Flannel Scraps

In an effort to clean up my fabric storage area, I went through all of my flannel fabrics and sorted them into scraps, yardage and larger pieces bigger than a fat quarter but smaller than a yard.  The larger pieces and yardage were folded neatly and stored in two bins--neatly labelled and easily accessible.  That left me with two plastic containers of scraps.  I decided to sort the scraps in to two piles--brighter colours and duller colours.  The picture above is one of the bins..."duller" scraps.  Last year, I made a scrap vortex quilt with some of my scraps--I used up lots of scraps but did not make much of a dent in the scrap pile. This year, I am making a flannel scrap vortex quilt...

I keep the bin of scraps by my sewing machine and in between sewing other stuff together, I grab two pieces of flannel and use them as a leader/ender.  Today, I had 30 minutes to spare, so I went downstairs and sewed a bunch of twosies...

This is the pile behind the sewing machine when I stopped sewing.  It looked better once I had them cut apart and in a pile on the cutting board for pressing.

Better still once they were pressed...

There are always lots of memories in a scrap quilt... the animal print is leftover from a pair of PJ's I made for my niece one year for her birthday.

Here are some of the bits I sewed together earlier this week. 

They are all pressed and ready to sew to each other...

I am hoping to use up all of the dull flannel scraps in my collection in this quilt.  I am hoping for a good sized lap quilt by the time all is said and done.

I even had a few leftover flying geese that made it into this project.  Some of these pieces need to be trimmed before they can be sewn together.  I can do this in short snippets of time over the next week or two.  This should be a very warm and cozy quilt.  I am not sure what I am going to do with it yet, but at least some of the flannel scraps will be tamed!

More blooms in my garden this week...

Flimsy Finish: Stitch and Flip Garden

I have spent much of my sewing time over the last couple of weeks working on finishing this UFO from a workshop by Jacquie Gering in the Spring of 2014.  You can see my other posts about this project here and here.  The toughest part of sewing this together was keeping all of those squares in the right order and the right orientation...I only had to unstitch one seam!!!

I decided to add some small leaves to the stems of the purple flowers.  I like the butterflies too!  I have some fun fabric in my stash for the backing of this quilt and will be quilting in myself on my new sewing machine using one of the walking foot quilting patterns that I learned at a recent workshop with Jacquie Gering.

Here are a few pictures from my garden and my MIL's garden.  She has a lovely magnolia tree in her yard.

I am linking up to Let's Be Social.

A Quilt for Fort McMurray

Christine and I got together on Monday night for our weekly sewing night.  We both worked on quilts for families who lost their homes in the wildfires in northern Alberta.

You might remember seeing the blocks I was making last week....

I laid the blocks out on the floor outside my sewing room since the design wall already has another project on it.  

I did some tweaking to make sure the colours were balanced and sewed the blocks together.  I added a bright green border, and then the top was done!

The blocks are 9" squares so this is a good sized lap quilt.  The blocks were made from a layer cake that had been hanging out in my stash for a few years.  This was a fast and fun quilt to make and I am hoping it will bring some comfort and happiness to a family who has lost all of their home to the fire.  

I plan on quilting this one myself using the ideas I learned in the walking foot quilting class with Jacquie Gering a few weeks ago.  I bought myself something new for my sewing room...

I will be putting it to good use when quilting this quilt!  I will do a post on what is in the box soon.  

This Week's Sewing Report

Fran and I spent an evening this week sewing the Navy and Yellow blocks that the members of the Elgin Piecemakers made into a quilt top. 

I had the striped sashing fabric in my stash and Fran found the blue cornerstone fabric in her stash.

Fran sewed and I tried to keep the pieces organized and pressed.  It only took us 90 minutes to get the top arranged and sewn!  Fran went shopping the next day to get some outer border fabric.  I just have to piece the backing and it will be ready for quilting!

I started a new project this week...I have had my mind on the people of Fort McMurray, Alberta who have had to leave their homes due to the wildfires that have swept through the area, destroying many homes and businesses in their path.  I decided to make a quilt to send out to Alberta for one of the families who has lost their home.  I had a layer cake in my stash that was just waiting to be made into a quilt so one night this week, I got started...

The blocks are simple.  I cut each square of fabric in half and inserted a 1.5" strip into it.  I will arrange them with the stripe vertical in one block and horizontal in the next block.  There were lots of squares in the layer cake so this should make a decent sized quilt. I will post a picture after I get the blocks sewn together.  The green I chose is in several of the pieces of fabric in the layer cake, although that is not obvious in the above picture!!!

There are lots of quilters making quilts for the families who have been devastated by the wildfire.  I love it that the quilting community reaches out to people they do not know to help bring comfort and warmth in difficult times.

My Daughter's Quilt Top

 

My daughter graduated from university a year ago.  I told her I wanted to make her a quilt as her graduation gift.  It took her a while to figure out what she wanted but in February, we made a trip to Mad About Patchwork in Ottawa to pick out fabric and a pattern.  I have been working on her quilt for the last couple of months and this week, I finished the quilt top!  The orange spool above contained 1000m of gray thread when I started to work on this quilt.  As I was putting together the last section on the second half of the quilt, I ran out of thread--the spool was empty.  Luckily, I had purchased a second spool of light gray thread recently in anticipation of this happening!

This is the second half of the quilt .

 

 

We had to move some furniture in the living room to make room for me to take this picture of the quilt top.  I have stared at the picture and shown it to several other quilters--I don't think I have anything turned the wrong way but if you notice something, please let me know. I love the fabrics and colours that she chose for her quilt.  The quilt is queen sized.

 

Last week, I sent my daughter the link to the flannel selection at Mad About Patchwork so that she could pick out fabric for the backing.  After some discussion, this is what she chose:

 

 



 

I ordered the fabric online on Tuesday night and it arrived on Thursday morning!!!  The gray is the backing and is a soft brushed cotton.  The pink fabric is for a pillow case or two to match her new quilt.  I have some leftover chunks of the other fabrics in the quilt to add the contrasting band to the pillowcases. This quilt is in line at the long armer's --I hope to get the backing sewn together soon so that I can deliver the quilt to her soon.   There are still a few quilts in line ahead of mine so I have a bit of time.

 

 

This two toned daffodil is blooming in my backyard at the moment.

Elgin Piecemakers Charity Quilts

The Elgin Piecemakers met last Thursday. The colours for our blocks for this month's charity quilt are brown and turquoise.   Here is my block, made the night before the meeting.

 

 

And here are all the blocks that the members of the guild made:

 



The turquoise just sparkles!  I can't wait to see how J and C put this one together!

We had a few quilts ready for binding. 

This one was donated by Nancy who used to belong to our guild but moved away a few years ago. 

The purple, turquoise and navy quilt from a couple of months ago is looking good!

The 30's print quilt is made from blocks donated a few months ago.  I love the border that was added to this quilt.

This week, Fran and I will be getting together to assemble the navy and yellow blocks from March.  I have picked out some sashing fabric from my stash and we already have the backing.  Fran thinks she has fabric for the cornerstones.  

You will notice that one person did not remember that we were to use navy and yellow instead of blue and yellow...it was me!!!  I re-made my block in navy and yellow so now it fits in with the rest much better!

Here is a picture of the sashing fabric:

This striped fabric has been in my stash for ages and it is time to use it up!  It looks great with the navy and yellow blocks.

Next month's colours are yellow, gray and white.  I am quite sure I have a bit of fabric lying around that I can use for my block!