Monday, November 7, 2011

Scrap attack!

Have you noticed I haven't done much quilting lately? Reading, yes. Sewing up little gifts and whatnot, yes. But quilting, no. I couldn't take it anymore! I had to get up to my elbows in scraps and work on a quilt (or two, or three).

I started by helping Donald work on a quilt. His student teacher is leaving at the end of the week, and he wanted to make a quilt for her, so I helped him sew up blocks for a signature quilt using some pre-cut 5.5" squares that I inherited from someone somewhere down the line. He picked out the fabrics to use (from a stack of coordinating sqaures), he used the presser foot while I steering the fabric under the needle, he cut the chain pieced segments apart, and he pressed them open on the ironing board. He got a bit tired of it all, and started lamenting the fact that there were 23 kids in his class.

"I should have done this last year in kindergarten when there were only 11 of us," he sighed.

I sent the blocks in with him this morning for the teacher to have all the kids sign one, and then we'll hopefully put it together tonight with the upper and lower borders that you can see in the photo above that I made to make it more square. It is only about 30" square, and I plan to machine quilt with some straight stitches. I've even already made the binding!

I also made a couple more of my leader and ender blocks using 1.5" squares (these blocks finish 6.5" square, and the whole purpose is to use up that black floral - I had a bunch of pre-cut 4.5" squares of it that I wanted OUT of my scraps tin).


I also worked on whittling down my stash of strings because they no longer fit in my strings tin. I whipped up a couple more Virginia Bound blocks (an adaptation of a Bonnie Hunter quilt in her Scraps and Shirttails book). I love these blocks, and can't wait until I have enough to sew them together and have a quilt already! (only 37 more blocks to go...ugh! when I put it that way, it seems like it will NEVER happen!)


I've also had time this past week to work on hand quilting my Pick and Choose quilt.

No new photos, but slowly, slowly, it is coming along. Dare I say that I hope to have it done before Christmas? Did I just jinx myself?

I also want to share with everyone the bag that I received from Janet. I won a giveaway on her blog, and she made me this bag. I love it!

She made the handles in a very clever way so you can use them either long or short - genius! And check out her free motion quilting - I am in awe and so envious of her ability!

She included a beautiful fabric postcard that she made, but I forgot to take a photo of it. Thanks so much, Janet!

9 comments:

Becky said...

What a nice idea for the signature quilt! I agree that 11 is a much better number to make blocks for!! lol
Love the bag, beautiful quilting!

jan said...

Glad it made it to you Erin, this is the second attempt at getting a message to you, something hiccuping on the WWW airwaves methinks.
In case you are interested I have put a tutorial on my
http://janslittlebitextra.blogspot.com/
of how I do my free machine quilting.
Glad you found a use for the bag.
jan xx

jan said...

oops back again I forgot to say beautiful work on your quilts there Erin, and I love the idea for the quilt for the teacher, that is going to be fabulous. Well done both of you. Had to laugh at the grumble about how many kids in the class. hahahahaha
jan xxx

Cheryl Willis said...

I just love you Virginia Bound. i haven't started one (Yet) I don't want to paper piece but may have to just jump in and do it. cw

Michelle said...

Love the signature quilt!! What a wonderful idea!! The teacher will be so blessed and surprised!!

joe tulips said...

Go Donald! I am glad he really got into helping out with the teacher quilt, even if he did get tired at the end. All this scrappiness. Can't get tired of looking! And lucky you winning that bag, so pretty.

Janet said...

I love all the scrappy quilts you have going. They are wonderful.

Shay said...

Massive progress on multiple fronts Erin-way to go. I love all this scrapiness.

I think Donald did a great job and i cant wait to see the finished quilt!

Julie Fukuda said...

Lucky teacher! Great work!
I sketched that block using the little squares in my notebook. I see one in my future as I have tons of one-inch pieces.