Baskets Of Fun

Welcome to my messy studio! The disorder you see is the result of sweeping and mopping the floor. What began as a quick tidy-up turned into a 12-hour cleaning when I discovered a large dust bunny under the longarm. It clearly needed it, given the time it took. It's interesting how things turn out; just look at what was hiding under the longarm – scrap baskets! 

This cart has been storing small scraps for my Vortex quilt. I haven't worked on it for months and have no plans to anytime soon.

Making the fabric baskets and filling them with matching scraps seemed like a great idea initially.  Now it seems like a waste of storage space.   I will add these scraps with the others, allowing me to use this cart as storage for the works in progress instead of having them piled up on my cutting table.

I'm excited to find these and to sift through them for fabrics to use in the Bow-Tie quilt.

Before I could sort and store the fabrics, I had to get back to the cleaning, from the ceiling to floor. My old broom was put through its paces. Interestingly, did you know that almost all brooms can stand upright by themselves? It's like a little bit of magic!

While cleaning, I discovered an additional box of scraps that I had set aside for string quilting. They were added to the cutting table along with all the other fabrics to be sorted.  

My agenda for today now that the dust bunnies have been conquered...organizing and storing these fabrics.  I hope to find some cuties!

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Breaking It Up

Hi Quilty Friends!  Come on in and pull up a chair while I dig through my stash.  I'm a woman on a mission to find enough orange and purple in my stash to make 100 purple and 100 orange Bow-Tie quilt blocks.  The hope of only working from the scrap bins isn't doable.  A couple of you graciously offered to send me your scraps.  Thank you so much!  I was overwhelmed by the kindness and giddy at the thought of new fabric.  But I think the best thing for me to do is work with what I have.  That means I'm going to break my rule of only scraps in the Bow-Tie quilt.  I mentioned a few weeks ago that I would like to use the smaller precuts in my stash because I'm tired of storing them and looking at them.  Anything smaller than a fat quarter must get out of my fabric cabinets ASAP.   So, here's the new plan.  I pulled the precuts that had orange, purple and gray.  I'll pull out the fabrics needed for this quilt and the rest will be put into the scrap bins.

Yes, I opened them all!  Can you believe it?  The days of coveting and hoarding cute little fabric bundles are over, and it feels so good!

It didn't take long to have all the orange I needed.  As you can see some of them are not orange.  Some look red but they are that goofy Cambell's Tomato Soup red.  If you lay the fabric beside a real red fabric, it looks orange.  If you lay it beside a real orange fabric, it looks red.  GOOFY!  And because I was still coming up short a few fabrics, I threw in some dark yellows and an aqua fabric with orange-ish flowers.

Digging for purples didn't go so well.  I did find a few that I'll share later.  

These hideous creatures below will not be a part of my quilt. They were from a Benartex Jelly Roll and didn't look this ugly on the roll.   I can't deal with the shiny gold accent.  

Since I'm still short a few purple fabrics, it's time to dig deep.  Here's my stash cabinets.  The one on the right is my LOVED fabrics.  The one on the left is the not so loved older fabrics and is the one I'll be digging through.

When I first started the Bow-Tie quilt I knew I would fall short on the 100 different prints for each color.  If I fell short I would either add a floral or a fabric from another color.  So, my first dig after the purple fabrics was the calicos.  These should do the trick.  

Then it was onto the larger florals.  Some of them have a tad bit of purple in the flowers.

And while I'm digging, I might as well look for some more orange fabrics and anything else I think might play well in the quilt.  What a fun day I had playing in the stash. 

Here's how the purple turned out.  The green box shows the fabrics pulled from the precuts.  The rest is what was pulled from the cabinet.  Not all of them are purple but that's okay because y'all know I'm not a fan of purple.  That's why I don't have a bunch of it in my scraps or stash.

  

The rest of the opened precut fabrics were neatly tucked into this basket and will be sorted at a later date and put into the scrap bins.  There are a few fat quarters that will not go into the scrap bins. They will go into the fat quarter stash.  

Right now, all I want to do is make some Bow-Tie Blocks!

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Design Wall Monday ~ Twinkler

 Hi Quilty Friends!  The Twinkler quilt blocks now fill the design wall.  Twenty-two little shining stars.

  

I was hoping for this to be a quilt top by now.  Slow progress is better than no progress.  Maybe by next Monday the quilt top will be ready to quilt.  The prints are cut for the remaining 20 blocks, but the background fabric is being cut as I go. I think today I'll finish cutting the fabric for the rest of the quilt.  That seems to light a fire in my piecing process. 

Trimming the flippy corner bonus HST's is first on the list today.  This quilt will produce 336 bonus HST's.  Trimming a few at a time is easier on the neck and shoulders.  I'm not complaining because I know these little cuties will someday become part of a darling quilt.

One of my biggest problems is I like to play with the blocks and pet the fabrics.  There was no reason for me to stage this picture other than I thought it would look cute.  Wasted time, but it makes me happy!

After playing for a bit, all the blocks were removed from the design wall to make room for the remaining blocks to be made.  This orange block was placed on the top of the stack as a reminder.  We'll talk more about that later in the week.

Here's a little earworm for the day.  A blast from the past and my high school years.

🎵🎵You must be my lucky star 🎵🎵cause you shine on me wherever you are🎵🎵

🎵🎵I think of you and I start to glow🎵🎵

And I need your light and baby you know

 🎵🎵Starlight, Starbright...First Star I see tonight 🎵🎵

Click below to play Lucky Star

This post is being linked up at the following linky parties.  Click on the links to see more inspiring quilters shine!

Small Quilts and Doll Quilts

Life In Pieces

Quilting Is More Fun Than Housework

Super Scrappy

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Mini Simple Folded Corners Ruler

 Hello Happy Quilty Friends!  After years of watching quilters use this ruler and love it, I had to try it for myself.  It's sold in two sizes.  Since I'm skeptical about its amazing powers, I chose to first try the smaller mini ruler because it is cost less. 

The packaging is a nice Ziplock style bag.  I wish all rulers were packaged so nicely.  It would make storing the instructions with the ruler much easier.

Whoa! would you look at the instructions.  Very well done with visuals and well written instructions that seem to make a simple process very complicated.

The first thing I noticed about this ruler is there's a lot of markings.  Even with reading glasses, I can't make out the numbers in the small diamond shapes.  I had to take a picture of them on my phone and enlarge the image in order to see that these are fractions.

This ruler is supposed to make snowballing the corner easier than other methods.  There are other names for snowballed corners.  Stitch and flip or flippy corners are two examples.  Most of the time I use the tape on the bed of my sewing machine to stitch from corner to corner. 

Then I will stitch a second line about a half inch away from the first. Then cut in between the two stitched lines and press each piece to the dark.

The Simple Folded Corners Ruler is designed to cut the fabric first then sew each unit separately.  You first layer your fabrics right sides together in the corner to be snowballed.  Then line up the ruler as shown below.  See how the white fabric is line up with the lines on the ruler and the diagonal line is going from corner to corner?
 

Here's my thought from the first time I saw the Simple Folded Corner ruler.  Why can't I use any quilt ruler with a quarter inch line?  So, I grabbed one off the shelf, lined up the quarter inch line on the corners of the white square. Looks like the cut would be the same, right?

Let's test my theory.  On the left I'll use the Folded Corners ruler and on the right side I'll use the Companion Angle Ruler.  I've marked the white fabric on the left with an M for the Mini Folded Corner ruler.  The white fabric on the right corner is labeled with a C.

The first cut was made.  I didn't notice the ruler had shifted until I edited the photos for this post.  You can see there's a little of the green fabric showing between the line on the ruler and the white square.

The second cut was made with the other ruler.

A couple pins added to prevent shifting of fabric.

And sewed the seams.

A quick press.  Can you use any ole ruler and get the same result?   Yes, you can!

In all fairness, this little bit needing to be trimmed on the Folded Corner Ruler is my fault, not the rulers.

And the other side.

There are instructions for using the same ruler for trimming the corner if needed.  I can do the same with any ruler.  Just line up the edge of the ruler with green fabric and trim.  Flip the block around and trim the other side.

As you might have already guessed, I think this ruler was a waste my money.  The markings are hard to read, it over complicates a very simple process.  And the most important to me because I'm cheap...the same thing can be done with any ruler. 

  However, it has made me rethink my process for making the snowballed corners.  I'm going to try using the cut first then sew method.  But I'll be using a different ruler that has less markings so I can see what I'm doing.

If you have this ruler and love it, leave a comment below to let others know why.  What works for me may not work for you and vice versa.  That's one of the great things about quilting, there's more than one way to get the same result.  

I found a video (after I order the ruler) that shows all that this ruler can do.  It was made by the Fat Quarter Shop and the designer of the ruler.  Click here hop over and watch it on YouTube.

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