February Finish!

   

'Confetti' finished!

Yes!

Quilted and bound!

Thanks for all your feedback! 

Each and every comment has helped me to come to my final decision. I tried every aspect of design that would apply. 

But in the end, I just had to keep it simple and let the quilt do the talking.

The little pieces of confetti were larger than life and were speaking loud and clear..

They wanted to be left alone!

I quilted it in a simple wavy lines. 

I decided to put another scrappy binding.. I just can not get away from those. I think it gives nice balance to the long strips in the quilt.

 I also finished a quilt from 2003!

A quilt/top I had made inspired by one of the quilts of Gee's Bend.

After all these years, it made it to the finish line!

I got myself a two sided quilt!

Do you ever use your unfinished old quilt tops as backs for your new quilts? 

I like having two sided quilts. 

This quilt in particular has been a wonderful month long journey. 

  No matter which corner of the house it sits, it screams, "Look at me Now!"

 

 I can't stop taking pictures!

Don't be surprised if I keep posting new pictures of this quilt every now and then..

I love it so much!

 Some day in my spare time I will count how many pieces are actually sewn together to make this twin size quilt! Wouldn't it be fun to know?

 

Want to know more about this photograph? Tune in tomorrow to participate in a give away.

 

Play of the day

A border of skinny horizontal strips on one side?

Or use those strings as a center medallion?

This left over block from ages ago in the center?

 May be a few scrappy triangles from really ugly scraps?

Or the triangles and strips on the side?

Am I trying too hard? 

I should leave it alone.. It is so loud.. I can't go against the force!

What do you think?

By the way, These are only the half of overall blocks!

Fun!

 

Winter Warmth

When you make friends through blogland, the joy of it arrives in many ways. Sometimes in the form of comments on your posts, a nice mail, a promise to meet in person someday.

You start participating in bees and make more friends. The friendship also arrives in little envelops in the form of bee blocks and occasionally a whole quilt!

The blogging community is full of surprises. I have come to know some really kind and caring quilters doing most amazing things for others.

I have received a few of these messages of friendship lately and it has really moved me.

This quilt arrived a week ago! 

Em who celebrates life in every possible way sent me this beautiful quilt.  

The bright flowers and the birds that always represent peace, came in time to create a happy spot in my day!

Thank you Em! I will cherish your quilt and your friendship forever!

It is makes me smile every time I walk by.

 

Few more blocks arrived from the 15 minutes bee group. I love how this is growing! 

Thanks Shelly, Helen and LeeAnn!

LeeAnn also sent me the most beautiful scraps in the whole wide world! 

I will have to do a different post for that!

And last but by any means not least, Mary sent me her block for the little quilt exchange we decided to do few months ago! I am not kidding, this lady is amazing! have you checked out her quilts?

When I first saw her quilts on flickr, my jaw just dropped! I had to close my mouth with my hands.. NO Kidding! She is a gifted and talented quilter who designs and makes most amazing quilts. 

Few months ago I invited her to take part in a little quilt exchange.

We decided to start with a tree block and send each other our blocks to finish the quilt.

Just look at this artwork and read about her story behind the block on her blog.. I am almost afraid to ruin it by touching the block!

I have to be honest and admit that I took forever to make my block.I was not in the 'right place' to create that block until last weekend. Mary's block arrived on Friday along with the bee blocks. I had asked her to keep it in the sealed envelop so I would finish mine before I would open hers.

Isn't it gorgeous?

It has been rather gray and dreary winter as you all know! I miss the greens..I decided to make a tree block with green and brown strings.. 

I had been dreaming of  Seattle where the evergreen trees are always there to brighten up your day. The new growth on the fir and Cedar trees is so fresh in winter and spring that even in the midst of a snow storm the surroundings look magical! 

If I could fly, I would fly over the big cedar tree we used to have in our backyard. 

I imagine this would be the view from up top!

And, it makes me feel happy!

Snow Falling On Cedar!

Doesn't it look dreamy?

I love it!

 

 

Lessons Learned...

As you all know, I have been making a sincere effort to work with my scraps while cleaning the studio.  It worked out perfect that I am participating in a 15 Minutes Quilt Bee that requires use of scraps.

The theme? Improve blocks with made fabrics.

Each of us decided on the block we would like for our assigned month. I was very influenced by the book, "Accidentally on Purpose" for last couple of weeks.. So I decided to try to make one of the quilts from the book. I also wanted to try to stay with the style of my Confetti Quilt. Only this time, I decided to make long strips sewn into blocks.

This one has taught me some lessons I thought were interesting.

For this quilt I had set up some rules for myself.

I wanted to work strictly with scraps.

Value each piece for it's size. 

No trimming unless it was absolute must.

Since this block required small scraps, I saved the larger ones for a different project. So I thought!

I started sewing up little scraps one piece at a time. As long as the two bits of fabric looked good next to each other, they went into the block.

I made adjustments to the size of the scraps as needed. But mostly tried to match the size of the scraps rather than cutting them to the size. That way I would not loose fabric.
( I was really stressing on maximizing the use of what I had and pretending that every bit was precious.)

Once the strip of a desired size was sewn up I trimmed the sides and made another one.. Made a few and pieced them together to make a block.

Soon I ran out of all the small pieces and was left with little longer and thin strings of fabric strips. That's where plan B came in effect.
Instead of making more smaller pieces to stay with the theme of Confetti Quilt,  I used the longer strings in the bin. I started piecing them in a slightly wider patches. Suddenly the colors were also changing.. Because these scraps were from a specific project. 

The wider strips with lots of skinny strings are enough to make a block for a center medallion OR I might scatter them around the entire quilt. 

Next, I used the patches that were squares or rectangles. I was hoping to make most of their size, use them cleverly and not loose any more than I absolutely had to in seam allowances. So I paired the squares together and made HSTs out of them.

These were also hand cut and without any specific size in mind. Silly as it sounds, I also discovered that I was more likely to use the tiny bits of fabric in quilt if I cut them by hand..

My Inspiration for the quilt.

  I am not sure if I was cutting the yardage, I would have cut them as skinny and as tiny as some of them I ended up with.  The standard quilting and cutting measurements are so easy to work with that it is difficult to cut skinny strips on purpose. 

Besides, if I was in hurry to finish the quilt, the first thought would be the time and patience it would take to make this kind of quilt. Can you imagine how long it would take to actually cut scraps from yardage and refold them and put them back?

Thankfully, I have my bee friends making some blocks. They are fabulous!

Another advantage of being in the bee, each block will come with maker's personality...and from many different projects.   

I started with an inspiration and designed the block based on above quilt. I have a feeling that once all the bee blocks come together this quilt is going to take it's own shape and form.

After all that's was improvisation means.. right?

While I was cleaning the scrap bin, I also found lots and lots of strings.
This is what I have started with all those strings.
A simple idea of using up all I had in the bin is keeping me quite busy.
I am running out of scraps.. Still lots of fabric in my stash... Just no scraps. One of these days, I am going to have to make those quilts that use yardage. It has been a while since I have done that!
 
I urge you to check out the 15 Minutes Play to see more of these blocks and other cool projects that everyone is working on.
It is truly an inspirational place!

My sincere efforts for cleaning has made my sewing room look like this little house from inside. 

 

 

Hope you are having fun in your sewing room.