In Defense Of Adopting Strays

There’s been a lot of talk of orphan projects here over the past few month. It got me thinking about all the ones I’ve finished over the years, and there have been many.
I don’t have pictures of all of them on this computer, but I have quite a few.
These blocks came from a block lottery.

As did this one.

And this one.

I bought this unfinished project at an estate sale.

This one came off the charity table at guild.

This one I bought at a quilt shop clearance sale.

This one was also from the block lottery.

And this one also came from the block lottery.

Most of these quilts were donated to various charities. I think it’s fitting that abandoned projects find a forever home with someone that needs comfort or is celebrating a new life.

Those Darn Cats

The cat quilt is moving forward again after a small delay.
When I went to sew the last logs on the sides of the blocks, this is what I discovered.

And yes, I had cut almost all of them and of course, I was out of fabric.
I couldn’t figure out how that had happened until I discovered this.

The upper block is the one I made and the lower block was the one that was in the bag when I bought it. Somewhere I got slightly off course.
This is what happens when you have a picture of the pattern and no pattern. The original quilter probably had the pattern, it just didn’t make it into the bag I bought.
I laid all the blocks out again to figure out what I needed to sew to keep the colors in the right place and then started sewing replacement blocks for the five originals. I have enough cat fabric to make three quilts. Those can go in one of the other ones.
I scoured the stash and found a piece of muslin to use to re-cut the logs. I ran out of that too, so these last four blocks should get interesting.
Definitely a thinking quilt disguised as mindless sewing.

Sunday Stash July 15, 2017

No fabric out this week.
Yesterday my guild had their garage sale. I tend to buy a lot of books, but they didn’t have nearly as many as usual. There was a lot of fabric in mostly small pieces. Maybe there were bigger pieces and I didn’t get there fast enough? I picked up a couple books, one in the Masters series and another on landscape quilts that includes a lot of thread painting info.
I thought that would do me until I saw this UFO box as I headed toward the exit.

This project is so not me. The colors are muted and I don’t work with stripes much. And yet it intrigued me. For the first time ever, the box included the pattern, yardage, finished blocks and block pieces. The pattern is often the missing link. It begged me to take it home with me, so I did.
That makes four yards in. Ouch! The yardage was three of that, and I estimated all the parts at another yard.
If I’m going to keep bringing stray projects home, I definitely need to sew more. I forced myself into the sewing room last night to work on the cat quilt (another stray) and it didn’t go well. But that is a story for another post.
Fabric In: 28.875 yards
Fabric out: 16.375 yards
Net Fabric Added: 12.5 yards
I’m getting close to the point of no return on adds, although there is still hope.
How did you do this week?

1. Kate
2. Julie in GA
3. Shauna
4. Angie in SoCal
5. Meloney
6. katie z
7. Quilting Gail
8. Susan in TN

The Spirit Of Collage

I’m still infatuated with the idea of fabric collage, and checked yet another book out of the library.

I still have the book I checked out before too.

The new book was helpful in that the author describes her inspiration for every quilt. I am a huge fan of ideas in general, and find it interesting to read about how others come up with ideas and translate them into form. I’m sure that makes me some kind of geek, although I’d be hard pressed to label it.
The second book showed the work of many different fiber artists who created in different formats, such as clothing, accessories, books, portraits, mixed media and quilts. There is a list of all the artists in the back of the book, which I copied so I could look at their work in more depth at my leisure.
So what did I learn from reading these books?
I learned that fabric collage is whatever the maker decides it will be. Anything goes. I like embroidery, vintage fabrics and surface design, so guess what will be in my collage. The author of the first book knits, and she put bis of her knitting in her collages. It added great texture and was something I’d never seen before.
This is a lesson worth repeating. Whatever comes out when you allow yourself to create is exactly perfect. It doesn’t matter if it doesn’t look like what everyone else is doing. I sometimes think there is too much emphasis on patterns and following the trends in the quilting world. Myself, I’d rather see something I’ve never seen before even if I don’t like it. I can still appreciate the originality and the creativity of the maker.
It’s all about the journey.

Sunday Stash July 9, 2017

No fabric in or out this week. One of my favorite quilt shops had a big sale, but I didn’t go. I made progress on both the cat and the butterfly quilt, but neither are anywhere close to done.
About half the cat blocks look like this.

They need one more round of neutral fabric to be finished blocks. It would go faster if I stopped sewing the strips on the wrong sides of the blocks. This is a thinking pattern disguised as mindless sewing.
It may be a while before I see another bust.
Fabric In: 24.875 yards
Fabric out: 16.375 yards
Net Fabric Added: 8.5 yards
How did you do this week?

1. Kate
2. Meloney
3. Jan O
4. Julie in GA
5. Quilting Gail
6. Susan in TN

The Original Plan – Thoughts

It feels good when a plan comes together.
A piecing project now lives on the table with the piecing machine, and a UFO that needs quilted lives next to the quilting machine. There will be some preliminary stitching done on the UFO before it’s basted. I don’t like to sew decorative stitches through a bazillion layers of fabric. It doesn’t always work out so well.

I had to dig through a UFO box to find fabric for one project and the top for the other. I realized it’s been a long time since I looked in that particular box. Too long. Out of sight, out of mind is not the way to finish those UFOs.
I made progress on both projects over the long holiday weekend AND hung a piece of hand dyed and discharged fabric on the design wall because it told me it wants to be a quilt. After that it stopped talking, except a few whispers about trees and woods.

I didn’t press it and hung it crooked.  No wonder it isn’t speaking to me.

Sunday Stash July 2, 2017

No fabric in this week. A small miracle considering I spent the whole Art Quilt Group meeting this week staring at the wall of batiks at The Quilt Foundry. That’s a lot of batiks and batiks are my favorite.
I finished the chunky churn dash runner for over a yard out and my first July Short list finish.

The quilting gave me fits, but by the end I’d worked it out and decided it’s me and not the machine. She’s a fussy little thing, especially when it comes to thread. We just don’t know each other well enough. Now that I have a plan to always be quilting something, we will get past this once and for all.
Today will be a planning day for the next few projects with a bit of sewing thrown in.
Fabric In: 24.875 yards
Fabric out: 16.375 yards
Net Fabric Added: 8.5 yards
How did you do this week?

1. Meloney
2. Julie in GA
3. Jan O
4. Kate
5. Susan in TN