Building with Bricks

Well, the big, strong men are in the house installing the counter tops, so I've been upstairs in my sewing room finishing a quilt top made of plaid scraps in brick shapes, cut 3 1/2 x 6 1/2 inches. Since I've been quilting for 23 years, I've gone through many phases in my fabric tastes. For awhile, I was collecting plaids and working them into everything I made. Then, of course, I got really sick of plaids so they've been hanging out in a big bin in my sewing room for many years. In a stash-busting maneuver, I started hacking them into bricks, and 170 bricks went into this top. I'll show you the border after I quilt it! (It was difficult to decide on a border for so many plaids. I didn't want to use another plaid that would give me more plaid scraps!)

The backing is a flannel in a small gold houndstooth on beige.

This quilt will be a gift for a very special man who works for an agency here in St. Louis called "Paraquad". They help people with disabilities, and he is my dear daughter's job coach. He is so good with her, and we want to show him that he makes a big difference in our lives.

I'd better start dusting. I've never had granite before and had no idea they'd be cutting out some holes while inside the house. I should've covered up more things. A little late now...

Row 2 of Mystery Quilt

This picture shows a partial view of my first two rows in Debi's Roosting Round Robin Mystery Quilt. "Road to Oklahoma" was the first block (on the left), and "Variable Star" is the second month's block.

I am determined to make this quilt without buying any fabric, so my theme is red, mustard, and dark blue fabrics in plaids and coordinates. It's a loose theme which should get looser as quantities of these scraps dwindle! I already know that I don't have enough of the light background for all six rows. This could get interesting.

Many of us who are making this mystery quilt are sharing our blocks on the Quilting Passion Forum. Members are making everything from baby quilts to Christmas quilts! Stop by and take a look.

Cool Weather.....Aaaaaaaaah!

The weather here has finally cooled off enough that we can sleep under a quilt at night! For a woman that gets overheated easily (a real hot woman--LOL), this is a real treat! The cool temperatures energize me but also make sleeping much better.

For someone who makes quilts, it is also a great pleasure to be able to get out and use the quilts I have made over the years. The closeup shot here is part of a quilt I named "North Woods Cabin". The logs are only 3/4 inch wide! What was I thinking? The craziest part is that it is all hand pieced and hand quilted and queen-sized! My hands just can't do that any more, but I'm glad I did it then because it is really special to me. I started piecing it on a trip to northern Wisconsin and bought some of the green fabrics up there. The rest is from my stash. I see two fabrics that I bought at a guild meeting from the stash of a member who had died.

There is one juried and judged show in the St. Louis area, and I entered it for several years. This quilt won a blue ribbon in the traditional pieced category, but the best compliment I got on it was when one of the other prize winners said to me, "This quilt reminds me of what 'quilt' really means."

Fabric Shopping Day

Did you know that Columbus Day is a quilt sale holiday? I didn't either, but when a local shop offers 15% off everything to celebrate it, I am happy to join in. Now I have all the fabrics I need to assemble and quilt DH's Pioneer Braid quilt. (I just corrected a typo--I had typed "Pioneer Brain" but that would have been OK. Larry always says he was born 100 years too late.)

The fabric on the left is for the outer borders and is from a relatively new Moda collection, Acorn Hollow. The dark brown has a wood grain, and Larry picked it. It will go between the braid strips and will also be the inner border. At the bottom is the backing fabric, which is a fairly small print of leaves and acorns on a mottled sage background. I am happy! It's supposed to cool off a lot this week, and I will soon be busily quilting away on a winter throw for my sweetie! I have a package of Quilter's Dream Request weight batting all ready to go.

While we were in the store, Larry was talking with the ladies who were selling machines, and before I knew it I was in an embroidery machine demo! She was showing us the Baby Lock line. If anyone has experience with the Emore, I would love to hear from you.

Football and String Piecing

This scrapquilter was multi-tasking today as I extended the length of my pioneer braids while I listened to our St. Louis "Lambs" extend their perfect record to 0-5. I think I had a more productive day than they did. (At least I didn't injure myself as they have been constantly doing.) I now have over 300 inches of braids sewn, well on my way to a very generous throw quilt for my dear husband, Larry. I haven't made anything for him for so long that it is definitely his turn.

The upper left corner shows what the braids will look like when I trim them. I don't want to trim more than that because the braid becomes very stretchy with all of those bias edges exposed! Tomorrow the LQS is having a one-day sale, and I think I will look for a dark brown for sashing and the inner border. I have already purchased a Moda print for the outer border from the Acorn Hollow collection.

It was fun to work with all of these scraps! I wished I had more of some of them, bid some of them "good riddance" as I finished the amounts I had in my stash, and wondered why the heck I even bought some others! The great news is that I have reduced the browns and greens in my stash so much that I was able to combine them into one container and free the remaining plastic bin to store my granddaughter's blocks!

Grandmother note: Yesterday Avery came up to me, said, "Mmmmmm, Maw-maw" and spontaneously kissed my cheek for the first time. That made me feel more bubbly than a glass of champagne!

Two Quilts Finished for Project Linus

Hey, long time, no see! Yes, I know that is my fault, and I apologize if you have come here in the past couple of weeks and found nothing new to read. I had my first nasty cold of the season and am counting on that time served to earn me some immunity later in the season.

Also, I have been working very hard to quilt and bind some tops that I had made for Project Linus. Here are my two recently finished quilts, Dog Scrapbook and Double Dip. In making these quilts, I have lived up to my Scrapquilter name. I actually used up a few fabrics in the making of these quilts, and that hardly ever happens.

I can't remember where I saw a quilt similar to the dog quilt, but I determined what sizes of dog fabric scraps to cut, bordered them and joined them into 12 x 12 finished units before joining the 9 units into rows. The border strips were cut 1 1/2 inches wide. The squares were cut 10 1/2 x 10 1/2 and 4 1/2 x 4 1/2. The rectangles were 4 1/2 x 10 1/2. Let me know if you try this quilt. I could see using this format for an I Spy quilt. The big squares enable you to use some of the really big prints that you hate to dice up too small.

I drew the ice cream patterns and have made several quilts with them. I think I will just eat ice cream for awhile--kinda tired of sewing it! The backing fabric is so cute on this one that I had to show a corner. It's covered with big, juicy-looking cherries.

There are a few shapes in nature that I especially love and have used repeatedly in quilts. The cherry is one of them. I just think they are so cute! I also love the shapes of oak leaves, acorns, some shells, and starfish.