Playtime! Cake Stand Quilt Blocks

 In the last few weeks there's been a lot of digging through scrap fabrics out here in Podunk.  All that digging stirred up the need to sew up something...... and it's all cut and ready to go!  Remember these tiny Cake Stand blocks?  

They have been hanging out on the cutting table since January, waiting patiently for me to come out and play.  You can see them tucked away in the corner of the image below.  There's another reason for showing them in THIS picture...the scrap drawer.  I got a wild hair last week to once again "deal" with the itty bitty fabrics scrap bin.

I was doing pretty good about trimming up a few pieces when time permitted.  I would grab a small handful at a time, trim them and sort them by color.  It was working okay but I thought, if I only cut one color at a time it would make for less handling of the fabric and not so much organizing and searching for the right stack.  All those years of working in a factory and always looking for quicker ways to get my job done is deeply engraved in my brain.  Work smart not hard.

And so the sorting by color began.  The process only took a little over an hour, leaving me with one big question... what is the best way to store these pretty little mounds of scraps?

The solution? Zip bags, of course! I had  a collection of them from last year's "2 Bucks a Block". It turns out that being a bit of a hoarder really does come in handy sometimes.

I grabbed a Rubbermaid Brilliance container, which I previously used to store the quilt patterns I sold on Etsy.  Sadly all but one baggie fit into the container.  So the one baggie of scraps is officially next on the list for trimming ... but that will have to wait for another day because right now, I’m in the mood to sew!

I also need to decide what to do with the empty drawer?  Its been almost a full week since it was emptied and it's still empty as of today,  I’m pretty sure it won’t stay that way for long ...HAHA!  

The one inch squares that I've been cutting and the ones I did years ago have been packed into a cute little tin.  Looks like there's enough room for one more row of squares if I smoosh them in there a little tighter.   That gives me plenty of time to figure out a better way to store them.  I'd really like to start sewing some of them up into cute little blocks.  But I'm NOT GOING TO START ANOTHER PROJECT.  There's about 40 UFO's waiting ... I'M NOT GOING TO START ANOTHER PROJECT.  Yes I was screaming so me, myself and I got the message loud and clear.

While sorting through the drawer, I discovered a few triangles that were too small to be cut into one inch squares. Rather than letting them go to waste, I decided to pair them up and sew them into HSTs. Finding those pieces really got me itching to get back to the machine.  It's been a long time since I pieced anything. So I did just that, and you know, there's just something so satisfying about sewing up tiny scraps, and it was exactly the therapy I needed. The whole world just feels a little brighter after a few minutes of stitching.

Within no time I had a new batch of HST's sewn, trimmed and ready to add to my stash.  I’m definitely not as organized as this blog makes it look. I have a bad habit of putting things in weird places ... like the first three large HSTs I found hiding in the drawer and tucked away by my sewing machine.

Then it was time to store them with the other HST's.  Pulling out the HST stash made my quilty wheels start turning.  I LOVE them and would love to play with them for weeks on end but I'm a woman on a mission and I have to stop being so squirrelly ... just stick to the plan Lea Anne!

After a few minutes of petting my HST stash, the ole fuddy duddy mean Lea Anne told me it was time to put away my little pretties and get back to work.  Stick to the plan! she said.  I'll tell you where to stick your idea you ole fuddy duddy!  But I knew she was right.  So back in the box they went, we'll get to play again someday.  For now, I'm going to go play with your friends in the tiny Cake Stand blocks because even the ole fuddy duddy agrees that I need a little time out and more sewing therapy.

Pin It

Starbound Finished

 Starbound is bound!  I can't wait to get her washed and on the bed.  This quilt was a great way to use up some bigger scraps of fabric.

The quilting is entirely ruler work. The outer border didn’t turn out as planned, so I added a bit more quilting than I thought was necessary. Since the outer border ended up over quilted, I left the red inner border unquilted to balance it out and keep it softer since it’s bed sized and will be used. Seems logical to me, though it might just be laziness. Haha!

The star block quilting was copied from a quilt I saw on Pinterest.  Reminds me of fireworks exploding.

Two fabrics were used for the backing.  The floral is a Walmart Pioneer Woman fabric and the dot is an old Riley Blake print.

I didn't plan for the gingham binding to look like a stripe on the front of the quilt, it's just one of those happy mistakes.

Pin It

This Weeks Progress ~ Scraps And Binding

 This week was a slow one for quilting, but I still made it into the sewing room every day, even if only for a few minutes. While sorting through the tiny scraps bin, I realized there were even more scraps tucked away in the “Sweets” tin, where I keep random triangles to turn into half square triangles. As you can see, they multiply like rabbits....it’s time to let them go!

There were three HST's in the tin, so they’ll be added to the hoard of HST's.

My scrap HST system is bursting at the seams with about 3,000 pieces waiting to be used. I plan to keep adding to the stash whenever the flippy corner method produces more, but I’m done making them from random triangles. Of course, there’s one exception to this rule that we’ll cover later in this post.

The image below shows what I accomplished in one hour last night. I processed a few more on Tuesday night but forgot to snap a picture before putting them into the scrap saver system.

Here’s the exception to my new scrap HST rule... I can save small triangles for HST's if I can’t cut a one-inch square from them. I know it sounds a bit crazy, but I already have some tiny one inch HST's in my stash, so adding more makes sense to me. Making a quilt from tiny HST's sounds like a fun challenge... someday.

Last night I finally unfolded the Mumbo Jumbo quilt top to let some of the wrinkles fall out. I don't iron quilt tops before quilting, unless there’s a stubborn crease that could cause a pucker during the quilting process.  I'm not excited about quilting this one because I'm not a fan of sampler quilts.  The quilting plan is to just get it finished with as little quilting as possible. 

Last but certainly not least, the Starbound quilt binding is progressing slowly...one side done, three to go. Fingers crossed for a Monday finish.

This is the end of the quilting updates, but I have a Khaleesi update. It’s been a while since I’ve shared about my girl. As most of you know, she has an autoimmune disease called Perianal Fistulas. I took her off all drugs last year and was treating her holistically.  She was doing well until this past February when things took a horrible turn and we had to put her back on an immune suppressing drug, cyclosporine. It’s a tough drug with some nasty side effects, but it was either that or let the disease run its course, which would have caused her to suffer greatly. She’s doing much better now with only mild side effects. At her vet visit this week, we learned she’s doing so well that we can start tapering off the drug. There’s a chance she could come off it completely and never need it again.

Here's my girl. She looks scared because it was storming outside. She’s a big ole baby when it comes to storms, usually hiding under the table or in the bedroom closet. It might sound silly, but those of us in tornado alley know she’s one smart dog for hide during storms!

Pin It

One Quilt Off The Frame....Next In Line

Starbound is off the frame, and now the only thing left is to hand stitch the binding to the back.

Before diving into the soul soothing handwork, I need to tackle the fabric scraps from this quilt. The large blue and floral piece will be placed in the scrap backing stash, and the batting scrap will be saved for franken-batting.  The small pieces on the left-hand side of the picture will be cut into usable sizes for the fabric scrap saver system.

Just 20 minutes of slicing and dicing, and TADA! Taking care of scraps as they appear is so much easier than letting them pile up for months. It feels great to have a tidy sewing room, though it’s a bit sad it’s taken about 40 years to finally have a somewhat organized space.

We’ll see how long it lasts... since our last chat, I haven’t touched this scrap drawer except to move it out of my way... haha!  And I'm still not ready to deal with it so let's go ahead and prep for the next UFO quilt to be quilted.

 I found this one tucked away at the bottom of a rolling cart this week while searching for a quilt ruler I’d borrowed from my neighbor. It had been prepped to be next on the frame back in February. By the way, I found her ruler two days later...so much for bragging about having a tidy sewing room.

Might as well go ahead and pull the next to be quilted.  

Moody Blooms is a baby sized quilt so it should quilt up fairly quick. It needs a label and binding. I don't like this quilt so I think I might use the backing fabric as the binding.   Maybe I'll use the tehnique where the backing cut larger and rolled to the front of the quilt for binding then machine stitched into place.  Quick and easy!  What do you think?  Do you use this binding method?

In order to make sure I don't forget it's next in line to be quilted, I made myself a note. 

I put it where it's sure to be seen. 

 

Pin It