it. Also I need to get to the backlog of quilts that also want to be finished.]

 

15 Minutes to Stitch: Week 10

This week, I spent quilting and binding Butterfly Wreaths. Also learning how to scallop and do bias binding.  Yesterday, I started another (hopefully quick) quilt. I am almost done touching every. single. thing. in the master bedroom to see if it sparks joy. I have a couple of box lids of things I have kicked out of the room and I need to find new homes for them. After that, I need to do some general cleaning before I tackle deep cleaning another room.

15 Minute sessions of stitching this week: 7 out of 7
15 Minute sessions of stitching this year: 69 out of 69 sessions
Success Rate: 100%

Linked to:
Oh Scrap!
15 Minutes to Stitch Week 10
Slow Sunday Stitching - I stitched the binding on this quilt.
Moving it Forward 
What I Made on Monday 
Needle and Thread Thursday

Butterfly Wreath

I've been talking about the Butterfly Wreaths quilt for a few posts, but just realized I haven't shown you the whole top. Remember how I told you that these blocks were like eating potato chips, that you can't eat just one?  Well, I binged on a whole bunch and wound up with this size. Sewing them together wasn't as much fun as making the blocks because there are a lot of seams matching at the points, making it very bulky..

I added plain borders. I sandwiched and quilted the center. The backing is the same as the border.  I drew the scallops with a marker, using a plate, because I knew I would chicken out if I didn't. (It's a children's washable marker.)

I quilted lots of scallops on it. This picture was taken when I ran out of thread. I have quilted the last row. I cut out the scalloped border yesterday and will work on figuring out the bias binding. I haven't done that before either!

Quilting Butterfly Wreath

I took a look at my current works in process and thought about how I wanted to quilt them. The ideas came fast and furious, so I figured I may as well start.

I added a plain border to the quilt.  I didn't have a fabric that tied everything together so I figured a plain one would work.  I auditioned a green, a gray and a beige in addition to the blue, and they all looked about the same so I went with the blue one.  I am planning on making a scalloped border - I've never made one, and this one is a good size - not too big, not too small - to practice.

The lozenge shape seems to disappear in this quilt so I have decided to quilt them to highlight them, a quarter inch from the edge.  I am doing them in zigzag lines across the rows and then back down the other side. I thought about maybe not doing all the rows, to highlight different parts of the blocks, but that might just be laziness so I have decided to commit and do them all.

That little purse holds a special surprise - some beads I will be adding to the light centers of the quilt.  My quilts do not like to be rushed.







In case you are tempted to make some of these broken dishes blocks, this video gives you some ideas about different settings you can use for these blocks.

Linked to:
I May Have a Scrap Problem

This Week's Quilting Progress

Circle Block 264

I sat down to watch a show (Frontline) and thought I should be stitching something, and since I had talked about the Stitch Meditations, I thought some handwork would fit the bill.  I made a circle block instead of a separate Stitch Meditations to make more progress on that quilt. It reminds me of a shirt I had a long time ago.

Jeans Quilt

I was going through my bedroom, using the Konmari method, ala Marie Kondo, and found this quilt in the bench/chest. This quilt is one of my oldest, if not THE oldest UFO I have. It looks like I stuffed a couple of big unfinished quilts in the chest to get them out of the way.  Way back in the early 90's, I had sewed some jeans together, improv style, and planned to applique and embroider designs on it. It has an eye, a fish, a house, and a tree already appliqued on it. All of these were made out of jeans as well.  I remember asking my family members for stuff to add to this quilt, and my mother had given me some patches, but I hadn't added them to the quilt.

Anyway, I also found, in a separate place, some fireman embroidery patches my mother had given me and  I thought I should add them before they got lost and make more progress on this quilt. They have numbers embroidered on the stabilizer EQ0173, EQ0174, and EQ0179. I looked them up just for fun, and you can still buy them for $10 each. Now, my quilt's value just went up by $30.

If I ever make a quilt like this again, I would applique first, before joining the pieces. It is difficult to comfortably add applique in the middle of the quilt. I will try a hoop next time I add anything to the quilt.

I'm not planning on picking up this quilt to finish just yet. I am already feeling overwhelmed with the current Works in Process and the new quilts I want to start!

 15 Minutes to Stitch: Week 8

This week I made six circle blocks, and appliqued some patches on an old jeans quilt.  I also worked on joining the Butterfly Wreath blocks. It looks like I missed reporting a week, but I sewed almost every day so far this year, and for those days I missed, I more than made up for it during the week.

15 Minute sessions of stitching this week:  7 out of 7
15 Minute sessions of stitching this year:  55 out of 55 sessions
Success Rate: 100%

Linked to:
15 Minutes to Stitch

I Can Stop Anytime I Want

When I started making the butterfly wreath blocks, I decided to just make a few and when I get bored, put whatever I have together into a quilt and call it done. Each set of fabrics make 8 HSTs and there are two HSTs from each set in each block, so each set of three fabrics make four blocks. Some of the HSTs do have to get rejected for size, especially ones that use charm squares.  Charm squares are sometimes slightly bigger or smaller than 5 inches so they don't play well with the others.

I made a few, and a few more.  Yesterday, I laid them out to see how they would look in a quilt and get an estimate of the size.  [I even counted them and safety pinned them in sets of ten to be all organized, but had to take out the safety pins to recreate the picture for you.]

It is a good size and I could easily put them together and get a quilt about the size of a bread box. I would work great as my mini for the month of March. But I am having fun with making these blocks so I made a couple more sets. They are like potato chips. You gotta have more. I don't want to use bright blues for this quilt, so the blues from On Ringo Lake won't go in here.  Since I am having a hard time finding the right tone of blues in the scraps, these blues came from the stash.

The decision making for this quilt has been surprisingly easy.  It is strange when I am looking for blue and green fabrics and the Cave of Wonders delivers a red fabric. I think it is a mood and not a color it is delivering.

 

Week 7 of 15 Minutes to Stitch

There was no work this week, so I had plenty of unexpected time.  I spent it doing household chores and getting appointments in and otherwise generally whittling down the to-do list on my calendar. I got my blog  post ready for the Dust Off a Quilt Book Blog Hop and scheduled it to post on Tuesday morning.

I was able to sneak in a lot of quilting time, which I spent cutting up the shoe box of scraps. There weren't a lot of pieces big enough or the right color for Butterfly Wreath, but lots of one and a half inch strips for Four Rails.  I put together the pieces that weren't long enough for Four Rails and made a long chain. While it was tempting to make another Matchstick Mansion, I decided to go with my original plan and cut them into rails. I want Four Rails to be less boring than the traditional rail quilt and if I get lots of these sewed pieces, then it will look like a natural part of the quilt instead of a few making-do-when-I-ran-out-of-fabric pieces.

I read a comment on a blog that said that a shoe box full of scrap fabric makes a queen size quilt. I guess that explains why it took so long for me to get through my box! It was my latest scrap box, and it was full of scraps from On Ringo Lake and other projects I worked on last year.  Since I had made snippet quilts [I Llike you a Llot Llama and the elephant], it included everything, including dog ears, orphan blocks (bonus HSTs mostly), and scraps and bits of fabric. I put the orphan blocks in the orphan blocks box but everything else was cut up for the rails and trash. I didn't generally keep dog ears and selvages and fabric dust so hopefully going through the rest of the scrap boxes will be easier. I do have a huge tote of scraps in addition to little containers which is scary but I am sure I will be able to get them all a little at a time.


The fabric trash can is now full, and the shoe box is empty.  I want to make something out of those little pieces in the trash can before I move on to the next container of scraps.

15 Minute sessions of stitching this week:  7 out of 7
15 Minute sessions of stitching this year:  41 out of 41 sessions
Success Rate: 100%

Linked to:
Life in Pieces 15 Minutes to Stitch 
Can I get a Whoop Whoop? 
Off the Wall Friday 
Lets Bee Social

Butterfly Wreath Progress

I have been making some slow progress on Butterfly Wreaths.  Since I am making them with scraps, I have to wait until I come across a scrap that is the right size and color for this quilt.

Since it is made from scraps, I am curious to see how the color combinations look, so the scraps tend to work up into blocks pretty quickly.  The plan is to use as much blue / green as possible with a light and a dark, but maintain a scrappy look.  Since my first block wasn't blue or green, I want to be able to use other fabrics in a way that makes the odd block fit right in as an accent without looking like an oddball that doesn't belong.

Also in the picture is the Sunlight in Winter blocks, which are also being moved forward.  As you can see, the blocks are similar, but not the same.

Linked to:
Silly Mama Quilts Friday Finishes. I finished blocks!

15 Minutes to Stitch Weekly Recap

 

15 Minute to Stitch Challenge: 

Week Two

I missed posting last week, and since each week was different, I will post each week separately.  For the second week of the month, I worked on new projects. I needed to decide on my next scrap quilt so I could tame the scraps and my idea for the Butterfly Wreaths needed 5 inch squares, which is bigger than most of the scraps in the scrap box, so I also decided to work on a rail fence to use up the smaller scraps. This week was spent cutting and sewing a few pieces to make a few blocks to get started and to see if the plan seemed like it was worth pursuing.

15 Minute sessions of stitching this week:  7 out of 7
15 Minute sessions of stitching this year:  13 out of 13 sessions
Success Rate: 100%

Week 3

I didn't get much time to sew during the week, so I made it up on the weekend.  Yesterday, I got a scrap box and started cutting pieces for the scrap quilts. Just take the first fabric on top, and cut it to size for one of the scrap quilts. So far, I didn't get any 5 inch squares, so everything was cut for the rail fence, but maybe I'll find bigger scraps today.

I am going to use the same rule I used last year - that if I miss the 15 minutes of sewing one day, I can make it up during the week and still count it. It is snowing here, so I will be able to get even more sewing done today.

15 Minute sessions of stitching this week:  7 out of 7
15 Minute sessions of stitching this year:  20 out of 20 sessions
Success Rate: 100%

 

Linked to:
15 Minutes to Stitch

Introducing Butterfly Wreaths and Four Rails

As you know, I have planned to work on a lot of new quilts this year - not just trying to finish WIPS and UFOs but to start as many quilts as I want.  I am not going to give myself any limits and see if I can manage to stay in control without limits. The plan is to start what I want, and when I am starting to get tired of it, turn it into a quilt and call it done, no matter how small it turns out to be. The process is more important than the product.

In order to make this new process work, though, I need to make sure I document and keep track of the quilts I have started. So here are the new quilts I have started this month.

Butterfly Wreaths is a quilt that Gayle, Cathy, and Julie are making.  They each have come up with their own name and I am hoping that the name and this picture will help me remember the layout I am choosing. It will be a scrap quilt.  I really want to use scraps and make the wreath rings really stand out, but I am really not sure how to make that work.

I enjoyed making eight HSTs at one time for Sunlight in Winter, and realized I could make these HSTs the same way. Sunlight in Winter is cut 1/8th less than a whole square, so there is no trimming needed to make it fit the squares that it goes with.  Butterfly Wreaths only uses triangles so I am cutting three 5 inch squares at a time - two of the main fabric, one light and one dark.  The main fabric is paired with each of the others (one main with the light and one main with the dark) to make 8 HSTS each and then they are put together to make the blocks. I need to remember to press to the main fabric to make the seams nest. I think those butterflies can be either dark or light, but for now, I think I am going to see how I like it with just dark butterflies.

Yes this means there will be repeat blocks, but hopefully this quilt will be big enough that it won't matter. Repeat blocks might be good to add some cohesion to the quilt. And if it gets on my nerves, I might try to combine the subunits in different combinations to have more variety.

Four Rails is a rail fence quilt designed to use up my scraps.  Like my other rail fence, it will include all fabrics with no discrimination.  I will just cut and sew when the whim strikes me to make these.  It will be a kind of leader/ender project. I am hoping it takes over like the other rail fence did. This quilt will use four rails instead of three rails like my other rail fence quilt, hence the name Four Rails.  The pieces are cut 1.5 x 4.5 so they will be squares.

My plan is to use all my fabric scraps without any regard to color.  I will take a scrap, and cut as many five inch squares out of it as I can. Once it gets too small, then I will cut as many one and a half inch strips out of it as I can, and subcut them into rail fences. Once that is done, they go into the trash.

For my trash and snippet quilts, silly. You didn't think I will actually throw them away, did you?

 Today, I appreciate snow that makes everything pretty but isn't slippery.