Yes, I think I am calling this quilt Scrap Dash instead of 30 Something.
Scrap Dash (30 Something)- April 7, 2021
I spent some time on Wednesday standing in front of the design wall and rearranging various units. The more I do this the better it looks.
I can also tell what I need to work on next. In this case, I need more half square triangles. I prepared a bunch for sewing at Craft Night, but haven’t actually sewed them yet. The process in this quilt was: 1. cut squares; 2. draw lines; 3. sew; 4. cut apart; 5. square up. I don’t really mind this process, but I wish they had chosen a better system like using the Simple Folded Corners Ruler. I wasn’t able to find a tutorial using the size pieces I had already cut, so I just went with the drawing method.
Tim showed me the start of his baby quilt. He is making it loosely based on the Give & Take Quilt by Tara Faughnan. (You’ll have to do a search as there is no good way to link out to her site for a photo). I love his colors much more than in the original.
The blocks that look yellow are actually more of a chartreuse (icky green), which is one of Tim’s go to colors.
He is figuring out how to put this together as he goes along, which I applaud. I told him to tell me if he needed help, which may have been too smug as he is a very competent piecer.
As soon as I move the X Quilt off the design wall, I moved all the HSTs leftover from the X Quilt on to my large design wall. I wanted to play around with layout a little bit.
I had to squeeze it on to my small design wall to show it to you before. I wanted to see how it would look with a little space between the columns, which is what you see above. I am not sure I like it. I kind of like the way the pieces look right next to each other.
It is also a little bit of an odd shape in this configuration. I need to think about whether it matters or not.
I have been looking at these HSTs as I sew other projects.
I think this piece looks a lot better in these fabrics than the X Quilt. Don’t get me wrong, I like the X quilt. I just think it would have looked better if I used larger prints.
I think I will probably sew it in this configuration. Perhaps I am just used to it, but I do like how the eye moves around the piece.
I finished pressing the rest of the HSTs generated from the X quilt. I have plenty to make a good sized donation quilt. I haven’t done any sewing as I still haven’t finalized the design.
Still no final design, but this is looking pretty good in terms of placement of each HST. I still want to break up the chaos a bit with some background fabric.
Despite not using leaders and enders to make donation blocks, I still seem to be generating some donation quilts, which makes me happy.
I almost finished the X Quilt top. I have two or three seams left on the top and I am really eager to finish it. I just don’t want to work on it any more. Perhaps I don’t like the fabrics I chose. Pop Parade has dull rather than clear tones and that depresses me a little bit. Perhaps the background low volume text prints aren’t right for the size of the blank squares.
I don’t know. I just know I want to be finished with it. I don’t know what I will work on next. I have a few bags to finish for sure, but no quilt in mind except the HST donation top.
I am working on the X quilt and the HSTs at the same time. My iron is acting up so some of my lack of progress has been because of not having a working iron. I have a makeshift solution in place and am making progress again.
I have pressed all of the large HSTS and have a few more small HSTs to press. Since there are only 3 large X blocks, that limits the number of large HSTs with which I have to work. As I said before, I am thinking about adding sashing. Some of my final decision requires looking at all of the HSTs in one place. I have to see them all together and decide if I have enough for a donation quilt or if I need it to be bigger. This current layout is about 49wx35h. Kind of a weird shape, but we will see.
Pop Parade HSTs – mixing it up
I am also not sure if I want to mix up the large and small HSTs in the same column.
I laid some out together just to see what I thought. Again, I have to see what I think. Also, the layout depends on the sizes I have to work with and I haven’t delved into that problem yet. They all look like they will fit now, but the current layout doesn’t take seam allowance into consideration.
I didn’t get a lot of sewing done last week as I was preparing new material for my class. I have always had a great deal of respect for teachers, but I have even more now. Preparing new material for my students takes a lot of time.
The stack of these HSTs, which are being created from cutting the lozenge blocks using the Simple Folded Corner ruler** continues to grow. I didn’t think I would be able to make any kind of good sized quilt, but I think I will be able to make at least a baby quilt. I don’t plan to lay it out like you see above. Depending on how many HSTs there are, I may add sashing between the columns.
I still have a lot of HSTs to iron, so this design will grow based on the number of pieces.
This is definitely not the final design.
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Although everything went along very well, I finished up sewing on Sunday somewhat dissatisfied. I think I felt like I figured out the sewing and was done, but here was a bunch of pieces on my design wall that were not a quilt top.
I turned off the sewing machine and lights and left the room. I ate dinner, worked on my puzzle and thought about this quilt.
I decided that one issue is that I don’t want to keep it. I am making it because I wanted to use the Pop Parade by Metro for P&B Textiles fabrics. I also think the design is clever. Still, I don’t want to keep it and didn’t know who should receive it. I have four-ish more quilts to make in the Niece-phews series. None of the people who will be getting a quilt seemed right for this one. I thought about giving it the YM. He is always up for a new quilt. Finally, I received an email from a friend. She is going through a tough time and needs a quilt. Voila!
This quilt is also a cautionary tale about saving fabrics for the perfect project. When I bought Pop Parade, I was pretty excited about them. Now, not so much. The dots are great, the other motifs are great, but the colors are somewhat dull. I see it especially in the pinks. I prefer bright clear colors.
I didn’t have enough of the Pop Parade to make this quilt, so I added in some other fabrics and that makes the overall look better. I love the text and low volume fabrics I am using for the background. I was kind of upset I had chosen those if the quilt wasn’t going to someone I like as I am using up large pieces of them. Now I am excited that my friend will receive it. I am sure she will like it.
As you probably guessed from the Folded Corners Ruler tutorial, I am generating a lot of triangles. As the triangles are cut off the squares, they are ready to sew into Half Square Triangles.
Pop Parade HSTs
So, I sewed them into HSTs. I couldn’t think of a design, so I put some of them up on the design wall so I could look at them. Now I have an idea of what I might do with them. I don’t think they will fit together as is, so I have to add some sashing or something.
The picture shows only a small fraction of what I have sewn so far. Depending on how large the final piece is, I may donate it to the guild. However, I might make it a Niece-phews quilt.
I have rummaged through my dots drawers numerous times since I bought Pop Parade by Metro for P&B Textiles. Recently, the collection caught my eye and that is what I am using for my latest quilt.
This quilt is from the book Quilt Big** by Jemima Flendt. I tried to borrow it, but nobody had it, so I ended up getting a deal on it in Kindle format.
This quilt had a rocky start. The Kindle format didn’t make for easy reference to the pattern. I finally figure that out and started cutting, but got confused by the directions, so I pulled all the fabrics I planned to use, then started cutting again. That made more sense, but not a lot. My confusion continue. Finally, I printed out a copy of the layout, looked up the sizes of squares I needed and cut using those two aids. After figuring out the folded corners ruler, I sped along.
X Quilt- Saturday work
I made good progress on Saturday. I thought I might finish cutting and sewing the blocks together. HAHAHAHA!!! There was a lot more cutting than I anticipated. I guess I got oriented to the pattern on Saturday.
I didn’t have much time to sew on Saturday, but I did have enough time to finish the Pink Kaffe top. I am pretty excited about this finish. I really like the top. I am not sure how or where I will use it, but I love the flowers and the pink
I am using a different quilt for this tutorial, but I have faith that that won’t make a difference to all of you intelligent readers and students who have been following along with my various sampler class tutorials.
Supply List:
blocks
fabric for sashing
fabric cornerstones (I used scraps, but my cornerstones were only 1.5 inches square)
Please note that we are only talking about sashing in this tutorial. We are not talking about borders. I will do a separate tutorial for borders in the future.
Red Strip Donation Blocks
I started out with the above group of donation blocks. I have been setting these with plain blocks of the same size. I decided that I wanted to do something different with these blocks. Sashing is the answer. Having something between these blocks prevents the seams from getting too thick and hard to sew. Also, it allows each block to shine a little bit rather than being part of a mass. Adding sashing or plain borders or nothing is a design choice. For any quilt, it is important to decide on the look and feel you want.
Even if you put the same sized plain blocks between these blocks, the method I will show you works the same way.
Blocks with Sashing & Cornerstones
The first step is to cut sashing and cornerstones. The photo above shows all the sashing and cornerstones cut and laid out on my design wall.
If you don’t want cornerstones, cut your top sashing the same size as your block + side sashing – 1/2 inch seam allowance (1/4 inch + 1/4 inch = half inch). The formula is:
Block size + vertical sashing – 1/2 inch seam allowance = finished size of top sashing without cornerstones
I can’t tell you the exact size, because I don’t have your blocks in front of me. Use a calculator. I do.
Also, notice that my top and side rows are different. I plan to put a straight strip of fabric across the top and sides as a border, which means I don’t need sashing for the top or sides.
Once you have all of your sashing and cornerstones cut, it is time to sew. I like to start in the bottom left hand corner. I start there because it is closer to my sewing machine when all the blocks are on my design wall. As I sew, the blocks shrink (because of the taken up seam allowance) and get closer to where I am sitting.
Sew vertical sashing to right side of block
First, sew one vertical sashing piece to the right side of your block.
Press to the red.
Sew top sashing to cornerstone
Next, sew one piece of the top sashing to a cornerstone. In the above photo the sashing is white and the cornerstone is a red flower fabric.
Take your new little sashing + cornerstone piece to the ironing board and press to the red.
Now, nest the seams and pin the top sashing/cornerstone piece to the block with vertical sashing.
The top sashing should be on the top of the block as it moves through the sewing machine. Sew the top sashing to the block.
Top sashing sewn to block with vertical sashing
Sew the side sashing and the top sashing/cornerstone to all the blocks as described above.
IMPORTANT: The top row, as mentioned above, in my quilt, is different, so just sew the vertical sashing to the blocks in the top row and the top sashing to the blocks on the right edge.
All of the blocks have sashing/cornerstones sewn to their correct side
Once you have sewn all the sashing on to the blocks, you will begin to sew the blocks together. This is chunking. I have talked about it before. I ‘chunk’ because 1) I don’t like sewing long rows together and 2) it keeps my piecing more precise.
Take two blocks with sashing & sew them togetherPin blocks together, matching seams and sew
First take the two blocks in the bottom left hand corner, pin them with matched points and nested seams. You will pin them together so that the top white sashing is sewn to the red cornerstone. The white vertical sashing will be sewn to the red block.
Sew them together. I pin in the seam allowance so that i have a better chance at the seams matching up. When I take the pins out as I am sewing, chances increase that the seams won’t match. In general, to increase my chances of perfectly matching seams, I try to sew towards the seam allowance, but that didn’t work on this quilt, because I pressed towards the red. Use a stiletto to keep the seams in place for as long as possible.
Two blocks with sashing sewn together
Now you have a block with sashing on two sides.
Once you have sewn all of the sashing and cornerstones to the blocks, you will have completed the first step in putting your quilt top together.
Sew sashing to top of blocks on the right edge only
On the right edge of the quilt, you will only sew the top sashing to the blocks. As mentioned before, there will be a border without cornerstones in my quilt, so I don’t need vertical sashing or cornerstones on the edges. If you want cornerstones in your border, follow the directions above for all blocks.
One long seam left
After you have sewn the various blocks together, you will have one long seam left.
Finished Center with sashing
Once you sew that seam, the center of your quilt top is done.
I know that the common way of sewing a quilt together is sewing it together in rows then sewing all the rows together. Using the row method is easier to explain than ‘chunking’, but, as I said above, my method is more precise.
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After writing the Spiky 16 Patch Tutorial I decided to try adding another round of HRTs to my regular block to see what would happen.
I am still using the Split Rects ruler** (By Deb Tucker) from Studio180 Designs for this project, so you will still need to review the how to use video.
Double Spiky 16 Patch in process
The photo looks like a bit of a mess because the pieces are all overlapping and I need two more HRTs for each block.
I have a lot going on and this has been my leaders and enders project, so I haven’t worked on it in a week or so.
Double Spiky 16 Patch in process detail
I like the look of the double row of HRTs. The outer HRTs are pretty large!
I am not sure if I will make more of these blocks for this project, whatever it is. If it is a donation quilt, I have to make it larger
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I really want to call this quilt something like “My Childhood Bedroom”, but the “Pink Kaffe Quilt” seems to be sticking as the name.
Pink Kaffe Quilt through border 8
I made more progress over the weekend, but wasn’t able to finish the top. I tried, but had some measuring issues. While I worked them out, it took longer than just sewing some long seams.
Still, the top is looking nice and, as an added bonus, it sticks really well to my design wall.
