I started the Estrella quilt last week.  I’m trying to use up the scraps from my last French General quilt, all the lovely reds and beiges.  Of course as with any of my attempts to use up scraps, I needed to buy more fabric.  I bought the jelly roll, to see the full line of colors, a few of the pinks and a couple of the reds. Only half yards though, which made it a bit easier on the pocketbook. There may be enough for another red and white French General quilt. In this pattern there is pink, which I feel really ties the reds and beiges together.  After finishing the Bonnie Hunter mystery quilt, Frolic, Estrella is like an easier version.  Lots of chain piecing and units and smaller blocks.  On the design wall I have all the colors hanging and labeled with their letters.  when I am making a unit, I see if I have the same fabric called for, or if not I can use a similar shade of my left overs.

The first nine block parts are underneath the strips.  I really like the way these units go together to make a very large block with secondary and tertiary patterns that evolve.

I think this pattern would make a great scrappy project as well, although it would drive a person batty to try and keep the shading and values in control. I think one could make one block at a time, rather than sewing all the units and then putting them together.  Not the way I prefer to work, but it could be done.

This week I have finished quilting the feathered star (yay!) even got the binding on.  Which opened up the frame for the Live Simply quilt.  It is large, 96″ X 96″, I am using a linen backing, which is soft and drapes nicely.

I’m using a block design I got from One Song Quilting, called Feathers and Pearls 1.  I resized it to fit the 10 inch log cabin.  They stitch out in about 8 minutes, so 8 minutes x 64 blocks = about 8.5 hours.  Not too bad, and probably about the same amount of time to do a pantograph. I like the density of this design too, I think that it will help the quilt maintain its shape once it is washed.

Linking up with Denise at For the Love of Geese for “Put Your Foot Down”, lots of log Cabin-y goodness going on over there with the Island Batik Challenge.

 

I spent my weekend working on Frolic.  So many pieces, so many times I was ready to quit.  There are about 3400 pieces, a bunch of extras were made because it made the instructions easier to give/follow.  There are 25 whole blocks and 14 half blocks and 4 quarter blocks.  On point settings with sashing to make up the secondary design.  Wow, this quilt has A LOT going on.  I am pleased with how my scrappy approach to the stars turned out.  Due to a bit of over zealous chain piecing, I had to make them mixed.  I matched the tones so from far enough away they look like solid stars.  I wasn’t going to un-sew all those pieces.  I am going to do the saw tooth borders, looking at the Quiltville Facebook posts, many people aren’t doing Bonnies style borders.

This photo popped up on the FB site for what to do with the extra pieces.  This quilter made a backing with them.  I think I may do a small quilt, or maybe pillow shams.  

 

Today I want to finish up the top and go do some work on the Feathered Star quilt.  This weekend I also finished knitting all of the pieces of the Oak Cardigan, and got them blocked.  Hoping to get them sewn together and then get knitting on the collar and button bands.  I was all excited to start a new knitting project, but then I realized that I needed to do the collar and bands.  Once the base row is on, it’s pretty mindless knitting, no cables or counting.

 

Linking up with Judy at Small Quilts and Doll Quilts for Design Wall Monday today.

I worked on fixing the Mrs. Miller’s Apprentice quilt top this weekend.  Last week I ripped out most of the stitching that connected the columns together, I was able to leave the webbing connections in most of the rows.  So I wasn’t really taking the whole thing apart.  I spread it out on a spare bed, that way I could clearly see all the mis-placed blocks.  I then stuck bright yellow headed pins in each block that needed to be switched out.  You may recall from a previous post that I made a mistake of not using the correct blue and tan squares because they were made from really similar fabric prints.  Bending over the bed to un-pick the blocks wasn’t the best thing for my back, but I think it was easier to see the top as a whole than having it on my design wall where I can only see about 2/3rds of it at one time.  I would pick a block, un-stitch it and put it where it should go, un-stitch the block that was in that spot and pin the correct one in.  I checked the layout four times to make sure every block was in it’s spot.  Then I sewed the row parts and columns back together.  Big sigh.

Okay, now onto the four borders.  Two plain narrow ones, one pieced and one wide outer border.  Since this is a BOM, I had limited fabric, I think it’s still available, but not widely.  The pieced border first, as I wanted to make sure I had enough to do all 88 split cats cradle blocks, ugh.  I wish I had been able to make these throughout the whole preceding year.  Instead, each month, I was instructed to cut four blue squares and put them aside.  This pattern uses the “sew two diagonal seams a square and cut in between on the diagonal” method to make half square triangles.  Not the way I like to make HSTs, I’ll use my EZ-angle thank you.

I made the 88 HSTs and got them sewn to rectangles, then put two together.  Next I sewed them to contrasting rectangles, then cut them apart.  Pam Buda, the pattern designer came up with this technique.  She doesn’t have a web tutorial, but sells it as part of one of her books.  I googled it, and found that Creative grids makes a Cats cradle  specialty ruler for the blocks. The ruler uses this same technique as I used, but it’s a bit more accurate.  I might want to get one.

 

I spent a few hours yesterday assembling the top. It’s hard to tell from the photos, but the quilt blocks are 6 inches finished and the Cats Cradle blocks are 3 inches finished.  I left the final border for today, it’s a simple 6 inch wide one, I think some swirling feathers might be called for on it.

Linking up with Judy at Small Quilts and Doll Quilts for Design Wall Monday.

 

 

I did some mindless sewing this week.  Putting together the Live Simply top and the last baby quilt tops.  Looking at the picture I realize that it is a whole row shorter than the last two.  Looks like there will be some ripping and resewing in the next few days.

I finished the eighth clue for Frolic.  Which wasn’t very easy/fun.  I got a bit over zealous sewing clue seven, and sewed the all HST’s together.  I discovered this when I needed them to attach to my QST’s for the flying geese.  So instead of all matchy- matchy 16 of my sets are sort of matchy,  Nine sets are perfect 👌.  I wasn’t going to unpick all those HST blocks.

I’m making head way on quilting the Feathered Star, it’s not as intimidating to me as the Fire Island Hosta was.  I saw a finished one on Instagram and I am getting “inspiration” from it.  Doing a bit of texture quilting and a lot of ruler work.  This quilt is a bit smaller than the Hosta one, with no curved lines, which also makes it a bit easier.

I found some cute (?) or rather appropriate backing fabric for the Halloween quilt I made a few months ago. It was in the clearance pile at Joann’s, 2.50 a yard, couldn’t resist.  I want to get the backing together this week and add it to the TBQ queue. Next up is Live Simply and the Christmas tree quilt then the halloween quilt or I have been thinking of doing Berties Year.  I really need a new quilt to hang in the main room of my house.  I switch them out every month or so.

Also this week I’d like to use up some of these scraps of minky for backings or small quilts.  I have seen kits that use six inch wide strips to make a striped quilt.  I don’t want to buy a pattern,  some internet research is needed.  I’m thinking its sort of a quilt as you go type of project.  That was easy I found just what I was looking for Row By Row Minky and this one looks easy too Self binding baby blanket .  The self binding one is the easiest, I especially want to try the one with double gauze on the top and minky on the bottom.

Finally I got this kit from Bluprint that is made with simple quarter square triangles.  The fabric is really pretty, its called Heritage.  I was impressed with the quality of it, usually the Boundless brand isn’t quite up to A-1.  I used my AccuQuilt cutter and was able to cut the twenty fat quarters into triangles (960!) in about an hour.  There are 240 QSTs to make now.  I love chain piecing – it’s so mindless.

 

I am ending this post with this beautiful photo my friend Liz took the other day.  This was taken with an iPhone, out at the coast near Santa Cruz CA.

Linking up with Denise at For the Love Of Geese for Put your foot down #34 today.

I finished the three baby quilts yesterday and got them mailed.  I crossed the finish line at the post office when I handed over the package.  Yay! I was so busy yesterday afternoon doing things unrelated to sewing, it was like a reward for binding those three quilts in the morning.  I thought I was done sewing for the day, but I made myself work on the Frolic pieces.  I sewed “just one more” until I was done with all the cut pieces I had.  Im about 2/3rds done with clue 7.  Hard to believe I have been working on this quilt for seven weeks.  I think I average two weeks for a top finish, a little less for smaller ones a little more for larger.

All my block parts/pieces are in this zippered bag, funny how this is a queen sized quilt in a gallon sized bag.