Scrappy Trip Around the World Begins

Remember the Quilty Adoption Event in April? I wrote about the first item I adopted -- a quilt top that I disassembled and sewed the blocks in a new layout -- and in that post, I mention a second item, but haven't written about it since.

If you follow me on Ingstagram, you will recognize these strips that I adopted:

It was a big box of single 2" strips, loosely sorted from light to dark and a bunch of strip sets already sewn together. There's a project the sewn sets were intended for and I'm still deciding if I will go ahead and make it, or use these strips for something else.

Meanwhile, I took the single strips and sorted them in groups from light to dark.

I then sorted those groupings into five gradations I called light, light2, medium, medium2, and dark because I needed five different groups to make a trip-around-the-world (TATW) block.

I have become enamored with the scrappy TATW blocks popularized by Bonnie Hunter. (Link to her tutorial.) These blocks I'm making have a similar effect but with a little more order to them because of how the lights and darks are placed.

For the first set of blocks (above) I created sets by pulling similar colours from each of the five categories. That was enough to show me that I was going to have to do a little more pre-sorting if the sewing was going to be any fun.

So I took the five gradations, and sorted each one into different colour families.

Some of the strips are in more than one colour group, and sometimes it's a stretch when a fabric is multicoloured but I had to put it somewhere. Above, clockwise from top left, is, purple, blue, red, yellow, and green.

This was the first layout I tried on the design wall, just to have a proof of concept.

The project sat for a while then and while it was sitting, I thought I would try to make strip sets ahead of time so the sewing would be even easier. It was just too hard to see if the fabrics contrasted enough when I grabbed strips while I was sewing.

So, recently, I sat down and pulled out one colour group at a time and made some sets. For the first colour group, I did it just by eye, but then realized I should be putting my camera to use.

In this photo, the strips in colour are a bit of a jumbled mess, but when I convert them to black and white, I think the contrast is just what I need. (In this case, M-M2-D-M2-M, as in medium, medium2, dark, medium2, medium.)

In this next set, I think it looks good in colour, but the black and white shows that the first two fabrics are pretty close in value. (I think I used this set anyway because my choices are limited.) This strip set is L-L2-M-M2-D.

In the next photo, I'm going for another L-L2-M-M2-D, and I think the fourth fabric looks darker than the third in colour. But in black and white, I think they are too similar to use.

The next picture is an example of M2-D-M2-M-L.

In the fourth position, there are actually two fabrics (buttons and a floral). I was trying to see which was better. Even though I think they are the same value, I think I went with the buttons because there was a little better contrast. The floral seemed to mush in with the other florals. And I think it's clear that even though the two reds in the first and third position look different in colour, in black and white, they are the same value.

The fabric strips are all different lengths and it didn't take long to realize that I needed to pay attention to how many inches of each combination I was going to get. For each inch of one strip set, I needed 2 inches of the other two strip sets for each block. I didn't worry about getting it exact but I couldn't be way off either. I sorted a lot of fabric and ended up with sets ready to sew.

Another day I tackled sewing some of the strip sets (below). I had tried to match strips of similar length, and just cut them to match the shortest length for easy sewing.

Once they were sewn I figured out how to iron the seams the right way, and cut each set into 2" pieces.

I stacked up the pieces to make blocks (seen at the top of the picture above), and then sewed those strips together.

And here we have my first set of blocks sewn from this process:

I have since sewn sets from two other colour families, and here they are on the design wall:

I don't know if this will be the final layout, but it's a fun way to put them on the wall for now.

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Linking up with Oh Scrap! hosted at Quilting is more fun than Housework.

Lucy Boston Update 5

Christmas gifts are a little late this year so I have to postpone a couple of posts I've prepared about secret projects. In the meantime, I can give you an update on the Lucy Boston projects I stitched in the last quarter of the year.

One that I had designed previously is this batik X design:

The pattern isn't clearly defined, but I like how the colour moves across the block.

Next is a block I put together from some pieces I had cut previously and some new fabric I cut for it:

I don't have enough really dark blocks, so this will help.

The next block was also put together from previous prepared and new pieces:

It's a little Christmasy, but that's ok.

Then there was an extended break when I had to design some new blocks and couldn't find the energy and chunk of time to do it. Getting a few new fabrics when I visited Missouri in December provided an impetus to get started again.

Continuing with the Christmasy theme is this red and green block:

I love the soft reds in this one.

And finally, this happy blue and yellow number:

That's five more blocks, making 47 total. Nine more to go. I have 3-1/2 designed so I think in one more design session, I should be able to take care of the rest. I did feel like I was running out of ideas and inspiration last time though; I was exhausted when I was done!

It's not a hard deadline, but I'd love to finish sewing the blocks in January just because I started sewing them last January.

Here are all the blocks sewn so far:

(Clicking on the picture should give you a larger view.)

A Day of Quilting

...but it's not what you think.

My sister and her family came for a visit over the Canada Day/July 4 holidays. She and I had planned on a half-day of working on a quilted wall hanging kit that we had each bought a year or two ago. Monday morning we got the machines set up and started to work on it.

When asked, her daughter and son said they would like to work on a project too. Her daughter wanted to work by machine, so I got her set up on my extra one. I had her choose some of my 2.5" strips and got her going on strip piecing.

I even had her working with the rotary cutter and she did well.

Anything I told her, she put into practice on the next step. It was amusing to overhear her talk herself through each step. I could tell she's been around quilting because she was familiar with the lingo and was able to evaluate each block on whether her points were matching well enough or if she should redo it.

Pretty soon she had some very good 4-patches:

While trying out a layout for a top, she decided she didn't have enough and set herself up for making some more.

Her brother wanted to sew by hand, so he worked on a 9-patch (on and off) all day.

You may have seen this one on Instagram.

He also chose fabrics from my 2.5" strips. But we subcut into 2.5" squares first, then he laid out his blocks. I had him trace a 1/4" seam on the squares to help him with his seam allowance. Every time he finishes a seam, I showed him which one to sew next.

He was very proud when his block was done:

He didn’t work on it steady so I wondered if his interest had waned, but no--as soon as the one was done, he asked if he could start the next. (Well, of course!)

And in case you aren’t impressed enough, I even had them furling their seams:

Yes, they did all their own pressing too.

Meanwhile, his sister had put together her top:

But I found out she wasn't done...she wanted to add borders. Well, ok! She looked through my fabric and found one that would work. (And that I would let her use. Let's be honest--I wasn't giving over my latest favourite batiks!)

I showed her how to measure the top in three places and to use the average for cutting the length of the border and that you add it to two ends at a time. In no time, she had it finished:

Something to be proud of!

And that is how I didn't get much sewing done but had a very enjoyable day of quilting!