Bordering on

Mondays are sit-and-sew days at Cinnamon's Quilt Shop. A fun time to get together with others of the fabrick-junkie persuasion.  I was able to get 6 more Scrapolator border blocks done.

It's really interesting to view pieces thru the camera's eye: the small pieces of white with black look lost - almost like there's a hole in the block. But there will be a lot of black in the sashing, so I think these will work fine in the full border.  I still have 28 more of these babies to go (and the 15 more "inside" blocks), so it'll be awhile before I'll know if I need to make a few spares.

I'm already starting to think of how to take a pic of the top once it's together because it's HUGE! Something like 91" x 108". That certainly won't fit on my design wall! Could be an "outside" pic - on the grass.

I know we just finished Christmas, but I also just found this cute little tree

 - made from more scraps. Here's the link to my pin on Pinterest. I see some of these in my future.

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Off to see what the sewing muse will surprise me with today.

Thanks for stopping by.

And still more blocks

Another day of strip sets, triangles, and ultimately Scrapolator blocks. Gosh they are such fun to make! Here's the latest batch:

Here's the close-up, featuring another Flamingo:

(Hello, everybodeeeeeeeeeeee)

This brings the total to 66 blocks, which means I only have 15 more to go for the first true-scrappy top. Of course, there are those border blocks to go yet .... But who knew these would get done as quickly as they did? I'll be ready to put together the "inside" soon.

Tomorrow I'll have a "finish" to post. I didn't get many finishes in 2012 but there are many things SO CLOSE that 2013 should be a very productive year. Of course, there will be 3 trips to California this year (only one driving, though), an anticipated trip to Hawaii (which will be part of my 3rd trip to CA), and hopefully another trip to Europe. I'll be away a total of about 4 months over the course of this year. That will elbow out some of the anticipated "finishes", I'm sure. Oh well. I'm doing it (traveling) while I can!

Off to the sewing machine! There are quilts to be made!

Thanks for stopping by.

The First of the Border Blocks

I'm not finished doing all the Scrapolator blocks yet, but was getting antsy to see what the border blocks would be like. They're pieced on a foundation ....

... then trimmed.

They go surprisingly fast, and finally I have scraps small enough to throw away AND I'm making a dent in the scrap pile.

Boy this has been, and is, really fun! I will do more from this book, for sure.

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So late! More scrapolator blocks

Gosh, I'm really late with my blogpost for Friday, so this will be brief.

I finished 10 more scrapolator blocks. I added a close-up because I think the funky flamingo head at the center is so funny!

These blocks are so much fun to make, and are certainly (finally) making a dent in my stash. It's almost time to start working on the border blocks. Soon, soon.

That's it for today: I need to go do something I can post for Saturday (today). I'll have to cook again tomorrow - finally finished all the yummy leftovers. I love to cook, but also like to cook once then eat multiple days. I suspect more OMG Applesauce will be on the menu as long as apples are in season.

Thanks for stopping by.

Scrap-o-process and some tools

I made more scrapolator blocks today. The start of making this quilt was easy for me. You need a bunch of strips. Well, when I cut fabric, I always cut an extra 2 1/2" strip or two (because there are approximately  947 thousand million quilts you can make with strips of that size).  I keep these in the "2 1/2 inch strip" drawer.

(Aren't they nice and neat?)

I always, also, end up with random strips for whatever reason. These go in the "not 2 1/2 inch strip" drawer.

Hmmm. Not so neat.

When I started making the blocks,  I grabbed a bunch of strips from the "not" drawer and cut them into (approximately) 10" pieces. That's an OK size, but I'm only getting one triangle per strip set. For the all-brights version of scrapolator, I cut the strips in half (20") and I get 3 triangles from each of those strip sets.

The strip sets should be totally random, so I grab a handful of strips and toss 'em on the table. I don't care what strip I grab next - it gets sewn on regardless of whether it "matches" or not.  (By the way, to get your strips all mixed up really good, toss them in the dryer on air fluff for about 10 minutes. That'll mix 'em up for you!)

A random handful-o-strips

Now turned into a bunch of strip sets. all pressed and waiting to be cut.

Voila! A stack-o-triangles

And here are the remains. I used these in the wonky star, here

5 more blocks, waiting to be trimmed

Trimmed and neat and added to the stack of blocks. Now there are 45.

Here are the sewing tools I can't live without

My fingers get soooo dry when I'm piecing; Sortkwik is my solution. And a stiletto is a must for me. My two best sewing buddies.

So only a little progress today, but some is better than none. Now to go knit a bit and make progress on the scarf.

Thanks for stopping by.

Fun, and progress

I'm still playing with a number of different projects. Gosh it's fun to work this way! No boredom. Even the not-so-fun parts of quilting are easier to take when I know I only have to do a little of it before I can jump into the next thing. (Note: this doesn't work for people who get over-angst'ed by having more than one project going at a time.)

I finished the last of the "big" Safari blocks (4 shown here). Now I can put this top together. I'm still thinking it's going to need something else. Buttons? Some applique? I'll know more when I see the whole thing put together.

 More Scrap-o-lator blocks. I'm really enjoying these, even when they get wonkified. I have 11 so far. The pattern calls for 91, but I don't want to make a quilt that large so I'll need only 72. I see more than one of these quilts in my future. Such a fun way to use scraps!

 More blocks from the third design-your-own quilt. This one has a Halloween theme.

 I got more of Prisma put together. I still don't like that upper left corner. I think the purple shouldn't be broken up with that yellow; the purple should be a straight line. What do you think?

 The lower left corner got put together.

 I found these pieces while digging through more STUFF. (I have a lot of stuff). The first pic is of parts made in my class with Jean Wells at Empty Spools earlier this year. I think I'm ready to make a couple of small works from them.

 The triangles were made in Gwen Marston's class (also at Empty Spools earlier this year). They have potential ... I'm not sure what yet, but I like them.

Strips and Scraps and Bindings, Oh My!

Over the weekend, I got a wild hair to sort my scraps - into colors, no less! Here's what I ended up with. There are fabrics in there that I recall, but don't recall the quilt they're in. That's disturbing!

There's also this stack of long strips left over from trimming quilted quilts. I was using a few recent strips to add width to a backing. I think that's what prompted the urge to sort.  Holy mackerel - there are enough strips here to sew together & back another 10 quilts! What am I .... NUTS????  (Don't answer that.)

And now that I'm making a quilt a week, you know what comes after the trimming ....... BINDINGS!!! Yeee-ikes that's a bunch o' strips! Well ... let me get started.

OK ... here we are all sewn together & pressed in half.  Now to start sewing to the quilts .......

This is the stack done so far ....

Three down, 5 (6??) to go.  Hmmm..... maybe I should have thought about exactly what a quilt a week would mean!!!!  TOO LATE! :-)

And now I shall go stitch.

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