Still working with orphans

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Sometime last week I got out all of the smaller orphan blocks I had and put them on the design wall.  Several seemed just perfect for mug rugs, so I made six.   I'll be giving them to the board of the state guild as thank you gifts at our meeting in August.   They really work hard to make the semi-annual meetings fun and active.   

I worked on a little table topper, too, which incorporated a few 6" blocks and a bunch of neutral "crumb" blocks.  I am thinking of a little applique on the neutral parts but will set it aside for a while.

Saturday, I joined the Calico County Quilters for a nice afternoon of hand stitching and chatting.  I made good headway on a sashiko piece I worked on in Colorado.  I'm not sure what I'll do with that when finished, but I have a few guild meetings' worth of embroidery to go.

The backing fabric for the purple Barn Star quilt came in the mail from Keepsake (how I miss their store in New Hampshire!). Now I need cut it to size and get it ready to take to Marie for long arming.  I hope to get to the quilt shop on Thursday when she works.

This morning I started cutting out a new quilt using a fat quarter bundle I've had for a while.  The fabric line is called "Flora" by Riley Blake, and while cutting I couldn't help singing that song about Flora, the lily of the West (I love this version by Tim O'Brien).  It's got pink, periwinkle, green, yellow, and black florals as well as a few geometrics which are making nice Dresden Plates.  

I saw a quilt on the Moda website that really caught my fancy, and I will adapt it to suit me.  I like a mix of applique, paper piecing, and regular piecing.   I'm planning a Dresden Plate to replace the center panel which didn't come with the bundle.   I'm not wild about panels anyway, but my next quilt will probably incorporate one.  Stay tuned for Bigfoot!

We were fairly busy this past week because of a break in the hot weather (ahh!  a few good nights' sleep!), and, regardless of the weather, we have a busy week and weekend coming up.  

Barre Heritage Days will flood downtown with lots of activity, including a library book sale Friday and Saturday.  The tent will be put up Thursday when we'll take all the accumulated books outside.  I'm scheduled to work Friday afternoon and most of the day Saturday. Sunday I'll collapse, rest my feet, and maybe work on Flora a little more.

Working with orphan blocks

What do you do with your orphan blocks, the samples you make before making a whole quilt, the blocks of the month from guild (if you belong to one), the odds and ends that didn't make it into a quilt?  I keep mine in a pizza box until I get an idea about how to use them.  Sometimes I even throw them away if they've been in the box too long.

My pizza box was full, and there were some nice blocks.  I made a table runner out of some blue homespun Ohio Star blocks, but I still need to take a picture.  I may take that down to the florist/gift shop to sell.  

Then I decided to make a small quilt for Bags of Love, which supports kids going into foster care.   I used some string blocks that I didn't feel like making more of and some guild blocks of the month to make a little quilt measuring about 50" x 50".  The picture shows only part of the quilt which was on the bed in the sewing/guest room.  But you get the idea.  I found that the string blocks needed to be trimmed to a uniform size that ended up being 11", so I used blue sashing around them.  There's a thin border of blue around the whole quilt, too.   I plan to quilt it very simply when the batting I just ordered comes in.  

While I wait for the batting, I decided to attach a binding onto the Christmas block of the month quilt that came back from the long arm quilter last week.  I'll take a beauty shot tomorrow if the sun is right.

Next, I started cutting some triangles out of orphan blocks.  I plan to make more with strings as a ongoing project.  I had thought of making Bonnie Hunter's leader and ender project, but I like this better.  Right now, I'm thinking I'll alternate neutral and colorful triangles.  Of course, this could always change as I go along.  

Right now, there are more triangles cut out of orphan blocks than there are string ones, but I figure the string ones will dominate soon enough.  My basket of colored strings and my bag of neutral ones are both overflowing.  I'm using newsprint foundations just to make sure they aren't too wonky.

In going through my orphans, I see that I have quite a few small blocks that could be set with white or cream to make some table runners.  But right now, while I have the dual feed foot on my machine, I am going to focus on binding the Christmas tree skirt.  Then I hope to quilt the orphan quilt and the round robin Christmas one.  Maybe I'll even finish quilting the first three rows of Dear Jane.  

Orphan blocks

In my quest to use up some of my orphan blocks, I got some I Found a Quilted Heart hearts ready to hide in plain sight soon.  I put two crumb blocks together with batting, quilted them, and then pinked the edges in the shape of a heart.  Then I sewed some ribbon for hanging and pinned a tag on each.  Here's one...

I'm writing a short article for the state guild newsletter on this phenomenon.  It's really fun to send these little hearts on their way, and I hope some nice people find them and report in.

I finished quilting the little house quilt today, too.  It needs to be trimmed, bound, and photographed for posterity.  I hope to get to that tomorrow.  This morning I decided to make some Zucchini Bread, using Mom's recipe that she gave me in the 1970s.  I made two medium loaves (one to eat, one for the freezer) and a smaller one for my nextdoor neighbors.  I had asked my cleaning person to bring me a zucchini, but she brought 3 good-sized ones.  I'll probably make another batch later in the week and then figure out some sort of casserole for the smaller of the three.

This afternoon, I made a pillow to take to Wisconsin for my brother Axel's new apartment.  I used a t-shirt for the back and two orphan blocks on the front.  I have no idea what color his furniture is, so I chose blue which seems to go with everything.   Growing up, Axel and I always watched Jeopardy together after lunch in the summer.   Even now, we compare notes although he is careful never to tell me who wins for the day since his comes on at 4:30 pm and ours is on at 7 pm.  Paul gave me the Jeopardy t-shirt for Christmas as a gag gift.  It's too small anyway, so I think this is a great use for it.