Flannel Vortex Baby Quilt

Early this week, I took all of my blocks of various shapes and sizes, and cobbled them into a quilt top.  This was my 4th vortex quilt, inspired by Amanda Jean at Crazy Mom quilts, made in an attempt to tame my flannel scrap bin.  I even used some flannel leftovers to piece the back.  These strips were purchased at the modern guild rummage sale a few weeks ago.

Many of these flannel fabrics are filled with memories--lots of leftovers from PJ's made for my daughter and nieces when they were little---now, all three are in their 20's.

I quilted this one on my DSM, using my walking foot, with a pattern of two straight lines, followed by a curvy line.  I wanted to make sure there was lots of quilting to keep all of those small pieces stable, wash after wash, as the quilt is used by a baby.

I got to the end of the quilting, pleased to be done, ready to trim the quilt, to add the binding.  Looking good on this side, but then I turned it over...

Yikes.   I had quilted 4 inches of the edge  backing onto the back of the quilt.  I took out my super sharp scissors and cut away much of the overlapping fabric, without undoing the quilting.   After getting it down to 2", I took out my ruler and my rotary cutter, and trimmed off the remaining overlapping chunk.  No one will ever know that I did this, so please don't spill the beans!!! (LOL!)

I found the binding fabric in my stash--it has made an appearance in other baby quilts that I have made in the past.  I did some of the hand stitching yesterday afternoon and some today in the car.  Here is the finished quilt...I just need to add a label.

I will be linking up with Kathy's slow Sunday stitching group tomorrow.

Crafters' Retreat

Christine and I spent the weekend at Camp...we each brought numerous projects with us and I am happy to report that progress was made on everything!

My ironing board is almost due for a new cover---ignoring that, you can see I worked on my flannel vortex baby quilt--my third flannel vortex quilt (I have also done one out of cotton quilting scraps).  This quilt involves lots of sewing, pressing, trimming, and then more sewing, pressing and trimming. I went home with some larger chunks, ready to be made into a quilt top.

I started a new Christmas quilt--no pattern, just my own design as you go project.  I will keep playing with more of the fabrics to add more shapes to this one.

I cut up yards and yards of these two fabrics for sashing and borders for my Tula Pink 100 Modern Blocks quilt.

I made them into twosies.

Here they are all sewn to the blocks, waiting to be pressed.  After pressing, the blocks got put away in the bag to be taken home for some time on the design wall before sewing them together.

I also did some hand sewing on Frank Lloyd Wright--no pictures--just some more outlining.  I sewed down the binding on the Christmas tree wall hanging as well.

I finished off a couple of Christmas gifts as well...top secret...no pictures.

By this time, my sewing machine was balking at sewing smoothly, so I checked under the bobbin for fluff...

Just as I thought...

Cleaned out and working much better afterwards!

There were delicious pumpkin scones to eat...

We went on a few walks around the camp on Saturday as it was a lovely sunny day.

Stairs to the beach.

Early morning walk.

A comfortable spot to watch the waves roll in.

We couldn't miss a visit to the ladies.

What a great weekend with the crazy quilters!  Lots of laughs and lots of sewing.

I came home and after supper, my husband and I finished putting together the quilt block puzzle.

Until next time...

Retreat Weekend

I am just home from a three day retreat with the London Modern Quilt Guild.  We stayed at an inn about 45 minutes from home and did our sewing in the ballroom.  They supplied lights and extension cords at each table as well as irons and ironing boards and bed risers for the cutting tables.  They have hosted a lot of quilting retreats for various groups over the years so they know how to get things set up just right!  The room was buzzing with activity each day from before breakfast to late into the night.

I brought three projects with me and had time to work on all of them over the course of the weekend.

Project #1 Tula Pink 100 Blocks Sampler

Before arriving at the retreat, I had 24/100 blocks made for this quilt.  I had made six more this past week when Christine came over to sew one night.

On Friday, I added 19 more blocks to my collection.

It is lots of fun picking out the fabrics for each block...

including a little pop of colour in most of the blocks.  My Friday blocks are shown below.

Saturday, I added 16 more blocks to the pile.

Some blocks had a bigger pop of colour than others...

I am up to 59/100 blocks completed now and will continue to work on them as time permits.

Project #2  Flannel Vortex Baby Quilt

I have a large bin of flannel scraps that need to be tamed.  I have made a few "scrap vortex" quilts in the past in an attempt to use up my scraps but the bin continues to overflow.   I am using brightly coloured scraps in this quilt and even had a few blocks leftover from my last quilt as a starter for the next one.  I chain pieced lots more flannel chunks to each other for about two hours on Saturday evening. I am on my way to piecing more blocks for my next vortex quilt!

Project #3  Scrappy Trips Lap Quilt

When I was hunting through my fabric storage area for an extra project to bring for the weekend, I came across a bag containing a jelly roll and some co-ordinating fabrics purchased at least 10 years ago for a specific quilt, but of course, there was no pattern in the bag.  I found some solid yellow fabric that went with the jelly roll and brought everything along in a new and bigger bag hoping for inspiration to make something over the weekend.  Well, inspiration came on Saturday and this became my sewing project for Sunday.  I decided to make a Scrappy Trips quilt from Bonnie Hunter's free patterns at her Quiltville website.

I cut my strips to the right length and laid them out by colour.

I had a chain piecing production line going all day long!

I ran out of thread but had brought an extra spool in case this happened.

My first block soon became 4 blocks.

And then 9...

A while later, I had 12 blocks done and ready to be assembled into a quilt top.

I used one of the fabrics in the bag to add a border around the quilt and it was done, just before it was time to pack up and go home.

I have a plan for quilting this one in mind already.  There was enough fabric in the bag for the backing and I will likely use the solid yellow for the binding.  The colours remind me of Spring.  This quilt will be given to someone who does not read my blog.

I am back to reality now...my suitcase is unpacked and my sewing supplies have been put away.  I look forward to the next retreat in the Spring of 2020.

Flannel Vortex Baby Quilt DONE!

Over the past few months, I have been using some of my many bright flannel scraps to make a flannel vortex baby quilt.  This is my third vortex quilt...I did my first one as part of a quilt-along with Amanda Jean at Crazy Mom Quilts.  The second one was made with my darker flannel scraps and was given to a friend who was going through cancer treatments.  A friend's daughter is having a baby soon so this quilt will be a gift for the new baby.

I used my walking foot and my favourite serpentine stitch to quilt this one. I wanted to make sure that there was quilting through every piece of fabric for stability when it is washed.  I make my baby quilts to be used and washed over and over again!

Some of these scraps have been hanging out in my sewing room for a long time.  Most are leftovers from PJ's I have made for my daughter and my twin nieces.  Does a scrap of flannel from 23 years ago count as vintage???

The quilt was just a bit too wide to use one width of fabric piece for the back so I pieced a strip of little birds into the middle of the dotty fabric to make the backing wide enough.  The binding used up almost all of the dotty fabric --there may be a few scraps of dotty fabric to add to my next flannel vortex quilt.

Happy Canada Day!  Happy 150th Birthday, Canada!

Flannel Vortex Flimsy

While sewing with Christine this week, I managed to put together my flannel vortex baby quilt flimsy. I love seeing the wide variety of scraps and can tell you where most of them came from!  I used to make PJ's for my daughter and my nieces and all the leftover bits and pieces were fair game for this quilt.  I also have cut offs from various quilt backs in there and some other flannel pieces given to me by my quilting colleagues as well.

Once I had the top together, I found that I had a bunch of spare parts--they will be put into a bag and saved for another flannel vortex quilt sometime in the future.  I see this bag as a starter kit...sort of like that sourdough starter that I used to have on my kitchen counter.  I just fed it each week and baked something with it using a collection of recipes that I had.  My quilt starter kit has a lot fewer calories than the sourdough starter did!  I will just keep adding to the basket of scraps to feed it...there is never a shortage of scraps to add around here!

I will be linking up with Crazy Mom's Finish it up Friday.

When Life Gives You Scraps, Make a Quilt!

I'm sure all of you are familiar with an overflowing scrap bin (or two!).  A few years ago, I had two overflowing scrap bins of flannel bits and pieces.  Many of the pieces were leftovers from flannel pj's I have made for my daughter and my twin nieces over the years.  I decided to tame the flannel scrap bin and made each of the girls a lap quilt from their PJ fabrics.  I used up lots of scraps in the tops and   several yards of hunks and chunks in the pieced backs. The best part of this--I was down to one bin from two after the quilts were made!

This is my daughter's quilt. 

This one belongs to one of my nieces.  (I can't find a picture of the third quilt.)

There was still lots of fabric left so last year, I made a flannel vortex quilt, which I gave to a friend who was going through treatments for breast cancer.  She found it quite cozy while resting after her hospital visits.

I have added to the flannel scrap bin over time with cut off's from quilt backs so now it is overflowing again.  Time for another scrap vortex quilt...this time I am using up my brightly coloured flannel scraps.

I had lots of small pieces as well as strips which I cut up into smaller pieces.  According to Amanda Jean at Crazy Mom Quilts, you just take two pieces and sew them together and then keep doing this over and over again. 

Press each twosie and then sew the twosies together to make bigger pieces.  This is a long process and involves lots of pressing and trimming and sewing and then more pressing, trimming and sewing.

Here is my progress so far.

I am hoping this will become a baby quilt in waiting.  There is no baby in mind for this quilt, but if one comes along, I will be ready with a gift.