Cutting Catharsis

I haven't been doing much sewing, but I have been cutting up a storm, and organizing a wee bit.

I showed my bin of tumblers in my previous post.  Now it is easy to grab a pair and sew for a leader and ender, but as you can see it was getting very chaotic and a hard to keep contained at times.  Also they were getting wadded up and difficult to sew because of getting all wrinkled.

I have been cutting for several days and after piling them nicely I only have about 1/3 of a bin full.

I also organized my 2 1/2 inch strips. 

I still have my 2 inch strips to organize, but I think I have had my fill of organizing for a while.  I have been cutting pieces for my twisted blossoms block  for February, and the bazillion pieces for step 4 of the Allietare.

I haven't even began to sew step 4 yet.  I have a ton of 2 inch black squares to cut, and a bunch more red sets.  While there is a lot more cutting to do, I have found it very cathartic,and calming and am looking forward to having it all ready to start sewing for this step. 

The Doldrums

After finally finishing the baby quilt, I am feeling that let down or doldrums for lack of a better way to describe it.  Do you ever feel that way after you finish a quilt?

I pulled out the ribbon star and worked a bit on it yesterday. 

I made up the Saw Toothed Square for one of the blocks that I chose for the RSC.  The color for the month is brown.

I then was kind of at a standstill.  What to do?  I could pull out the Allietare and work on it.  But I also knew I had fabric stacked all over the place.  So maybe I should clean up my mess.  Maybe it would be easier to be motivated to work on stuff.

First I grabbed some strips which I had already cut for the fancy fox blocks.  I have enough parts cut to make several more foxes. 

Since these are so easy to put together I decided to finish up making the ones for the month.

A batik fox, and use some of the lovely fabric I got from Julierose.

And my skulk of foxes.

I decided to then cut up some of my scraps, and while doing it cut parts for the twisted blossom which will be the next block I work on, and tumblers.

My little shoe type box seems to ever get really low. 

I love cutting up my scraps, and even pulling some stash and using it. 

What Good is a Fat 8th?

What do you do with a fat 8th?  I asked that question the other day after discovering the fabric that I wanted to use for binding was only a fat 8th instead of a couple of fat quarters.  You can see that post here.

I had made a label for the baby quilt and decided to put a binding type of frame around it.  I didn't want to use the same fabric that I was using for the binding, so I decided to use part of the fat 8th that I had wanted to use for the binding.

I managed to come up with a way to slip this fabric in someway.

After washing my label faded a bit, but overall it still looks good.  I love that I got to use the fabric, and what was left from the one fat 8th was cut up to go into the tumbler quilt, as well as strips into the scrap basket system. I just machine stitched around it to mount to the quilt.  You can see it a bit on the front of the quilt, but I tried a new (to me) thread called Bottom Line by Superior thread.  I will say that I do love it to use in my bobbins while piecing.  Plus it wasn't as intrusive on the front of the quilt.

What can you do with a fat 8th?  I think a fat 8th is perfect for anything you want to do in little bits, but I think that they would be wonderful for applique.  In fact the last couple of days when I have been doing applique I have been using fabric from some of the fat 8ths which I had on my shelves.  

A Little Bit of Applique

I have some pieces that need machine applique.  I am a true beginner you can see how much so when I did the block for the Friendship block through quilt guild.

I had a couple of blocks that just did not turn out quite right.  The grandsons claimed them.  They think they are beauteous.

Once I got my feet wet I jumped in and did the cowboy on the bucking bronc on one of the Row by Rows which I had made which I showed previously.

The blocks below are  from a row by row.  This one is kind of nice.  I can decide later if I want to go horizontal, or vertical, for now we will just stay blocks. 

While I was at it I did the two blocks for the In Our Garden blog hop.  You can check it out here at Sew Incredibly Crazy.  There is even a Facebook , and Flickr group, but what is so cool about this blog hop is there is a different blog each month that will share 2 blocks.  One pieced and one which is applique.

I went stash diving and the majority of my fabrics were from stash, but I did do a little retail therapy and decided to use a texty background.  I think my blocks are very springy and happy, which is especially important considering we finally have "real" winter and it is bitter cold. 

I think I am becoming an applique' fan finally.

Julierose to the Rescue

My last couple of posts were about my hunt through my stash to locate some brown fabrics for the month of February's RSC.

You can read them here at My Brown Lament and here at Deep Stash Diving.

Imagine my surprise and delight when a package showed up in my mailbox.

Thank you so very much Julierose from Julierosequilt.  I appreciate the package greatly.  I teased her since she had recently made a comment about doing a destash....I asked if I was part of her destash plan.  (Huge cheesy smiley face)  There are some great modern fabrics in here that will go great in the twisted blossoms and I love the Asian print with the dragon and tiger.

I finally finished the baby quilt.  I started out with a binding dilemma.  I had purchased some what I thought were fat quarters a couple of years ago.  I had calculated with a couple of fat quarters I could probably get enough binding done for a baby quilt.

Imagine my chagrin when I discovered these were only fat 8ths and they were not really even cut straight.  With fat quarters doing the binding with the fake flange I could have made it work.  Fat 8ths--not even remotely. Ugh something which is going to get cut up and thrown into my scraps.  I did make a run to JAF and found this fun green stripe which you can see below,  that worked too, but I really did love the blues, and blacks, and the bubbles in the fabric above. 

I did get my binding done, and sewn on even though I was having some challenges so I actually ended up basting the binding down before I machine stitched it.

You can see I need to take my basting threads out, and trim up the loose threads.  I even managed to make a label.  I did Susie's Magic Binding from a tutorial I saw and I love how it turns out with the little fake flange. 

I also made a label. 

I used the bubble jet set and still need to do the rinse part.  Then figure out if I want to turn the sides over and hem them to attach the label, or do a fabric frame.  I am leaning toward a fabric frame.  This one is almost done and out the door! 

Now I need to decide what I am going to pick up and finish, and work on. 

Deep Stash Diving

Yesterday I lamented that I did not have much brown (ok technically I whined) but lament sounds so much more mature.  Right?!?

I did a deep stash dive today before I wandered back to my never ending organic straight line quilting of the baby quilt.  I dove so deep I am sure I was down at least 2 if not three atmospheres, and once I headed toward the surface I was going to have to make a couple of decompression stops along the way.    Can you tell I have been reading novels which include a lot of diving lately?   I had to look it up but an atmosphere is approximately 33 feet when you are diving.

Do you know that when you have your stash all folded sometimes stuff squishes around and it is difficult to see it especially fat quarters, but I think I was successful.  

It is hard to believe that browns have such a range from golden browns, to chocolate browns to even gray toned, purple toned, and pink tone browns. 

While digging I also found some really ugly fabric!

No I didn't use this one, even though there were a lot of browns.  I actually cut it into 2 1/2 inch strips.  Someone once said if it is still ugly you haven't cut it into small enough units.  I cut some of it up into tumblers, as well as some others that I found.

While these were not ugly like the one it was nice cutting up these small chunks to be able to use up the scraps.  They were turned into tumbler units. 

Do you know what is in your stash? 

My Brown Lament

What color is missing in your stash?  I know we all seem to lean toward certain colors, and sometimes even certain fabric styles, but do you have some colors that are utterly lacking from your stash?  Brown is my color.  I don't have much brown.   Imagine my chagrin when it was announced that the color for the month of February by SoScrappy is brown.  Insert huge frownie face here!

I managed to unearth maybe 10 browns in my stash.  Not near enough!

I wanted to make 4 fox blocks for each month.  Yes I know I only shared one blue fox for last month, but I actually had three more cut out.  I just hadn't sewn them yet.

Blue Foxes

 My skulk of foxes so far.

How am I going to make 2 more brown foxes, a twisted blossom, Saw Toothed Square, Crown and Star, and Navajo block when I don't have brown scraps? 

Twisted blossom is made up of more modern fabrics, Crown and Star and Saw Toothed Square are reproduction/antique looking fabrics, and Navajo was going to be made of solids.  Am I allowed to buy fabric for  RSC blocks?