Scrappy Mini Blocks

I found a fantastic block over at City House Studio. I recently acquired a lot of white, since I've never used it, and I wanted to experiment with using negative space. These blocks are still whimsical and follow my modern style (and bright color choices) utlizing white to make the little squares really pop. 

I decided to play with some scraps from the Irish Road (mainly because they were already in 1.5" strips and I only had to cut them one more time to make tiny sqaures). But I just went for it and didn't really think about finished size when I arbitrarily chose to make the center 5 little squares - lesson learned, that's a little small - it is now a 4" block which will finish to 3.5" once joined with anything else.

 I'm thinking I might turn a set of the little blocks with scraps from many projects into the edging for pillow cases and then make full sized blocks like the ones from City House Studio for an actual quilt.

Backing a multitude of tops

I have the habit of making quilt tops then letting them languish in the drawers of my stash containers without being fully finished. Last week, my mother was visiting me in Boston, and we took a trip to New Hampshire. We went to the Portsmouth Fabric Company, which I had gone to once back in summer 2010. On this trip, I got backing fabrics for five of my unfinished projects. Two of these were created in the last two weeks, but the other three are all at least a year old, if not older. This is also where you get to see my love for batiks.

 This is a baby quilt to the right I made in Fall 2010 - The dots on the back didn't come out as brightly as they appear for real, but they are a green-yellow color and really pull from the sashing. It was just perfect, I didn't have to even consider any others for this one.

 On the left is one of the new quilts, as seen in the recent post. I didn't want the quilt to read little girl pink, so I went with a green that would coordinate with the little quares that make the Irish Road Pattern. 

This is also one of the quilts that I just made, and the colors are much clearer in this photo than the previous one. The back for this will read bright blue, as the overall front reads more green, but it still has dark green accents running through it. I was very pleased to find this one. 

This last one I've had kicking around since summer 2010, all fabrics in this one came from Portsmouth. The wavy green one is the bolt I had to have. And then I got the other two greens and made the checkerboards. This is the biggest of all the unfinished objects. It's between lap and twin sized. And now the back will pull from all the different shades of green that appear on the front.

Upcoming projects

A little background, my mother is the one who taught me to quilt. She has been plugged into the fiber arts blogs for far longer than I have. Since she doesn't have school or homework concerns (nor does she coach a high school sport 10 weeks each spring and each fall) she's got a lot more free time on her hands.

She sent me the link to Six White Horses for the Lone Starburst pattern since she knows I like the precision of paper piecing (and have more scraps than I know what to do with). While I will make that star, I truly fell in love with the Sharp Chevron pattern which is pictured here. This block was made by Anna, the Six White Horses author and is from her post about the pattern:

My mother was visiting Boston last week, and we took a trip up to Portsmouth, NH where the Portsmouth Fabric Company has many, many wonderful bolts. My main goal on that trip was getting batting and backing fabric for five quilt tops that need to be sandwiched and quilted. I succeeded at that which will be a different post, but here are the fabrics I got for the chevrons/stars:

The darkest of comes from my stash, but the silver grey - which reads very silvery - and the lighter blue with white dots are from the Portsmouth Fabric Co. I also picked up two yards of white while there since I want to start playing with white to constrast the bright patterns that I typically use. 

School's Out for the Summer

I'm cramming all of summer into the three weeks I have off from school. I made two tops right off the bat - one scrappy and one from stash. These were both done in the first week after I finished exams. I wanted to bust through some projects and go. Since making these I ordered an ironing mat for my new sewing area so that I can iron seams open as I go.

 This one was made from scraps. All the points were paper pieced from a block I drew and had photocopied a little over two years ago. The light quality in my apartment makes this read more yellow than it really is. This one will be going to Quilts for Kids. It took a couple days to make all the blocks, then was fully pieced the day after they were all completed.

This was entirely made from stash fabrics. The green is much more vivid in real life. This was taken once all the blocks were done. They have since been joined and it will be getting a 2 inch border of the same green running around the edge. I had fun with this one. I had bought all the pinks last Thanksgiving (or maybe the one before), but school got the better of me and I never used them for their intended project, but they came out very nicely for this (24"x36" before the border).

Adding to my stash...

I'm in Atlanta right now which is home to Intown Quilters. It is by far my favorite fabric store. They will order full lines of each pattern across all color families, and have more batiks than anywhere else I've been. This is a picture post mostly of a sampling of the lines they carry plus the fabrics I picked up today. I also got some thread and a 4.5" square, but that's not nearly as exciting.

 Look at the robots - lots of robots. Ironically, I first realized the theme of this based on the green fabric which is one of the more subtle robot bolts here. 

 Fun, bright, and cheery kid oriented line. 

 Fat quarter bundles. They had 32 fat quarters each. A bit rich for my budget ($97), but definitely lust worthy. 

 Just to give an idea of the sheer number of bolts - and this is just some of the batiks.

 108" Wide backing bolts - one of four shelf sections. I love the blue with the spirals, but I also love spirals, so not terribly surprising. 

 Dots, dots, dots, and more dots. I wish I could buy from all of these for my stash. 

 Just fun and quirky. I really like the green and purple with the black and white. I have a few fat quarters that are similar to this line. 

 My stash additions. I have them arranged by the line they came from. I'm in love with the cyan and pale olive that Moda has, and clearly I got the most from this line. The other olive green, blue, and white were my first picks of the day. The argyle was one of the last - it fit with the blues and greens I was finding on this trip. The upper, darker cuts were just fun and will be stash additions that may or may not be used together the way these other ones will certainly be since they are coordinated. 

Fat quarters to go along with the red and black large cuts of the swirly spirals.