The good news is that I have finished the Blue Improv donation top. The bad news is that it isn’t going to end up as a donation top.
My SIL came over on the weekend and when I showed her this top in progress, she examined it minutely. Then she said that if this were pillows, it would look great on her sofa. Why not? I really like this top and would love to see it on a regular basis. I am going to make the top into pillows. They will be about 20×20. I was thinking of making 4 of them, but I may make two and have both sides be improv pieced.
I made good progress during the week on this top. It is a lot of sewing since the scraps are mostly pretty small. I have only gotten it up to 30×35 inches, which isn’t large enough for a baby quilt and on the small side of what I like to donate. I went through the scraps on my cutting table (a big pile I really need to deal with) and found more blues. I am hoping I have enough to make one more 5 inch strip so the top will be 35×35 inches. I can think about whether to put a border on it after that.
Somehow the title of “My Mind on COVID” is the way I have started to think about this top. There is some cohesion because of the colors. Beyond that, the piece looks fairly chaotic. My mind isn’t chaotic all the time, but the unknown of the future does bring a sense of chaos to my mind.
Aside from getting a top out of the process, I am also doing a good job of cleaning out my blue scrap drawer I can see the bottom of it!
My blue scrap drawer is finally showing some signs of having some space available. I have been piecing blue scraps together, as I mentioned the other day, in between working on the Red Scribbles quilt. I finally had enough to make a journal cover, so I decided to stop and make a journal cover. I need a quick finish fix and there are more blue scraps for a Color Improv donation quilt.
Blue Improv Journal Cover – inside front cover
As also mentioned, I hadn’t thought of this as a journal cover, so the piecing is pretty random. I didn’t center any motifs for the front. This is for an older journal just to protect the pages, so it looks ok for that purpose.
As I did this piecing, I wanted to save any strips I found for more of the Color Strip donation blocks (quilts). I don’t know if I will find enough to make another quilt. If not, I can make a few blocks for the rainbow strip donation quilt I am planning.
Blue Improv Journal Cover – back
Though I am making space in the drawer there are still a lot of scraps. The scraps still fill the drawer, but are not crammed in. There is hope, in other words, that I will have enough strips for something else-blocks or a quilt.
I am trying to use scraps that are smaller than 4.5 inch strips, because of the possibility mentioned above. This means that there are a lot of small scraps becoming larger slabs until they end up as a journal cover. It feels good to see the blue drawer emptying out.
I forget how much I like some of the fabrics I have used until I see a scrap. I know I always say that there is always more fabric. I do get attached to fabrics I like and want to email the fabric companies too reprint them when I find a scrap and know it is out of print.
Blue Improv Journal Cover -top
I had a problem (or my own making) with this journal cover. It is slightly too large. By the time I noticed, I wasn’t about to rip everything out into order to trim it.
I thought the slab was the correct size, but I think I forgot to think about seam allowance for the last bit of piecing. Oh well. Things happen.
In between working on the applique’ for Red Scribbles, I have been piecing blue scraps in an improv style. I am vaguely thinking this is the start of the next Color Improv quilt, but we’ll see.
I am working very hard at not using a lot of strips that I can use for more of the strip blocks like I made for Blue Strips #2. It isn’t working 100% as I do resort to using some occasionally.
I spent some concentrated time on this donation top and back and was able to finish it.
Blue Strips #2 Donation top
I did something a little different with the borders. Since I had an extra sashing strip, I added it to the left side after accidentally sewing one to the right side. Then I added another border all the way around using a different fabric. There is no first border on the stop and bottom. I think the piece looks ok like that.
I will say that this top looks more like a column quilt or Chinese Coins quilt than the other Color Strip quilts I have made. I think the sea green I used for the sashing didn’t have enough contrast. However, I kind of like the difference.
Work has been busy and I am tired at the end of the day, so sewing has not been going as quickly as I would like. To add to the drama, the SD card in my phone failed, so I lost a ton of photos. It’s my own fault for not backing them up, but it still means a few posts I had in mind can’t happen. There is some hope that one of my nephews will be able to resurrect it, but we will have to see. Thus, my blog is being slightly neglected. I don’t want to post junk, so there may be some skips.
Blue Strips #2 sashing continues
I am working hard on this next donation top. It is not as satisfying to finish these tops since I can’t really show them at meetings. Still, I am motivated enough to clear out scraps to continue making them, so I continue.
As I said before my blue scrap drawer is still pretty packed so I wonder how many blue scrap quilts I will make. This is the second with this type of block. The first had a yellow border and yellow sashing, so it has a very different look. After I finish this one, you will be able to compare the two on the page where I am posting them all.
I have some quilts to send to one of the members to be quilted and I plan to send this one along with that group. I’d like to send everything on Tuesday, so we will see if I can finish this piece by then.
I cut up the fabric I found the other day into sashing strips and had been waiting for some miracle to sew them together. I found another piece of a similar colored batik and was able to move forward yesterday. I sewed sashing pieces to the tops of all of the blocks and am now sewing the blocks together into rows. I am not adding corner stones so I am not chunking.
By piecing FOTY 2018 together I was able to get the blocks for my next blue color strip donation quilt finished.
I know I have used a large portion of blue scraps, but I still have a full blue scrap drawer. A lot of them are small or not strips, so I will be making a blue improv version next, though I still have to sash this one. I used yellow for the last one, which was unique. I am thinking about white, but that might be too conventional or too boring. I haven’t started cutting sashing, because I don’t know what to use.
I also made progress on the Blue Strip donation top Saturday. It is larger, so not moving along as quickly as I would like, but it is also not causing me any problems. I made progress on this piece as I worked on Frolic on Saturday.
I finally finished this top to the point where I felt good about handing it in. I was rather sick of it, but I also have enough pride not to donation a too-small top.
That is all I handed in. I just provided the top and will let Peggy find backing and batting. I know I could have gotten a bigger hit on my Fabric Used spreadsheet, but I wanted to move on.
I haven’t started anything new for donation, but I will soon. It will be either blue or pink. Both drawers are overflowing. I don’t feel like I made much progress emptying the white drawer, though the White Strip Donation top and this one clearly used up fabric. Since I have more white to use, I could combine it with some of the blues. I know I have more than enough blue scraps to make more than two quilts. Combining some blues with whites will spread the use of blue and make for an interesting variation.
I am getting a little sick of this top. Many of the scraps I have available are the same size and the same fabric, which makes for boring piecing. I think it looks nice, but I will be glad when it is done.
Cheryl agreed to help me with a few projects, so the other day I received a large-ish box from her. At first I didn’t realize it was from Cheryl as it seems like boxes are arriving at our house 3 times a day. The YM is sending stuff here, DH and I plus gifts from out of town relatives are also being sent here. It’s crazy.
Anyway.
In addition to stuff from the project on which we are working, were three community quilts.
Cheryl’s Community Quilt #1
Cheryl’s Community Quilt #2
Cheryl’s Community Quilt #3
She asked me to bring them to the meeting in January. I am happy to do so, especially since that means I will have something to show! HA!
Clearly #2 and #3 are related. Also, #1 and #2 are in the same format as the Color Group Donation Quilt I worked a few years ago. I can’t say whether she was inspired by (or even remembered or saw) that quilt. It isn’t as thought that layout is novel in Modern Quiltmaking circles.
So, these will be the first three quilt tops for the 2020 BAM Community Quilt Project. YAY!!
I have been making some progress on the White Improv piece. I am not working as fast as I would like.
It is looking good, I think, different than the others, but interesting in its own way.
The pieces I have in my scrap drawer are a trial, however. There are many, many pieces of great fabric in stupid lengths. They seem to always be wrong. I am making it work, though.
Now that I finished the White Strip Donation Top, I can work on the White Improv Donation Top in earnest.
I spent time on it this past weekend and the slabs are getting bigger.Except for the middle, the piece is still very much in process. The strips I have are very uniform in size and I feel like the other pieces are all triangles, so this isn’t an easy piece to put together.
There is a large-ish slab in the bottom of the drawer and I don’t know if I will make a journal cover or if I will use it in this piece.
I am getting a little sick of this top. Many of the scraps I have available are the same size and the same fabric, which makes for boring piecing. I think it looks nice, but I will be glad when it is done.
