Sharing and Merrily QAL-ing This Week

It's been a busy and productive week for me which should be expected when you promise to write a tutorial and also are participating in three QALs.

Last week, I posted my Hinto Minto Baby Quilt (you can read about it here) and mentioned that the next time I made this pattern I would write a tutorial.  I thought the better of myself so I did a sort of tutorial now than later while the pattern was still fresh in my mind and I had some leftover fabrics to recreate part of the tutorial.  I wanted to share this pattern so you can see how easy and fun it was to make this quilt. (you can see it here, The Staggered Strips & Squares Sort Of Tutorial)

And here are some updates for my QAL-ings:

My Whitewater River Rafting Quilt, a.k.a. the Regatta Quilt Along, (you can read about it here), top is finished and I hope to quilt it next month.  It was nice to make this quilt with Amy Ellis' Modern Neutral fabrics leftover from another quilt and with Marcus Bros Aged Muslin in denim blue.

The Classic Meets Modern QAL hosted by My Quilt Infatuation, (you can read about it here) started this week and I completed the first two blocks, the 24" Bethlehem Star and the 12" Antique Tile using Zen Chic's Figures fabric. Knowing that I'm a strips and squares kind of quilter, I bet you can guess which one of these two blocks was my favorite to make and took less than an hour while the other one took me over three hours and gave me the angle-challenged quilter an exercise on staying focus.  I only had to use the seam ripper three times.  I'm looking forward to making the other blocks and it's going to be an interesting quilt.

The Squiggles QAL hosted by Christa Watson also started this week, (you can read about it here)  and fabric choosing and preparation was the goal. I've chosen to use my stash of Blueberry Park fabrics and you can see I already started making some of the blocks.

So far in January, I'm doing well on my project list but not for long since I'll be traveling starting next week, hopefully to a warm spot.  I'm going to try to tackle one more project on my list and then  decide on a hand project for the road before we leave.  I don't know why I always wait until the last moment to decide this when this trip has been planned for awhile.  I should have put it on my project list.

I hope you're having a great January and are staying warm.  I will say this cold weather we're experiencing in the Midwest is great for staying home to sew.

Staggered Strips and Squares Quilt, A Sort-of Tutorial

Last week I posted my Hinto Minto baby quilt made for parents-to-be who wanted a gray and white quilt with a hint of mint (you can read about it here).  This quilt was so fun and easy to make that I mentioned in this post that I planned to made another version of this quilt in black and white Cotton + Steel fabrics and when I do, I would write a tutorial.  Since this may not be for awhile, I decided with the fabric leftover from the Hinto Minto Quilt, I would do a sort-of tutorial meaning that it's not a step by step tutorial with photos of how to make this quilt but more of how I came up with this pattern and how easy it would be to make it your own.

The concept for making a modern baby quilt was to use various shades of gray and low volume lights from my stash and to showcase a large type print by Art Gallery's Pastel Thrift Shop accented with Cotton + Steel Basic mint print.  

The inspiration for the Staggered Strips and Squares pattern is a variation of a jelly roll quilt which I did with my Hometown Girl Jelly Roll Charm Chase Quilt (left) and my Blue Ernie Dash Quilt (right) and you can see that I really like making quilts with 2-1/2" strips.  What's nice about this pattern  is that you can cut 2-1/2" strips and squares from your stash.

Before I started making the Hinto Minto quilt, I first planned it out by drafting it first on graph paper  (each square represents 2") so I could determine the number of rectangles, squares and strip set blocks I would need.  For the Staggered Strips and Squares Quilt tutorial, the pattern is for a 40" square. (As a side note, I know the pattern name doesn't include rectangles but I only used rectangles for this quilt because I wanted to showcase the gray type print and if you don't want to use rectangles they can be replaced with squares or strip set blocks.)  Here is a suggested layout/pattern and I apologize for not being computer savvy to generate a separate document but I really like doodling on graph paper.  As you can see, each row consists of four blocks with dimensions adding up to 40" finished.  

Here are the fabric requirements and cutting details for making this top:

• Five 4-1/2" x 12-1/2" Rectangles  (Focus Print)
• Nine 4-1/2" Squares (Accent Color)
• Thirty-five to forty strips (20"+, does not need to be exact, cut either strips from WOF or WOFQ) to make the following strip set blocks (instructions to follow)
• Ten 4-1/2" x 8-1/2" Strip Set Blocks
• Eight 4-1/2" x 12-1/2" Strip Set Blocks
• Eight 4-1/2" x 16-1/2" Strip Set Blocks

Note:  you can cut more than the necessary Strip Set Blocks to allow for wiggle room if you have leftover after cutting.  

I love the look of staggered strips and my favorite way to achieve this improv look is by doing the first two laps of a jelly roll race quilt which is first sewing the strips together to make one super long strip and then finding the two ends and then sewing two strips together.  If you're unfamiliar with this technique, you can check out one of the many Jelly Roll Race Quilt videos on YouTube.  Before starting to sew the strips together, first:

• remove all selvedges and straighten the strips, if necessary
• for half of the 20"+ strips, cut them in half to 10" -11"

Once you are ready to sew the strips together, start with either a short or long strip and to ensure the staggered-ness, the last strip sewn should be either a short or long strip, whatever you didn't start with--be sure you don't use the same size strips for the beginning and the end. Also, I sewed the strips together with a shorter stitch length.

Once this very long strip  was sewn, I took it to my ironing board and pressed each seam open.  This is a cumbersome and a little time consuming step but I find it makes the sewing and cutting the strip sets easier.

After you finished ironing and taken a much needed break, find the beginning and the end and line it up for sewing.  I have to mention that this is my favorite part of the jelly roll race quilt, this stretch of mindless sewing. There will be times when seams actually match up between the two rows and that's okay. When you are near the end of sewing the strips together, around 8" to 10", check to see if the ends are twisted, and if they are, then cut at the fold, straighten the strips and resume sewing to the end.  I find that after sewing several race quilts that this sometimes happens.

Again, you will take this lovely pile to the ironing board to press the seam either up or down, your preference, because you want to cut your strip sets when the strips laying nice and flat and so you can see the seam lines when you are cutting the strip set blocks.

When cutting your strip sets blocks to the desired width, be sure you are at least 1" away from a vertical seam line; if you are too close, then adjust by either making a smaller or larger strip set block or move the ruler over enough to be away from the seam line and then cut the desired width.  

Once you have cut the required number and sizes of the strip set blocks you are ready to layout the quilt with the squares and rectangles using the pattern/layout provided above.  Note:  this photo is not the first Hinto Minto Quilt layout but is the layout of the second quilt.  When laying out your blocks, and two strip set blocks are next to each other, be sure the horizontal seams are opposite to each other so they will nest once they are sewn together; i.e., if one block's seam is up, then the block next to it should have the seam going down. (If you don't like the way it looks, then re-press the seam.) Once each row of blocks are sewn together, they should measure 40-1/2" wide. After each row of blocks are sewn, the seams of the blocks should be pressed in alternative directions so seams from the next row of blocks will nest, which we already do when making other quilts, right?

What I like about the Staggered Strips and Squares pattern is that unlike a jelly roll race quilt, where you don't know what the quilt is going to look like until the end,  you can control the look or random-ness by placing the blocks where you want them.  You can place the strip set blocks with other ones with the same fabrics to create what I call "globs" or you can make sure the same fabrics or colors are distributed evenly throughout the quilt. And it's so much easier to sew a quilt row by row rather than having to cut thirty-two rows apart and making the sides even when you do a jelly roll race quilt--for those of us who have made one, you know what I mean.

As mentioned before, the pattern/layout provided was to show how this quilt was made.  You can easily make the quilt larger by adding more squares and strip set blocks.  I highly recommend that you draw your quilt out on graph paper like I did after you determine first what size you want your quilt to be. After that, draw in the squares and strip set blocks to give you an idea of what is needed.  To calculate how many strips you need to sew to make the strip set blocks, this is how I came up with my number for the Hinto Minto:

• separate the strip set blocks by size and count each size separately
• # of blocks x the width x two
• add these figures together and then divide by 20

Example: for this 40" square quilt, the calculations were as follows:

• 10 strips 8.5" wide = 85" x 2 (because there are two strips) = 170"
• 8 strips 12.5" wide = 100" x 2 = 200"
• 8 strips 16.5" wide = 132" x 2 = 264"
• Add these three totals together = 634" divided by 20" strips = 32.  I sewed 35 strips to allow for fudge room or miscuts. And truth be told, when I made the Hinto Minto Quilt, I used 50 strips and the leftovers are being used for the second quilt.

The flexibility of this pattern is you can change your mind as the blocks are laid out --what you drew is not what you have to do.  You can always make adjustments which is why I always cut more squares and sew more strips sets than needed.

I hope you find this "sort-of" tutorial helpful to see how easily this quilt can be made.  When I made the Hinto Minto quilt, I didn't have the foresight to envision this could be a tutorial until after it was done.  I wanted to share the fun, the easiness and the possibilities of this pattern.  Sometimes it's really hard for me to explain something easy. I would be happy to answer any questions you may have but if you're totally confused, which I hope you're not, then maybe I can explain it better if I use graph paper.

Enjoy and I would like to see photos of the quilts you may make.

First Finally Finished for 2018--The Hinto Minto Baby Quilt

Less than ten days into the new year and I have my first quilt finally finished for 2018 and what made it so easy to accomplish was that it was a baby quilt and a pattern that I just love.  As the way the quilt weather works, just when I 'm ready to take photos of this quilt, the sun goes away and foggy weather comes to visit, which means the photos had to be taken indoor.  It makes an otherwise happy quilt look rather gloomy.

This quilt was made for soon-to-be parents, the father being a son of someone I knew since fifth grade and my first memory of her was that she, being somewhat intimidating since she was way taller than me, jumped out of her seat to block me from going to the cloakroom and asked me where did I think I was going.  If I had the power to look into my quilt future I could have told her right then that she might want to rethink her actions because I would be making a baby quilt for her granddaughter in 50+ years.  Instead, as I would relay the story to her sons, I ran back screaming to my desk. Flash forward to almost 50 years later, I met up with my intimidator who was working at the quilt shop I happened to be visiting from out-of-town and as the story goes, she wouldn't leave me alone, kept asking me all of these questions and I was trying to shop. I gave her short and curt answers until I realized she and I went to the same high school and graduated the same year and when she told me her then name, it was reunion time.  It's sort of ironic she was preventing me from shopping, isn't it, but it was a good thing this time.  That was the start of our "being nice" friendship and even though she lives six hours away, we have included each other in our family celebrations over the past years.  I would like to mention that I am at least four inches taller than her now.

Enough of the background story which I had to share and now to this quilt which the parents-to-be requested a gray and white quilt with a hint of mint, thus the name Hinto Minto Quilt which I'm pretty sure it's going to be renamed. As mentioned previously, I just love this quilt and it came together so nicely since I had all of the fabric in my stash.  I wanted to showcase the gray large letter by Art Gallery and the mint green Cotton + Steel fabrics so I came up with a pattern inspired by two other quilts I've made:  Jelly Roll Charm Chase (you can see it here) and the Blue Ernie Stash Dash Quilt (you can see it here).  I love the look of staggered strips and my favorite way to achieve this look is doing the first two laps of a Jelly Roll Race Quilt.  I sewed approximately fifty 20" long strips, which is way more than enough,  in various lengths and once they were all sewn together, I then sew it together like you would for a jelly roll race quilt.  This where the similarities end because I then cut the strip set in various widths and when sewn with the squares and rectangles, it made a forty-inch wide row.  (I'm going to be making another quilt like this with black and white Cotton+Steel fabrics and will make sure I write a Staggered Squares and Strips tutorial so I can share this easy pattern).   A fun touch to this quilt is the father-to-be is an IT executive and I was glad to include a rectangle that had the word "user" while I think some of the other fabrics might appeal to the mother-to-be who works in the Arts.  As you can see by the photos above, there were some spots where the seams or the same fabrics just happened to meet like a jelly roll race.  Also, you will see that I quilted with soft wavy lines along the seams of the rows which added to the easiness of making this quilt.

I backed the quilt with a medium dark gray dot fabric and the binding is a light gray gingham check, all from my stash.  The Hinto Minto Quilt will soon be leaving for California and just in time for the February delivery.  I'll have to check with the Grandmother as to how it should be sent.

I must have been a really nice girl back in my school days seeing that I never received a baby quilt made by someone in the past when I became a Grandmother last year but then again I did win quite a few free quilt patterns and four fabric giveaways in 2017.  Just purely coincidental, I say.  I think there are those of us who wear their halos well.

Hope you're having a great week too and also since it's been snow long, you're enjoying some warm weather.

Linking up with: My Quilt Infatuation, Thursday Needle and Thread, Crazy Mom's Finish It Up Friday, Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Can I Get A Whoop Whoop Friday, and Busy Hands Quilts, Finish or Not Friday

Throwback Thursday: My 21st Century Bulls-eye Quilt

Sandra of mmm! Quilts is hosting or as she is calling it "babysitting" the Throwback Thursday Linky Party which I am happy to be participating for the very first time. I've only been blogging since October, 2016 and may have come across a few posts while scrolling through Blogland but may not have know what this linky party was all about until I read Sandra's posts (you can read about it here) and (here) and thought that this something I could do. After all, one of the reasons why I started blogging was so I could better explain some of my quilts which I couldn't do on Pinterest nor Facebook.  I've been quilting for over twenty years and some of my quilts were made with stories. The quilt I thought I share my first story on Throwback Thursday is my 21st Century Bulls-eye Quilt.

There's a number of reasons why I thought this quilt would make a good story because it was started at almost the end of the 20th Century (1999) and finished right at the almost beginning of the 21st Century (2000) and was made by three quilting friends and myself which at that time we didn't realize this was a QAL.  We were inspired by the cover quilt on the book Quilts by Aunt Amy written by Mary Etherington and Connie Tesene whom I now know personally and I've done some QALs and fabric exchanges, willing and unwilling with them.

At this time, we're talking traditional quilting being the way norm, the Bulls-Eye quilt was so "radical" (I don't think the word "modern" was used then) with the raw edge appliqué and the wonkiness (and I also think "improv" wasn't used too) of the circles, cut freehand not matching up.  I loved this quilt as soon as I saw it and appealed to me as the failed appliquér and somewhat a rebel because I didn't prewash my fabrics.  So, the four of us came up with some ground rules once we decided we wanted to make this quilt and to the best of my recollection this is what we did:

• we had a fabric exchange party when we swapped squares of light and printed fabrics in a certain size of what we considered "ugly" fabrics which were the calicos, florals, reproductions and the "inexpensive" which also meant no new fabric was suppose to be bought; we had to use stash-- sort of ahead of our quilt time, weren't we?
• the circles were precut and the different sizes were placed in separate bags and you had to use the one pulled and the only time you could put it back was if it was the same color as the previous circle--fun, right?
• we agreed that the circles would be sewn with a running stitch and not a fancy stitch like a zig-zag, etc; after all speed was part of the plan
• we exchanged quarter circle blocks within a certain time frame so the Bulls-eye blocks could be made 

I thought I add a little tidbit about what happened after we exchanged the quarter circle blocks is that the one who complained the most about making this quilt was the first one to complete her top and another one who thought she would be the second one to be done was overtaken by me who rounded the corner and beat her to the finish line.  To this day, these two are still my dearest peeps and we still get together but not very often does it involve quilting.

Here are some close-ups where you can get a better look at the wonderful wonkiness and "ugly" but interesting fabrics used in making the Bulls-eye blocks.  Part of the fun in making this quilt was that the edges of the circles would fray after washing and as you can see, I never washed it because this quilt is a permanent fixture on my quilting rack and doesn't get used.  My quilt was sent to a longarm quilter who was just starting her business and she quilted it with wonderful swirls.  She did mention that the quilting wasn't easy because the edges of the circles would flip over and she would have to pin them down.  I worked with her then at the quilt shop and she may have sent me some daggers with her eyes. I think she may have said she never wanted to quilt another Bulls-eye quilt which may have been hard for her to refuse because these quilts were getting popular to make.

My 21st Century Bulls-eye Quilt is one of the very few quilts I made that I've labeled and the reason for doing this, remember this was made during traditional quilt time and there was a lot of talk about preserving our quilt history,  I envisioned this quilt being one of few of mine which survived in the far future and possibly people wondering what was I thinking when this quilt was made.  I figured I save them some research time and also to let them know I wasn't crazy then when this quilt was made.  Sorry, I blocked out the names of the other quilters in order to protect their sanity.  Looking back now with the modern quilt techniques well into place, this quilt really doesn't need any explanation (modern versions of this quilt are being made) except maybe for the fabrics which are so yesterday, but  I might add, I still love looking at them.

Around ten years after the first Bulls-eye quilt was made, I made a second one with the leftovers from the first one and additional "ugly" fabrics accumulated since then as part of a UFO Challenge which Mary and Connie hosted in 2012 or 2013.  I might mention, making a Bulls-eye quilt is like starter dough for a friendship cake, the circles you cut just keep on going, you'll understand once you know the construction method. The second quilt, laying on the chair, is still not finished and I've been tempted to finished it with simple quilting in the ditch.  It would be too funny if I happened to find the longarm quilter who quilted the first one and jokingly ask her if she would be willing to quilt the second one for me--funny, but not nice.

The 21st Century Bulls-eye Quilt was really a lot of fun to make and it is a great way to use up the stash.  I'm thinking I could make one with "modern" fabrics against gray and low volume fabrics since I've built up quite a stash of these fabrics now.  This definitely would make a great DREAMi project.

To paraphrase a line from the 50's TV Series "Naked City", there are eight million quilt stories out there, this has been one of them.  I'll be linking up with Sandra and hopefully you will join in the Throwback Linky party with one of your stories.

Plans, Projects and Peeks for 2018

It's the start of the New Year and my annual tradition of watching the Tournament of Roses Parade while planning my quilts/patchwork projects for the year was observed. The day was very productive and enjoyable and it's nice to start the new year with a plan in place which is the way all my New Year plans start but sometimes don't end because my plans are on paper and not set in stone. I've gotten to be very flexible in my later life and happy with what gets finished when it comes to quilting.  My green binder for my 2018 Quilting Life has been organized; the projects pages have been filled out, in pencil of course, calendar, log sheets and inventory sheets inserted, etc. and the jar of numbered wooden balls have been made which will be used for determining monthly projects when needed.  During the late afternoon when the TV was off and I was busy planning, Hubby walked into the kitchen to see why I was being quiet for so long and made a comment "this must be serious".  Yes, but also very energizing. These past four days felt like one of those videos where you plan and prepare meals for the entire week but only with fabric which to me is way more fun.  Here's a peek of my January projects which there was a lot of fabric pulling and die-cutting:

So far, for 2018, I am participating in two linky parties: Quilty Confessions, UFO Addition hosted by Tish's Adventure  in Wonderland and Scrap Attack hosted by Sarah of Confessions of a Fabric Addict. I will be working on these projects for January:

For my UFO Confessions project, (I previously wrote about my participating in this, you can read about it here, I will finish my Kaffe Fassett Zig Zag Patchwork Coverlet which involves a backing of wonderful royal purple Minkee.  I didn't pull a ball to work on this project, it's something I wanted to finish and it is one of my guidelines for this linky party that I can choose the project, plus I really want to be able to finally write a post about the Kaffe Fassett workshop from last October.

For my Scrap Attack projects, (you can read about it here) which I have listed twelve projects ranging from cleaning up scraps, misc. scrap projects to working on project from specific scrap stash, i.e, fabric lines or styles, I drew ball number #2 which are the scraps from my Gypsy Wife Quilt, the Wedding Quilt I made for my youngest son and his wife, a.k.a. Micah's parents and various other quilts.  I still love all of the fabrics in this sweet stash and didn't have any problems coming up with two quilts; one of these will be a version of the Ernie Quilt with the scraps on the right and the other will be a quilt for Micah from the wedding quilt, scraps on the left.  I know which one of these quilts will be saved for another month because it's been almost three weeks since I've made a quilt for the sweet granddaughter and I have to keep the Micah-jo going.

I've also been preparing for the three QALs I'm participating in and are starting in January:

Roseanne of Homesewn By Us is hosting Regatta (you can read about it here).  The fabrics have been chosen and the strips have been die-cut; all I have to do are the sub-cuttings and I will be ready to sew or should I say set sail.  I'm using my stash of dyed denim blue muslin with scraps of Amy Ellis' Modern Neutral and I'm thinking my quilt won't conjured up impressions of sailing in calm waters but more like wild river rafting in Colorado.  Unlike the meaning of regatta, this QAL will not involve racing or crossing a finish line by a certain time but rather to be done at a leisurely sail.  I'm pretty sure, this is a quilt that once all the parts are ready and sewing is started, it's going to be smooth sailing and you won't want to dock.  (Funny, how I'm using some nautical terms in this part of the post.)  What's even funnier and sort of ironic is that one blogger I know, Louise of My Quilt Odysses who actually makes beautiful quilts onboard a boat won't be sailing with us--don't worry about this comment, I let her know beforehand that I was throwing her in the water. Louise saids "I tend to do QALs way after the fact so I may very well sew up a Regatta quilt a year or two from now :).  I totally understand this timeline and have done this in the past also.  I am just amazed that she makes quilts on a boat and thought of her when I joined the QAL.

Kelly of My Quilt Infatuation is hosting the Classic Meets Modern QAL, (you can read about it here).   I've chosen to use my stash of Zen Chic's Figures fabrics with some reinforcement and very excited to be working with these colors and prints.  The fabrics have been on my shelf too long and it's nice to find a project which I can finally use them.  The QAL starts next Monday and I am ready.

Christa Watson is hosting Squiggly (you can read about it here)  A big hooray here because I'll be using my way too large stash of Blueberry Park fabrics which is really sweet since it's listed on my Fabric List for 2018--a check mark on two different lists--sweet.  The charm squares and additional squares have been die-cut and all I have to do is decide which white fabric I want to use, will it be just solid white or a tone-on-tone white or a patterned white.  I'm a little bit worry about using white fabric with some of these red fabrics which can't be prewashed since they are in a precut state.  Once I decide, I'll be using my corner cutter ruler rather than drawing lines on 2.5" squares to make the connecting corners.  And nothing beats sewing during these cold winter months than bright, happy colors and prints.  

And last but not least, I need to make a baby quilt for a very soon arrival and I have the strips sewn and squares sewn cut.  I just need to lay it out on my design board and hopefully will have the top made this weekend.  If I'm really good, it will also be machine quilted and bound.

Good Quilt Karma paid a nice visit to me this week and I am excited to be working on these projects for the month of January.  What's really great is that no new fabric was purchased in 2018 to make these quilts, all of it from my stash.  It would be interesting to see what I finish since we'll be going on vacation at the end of the month.  Too bad one of these projects couldn't be made on the road. 

I hope your year is getting off to a good start too. And if you're experiencing snow days, especially the Snow Bomb, I really hope it will involve time for good and happy sewing while being safe and warm -- be sure to drink lots of warm beverages and eat good cookies too.  And if you're fortunate enough to be enjoying sunny and hot weather, have a cold one for me and know that there are a lot of people who are envious of your part of the world.

Linking up with: Crazy Mom Quilts,  My Quilt Infatuation and Confessions of a Fabric Addict.