Pages From Me: February 2023

Sunday, February 26, 2023

This is Bonnie Hunters Winter Blues, finished in November of '22. It was actually started in May 2021, and was a great leader-ender for months and months.

The sixteen patches are one of my favourite blocks to sew and they piled up in a satisfying manner. However I decided to make a slight difference in the alternating Puss in the Corner block which contained too many light areas for my taste. I made the rectangles pale blue and I really liked the added pattern it made in the surrounding blocks.

There were a couple places where the pale blue was so light the effect was broken but I consider it to be added interest. My main goal was using up all the pallid blue fabric that had sat in the stash for literally decades.

I had never sewn a border like the one in the pattern, but it went together perfectly. I worried that the bias edges would be hard to handle but there weren't any problems. I think I'll do this again in the furure, a lot of vintge log cabins had borders similar to this one.

I was hoping that my scrap buckets of blues would be totally depleted with this top, but amazingly they weren't. The paler blues have diminished somewhat, but I still have lots and lots of blue scraps, mainly gifts from Keryn, who has made a lot of blue quilts over the years.And then passed those scraps, excess parts of blocks, triangles and strips on to me. She's always had a 'cutting problem' and I've always welcomed the influx into my stash. But this year I've decided I want to cut into my yardage as well, so even though I'll always pick what I can from scraps and already cut shapes, I really want to play in the drawers of beautiful fabrics as well.

These are some of the quilts I've made to try and use all my blue scraps and I'm amazed that I still seem to have so much. They're worse than a sourdough starter, it seems the more I play with them, the more they multiply!

Small Blue Chain

Blue Lake

Scrappy Mountain Majesties

25 patch

The 25 patch was made with the scraps from the mountain majesties, and there were still leftovers to go into the scrap drawers, sheesh.

Blue Chain.

I would estimate that 80 % of this blue fabric came from scraps; mine, Keryn's, donations from friends or found at the op shop.I'm grateful for all the fun I've had sewing them, but it's time for the stash to come out to play too.

Tuesday, February 14, 2023

Antique Chain top

I started these blocks to use up scraps of large florals and some charm squares in early 2020. I posted about my progress here.

The alternating blocks were so easy to make that I still have about fifty in the Drawer of Requirement, ready to start off another one.

The photo makes it look a bit patchy and very busy, but in real life I think it just seems rich and textured. The addition of the large brown floral border contained the fabrics and pulled it all together.

I used this square just above the centre, so that I could tell which way to put the quilt on the bed. The couple playing Blind Man's Buff (or bluff) seemed to demand attention anyway.

This pattern sewed up an enormous amount of hard to use scraps, and went together very easily, so I'm thinking another one, perhaps as a lighter variation will be in the works someday.

Wednesday, February 08, 2023

2022 Tops

My quilt diary tells me I finished twelve tops in 2022, four were new projects, and eight were UFO's. However I started ten new projects so the rough total of projects remained about the same. (I'm not confessing that number by the way, I don't care how many I have but some folks take me to task over it.)

In no particular order.....