Back to Quilting

Quilting is listed up in my banner but I don't talk much about it. Okay, I don't ever talk about it and previously didn't have a category for it. Well that ended in a big way when Claudia took us to Southampton Quilts and an armload of fabric followed me home!

In retrospect, I could see this coming. A few years ago Carolyn took us to Woodstock Quilt Supply. This was the first quilt shop I had been in since I finished my last quilt over fifteen years ago. I was flabbergasted by all of the new fangled notions and gorgeous hand dyed and batik fabrics.

I thought I'd start back with a couple of simple quilts using strip quilting. Because my quilting stash has dwindled into two plastic containers (and let's not forget it twenty years old!) I bought two bundles of precut 2.5" strips - each one a different fabric. That's not the most cost efficient way to buy fabric but most places have a 1/8 yard minimum cut.

The first bundle was mainly greens - big surprise, huh? This will give me a 16 block - 8" square. I started by sewing four strips together and then cutting them into 2.5" strips.





I cut everything out and laid it on the living room floor. I only needed to move a couple of blocks where the same fabric showed up to close together.



The colors in this shot are the closest to the actual fabrics.



I'm making two smaller crib quilts out of the second bundle of strips - all very colorful, playful prints. First I cut the strips into 4.5" blocks. I bought a very subtle white-on-white print for the smaller squares and the sashing. Then I just sat at the machine and slapped them together.



After I pressed the seams to one side I was tempted to fly them from the deck banister!



One of the quilts is laid out (above) and sewn (below).





Here's the second one laid out and ready to be sewn into strips. I have a really hard time with random. I forced myself not to change the two orange that are rather close together in the center of this one. One the first one I moved one, which forced me to move another, this went on for far to long. So random placement it is!

Note: What's really funny is that I haven't sewn this one together yet and after seeing the picture while editing this post I'm tempted to put it back down and play with it. Will I be strong enough to make a random quilt? Stay tuned.....