Easy Street - Rapid Fire Finish

Here are the two triangles Bonnie had us put together today with some of the segments we've previously pieced......12 of the large and 4 of the small.  But that still leaves us with LOTS of other pieces that have to go somewhere.  The FINAL part is coming tomorrow - New Year's Day!!  Yea.......the mystery is almost solved!!

Okay.......got the Final Part on New Year's Day........here are the two blocks we are now assembling to go with the setting triangles we pieced yesterday for the final layout of the quilt top.  Will post my completed top in a few days........be on the lookout!!!

 

 



Scraps and Strings

I have been motivated by doing the small pieces in the Easy Street mystery to get my scraps organized.  I spent all day yesterday cutting up my larger scraps into 2" strips.  I have always saved "strings" so I pulled those out, sorted through them and pulled out all that were at least 2" or more and added them to my 2" strip stash.  So now I am ready to try one of Bonnie's free patterns, or one of her free blocks from the Quiltmaker magazine that uses a lot of 2" strips..........but not until I am finished with Easy Street!

Strings

And I plan to start making string pieced blocks as soon as my paper cutter arrives and I get the phone book cut up into squares.

Easy Street - Part 6

 

Okay........I'm ready for Bonnie's "rapid fire finish."   Here are samples of my black and white Double Bricks and my red (rather than green) quarter-square triangles from the 5-1/2" squares.  Can hardly wait until Monday for Part 7.

Stormy Night

Since we are having quite a thunderstorm with heavy rain and wind and the noise is keeping me awake, I decided to share a few more of my favorite quilts.



This one is called Ada's Stars done in black & white fabrics.  A quilting acquaintance designed this quilt and taught a class on it at a quilt shop where I once lived.  Her sample quilt was done in earth tone prints and the stars were all beige, but I knew as soon as I saw the pattern that I would do black and white.

The two quilts below are a couple of my scrappy quilts, which I love to do.  On the left is a fan wall hanging and on the right is one called Trip Around the Scrap Basket from a book called Slice 'Em and Dice 'Em.

I hope anyone who is in the midst of the severe weather we have had this Christmas Day is safe and well and not had too much damage.

And here's my Spider Web quilt.......made from small scrap strips of batik fabrics, with the first Seminole border I ever did.

 

Well, the sirens are sounding so I turned the TV on for a report.......the warning is for an area further east than where I am and actually, the rain has finally stopped here for now.  Maybe I can go back to bed and get some sleep.

Easy Street - Part 5

I have all 64 of my Part 5 blocks finished........here is a sampling.  For more variety in these blocks, I had to pull from my regular cottons, so I have those mixed in with my batiks now.  But I'm still very pleased with the way everything I've done so far looks.  Can't wait to see it all come together!  Still can't imagine how all the parts are going to fit.

 

 

This block didn't have a name........sorta looks like little houses against a pink sky to me.

Lil' Twister Update

I have finished three of my Lil' Twister Pinwheel blocks.  These are really fun to do!

 

Bonnie sent out Part 5 of our mystery quilt today, so I'm going to be working on that next.......will get back to my pinwheels later.

 

 

Lil' Twister Pinwheels

I have a lot of batik scraps and have been trying to decide what to do with them.  Came across the Twister and Lil' Twister tools that my sister loaned me a few months ago and decided that would be a good project for my batiks.  The first step was cutting the scraps into 5" charm squares, since I decided to use the Lil' Twister.  Then I put 30 squares together with a 3" border, and ended up with this block measuring 23-1/2" x 28".  After cutting out the "twister" blocks and putting them back together, the finished block will measure 18-1/2" x 21-1/2".   

 

 

 

 

After getting this first 30-patch block together, I took the Lil' Twister and started cutting across one of the long edges, lining up the "crosshairs" on the tool with the seams between the blocks (and for the first row, between the blocks and the border).  The tool has little legs on the bottom so you don't have to worry about trying to make it lay flat where the corners meet.  Start cutting on the right edge and move to the left.

 

 

 

 

 

As I cut each Lil' Twister block, I laid them to the side keeping them in the same order in which I cut them.  When I got all the blocks cut across one row, I stacked them from left to right, took them to my machine and sewed that row together.  And YES, they do have bias edges after cutting with the Lil' Twister tool, so I had to be very careful sewing and pressing.

 

 

 

 

I didn't get to my sewing room until about 7:00 p.m., so I only got three rows together before deciding to call it a night in my sewing room and do this post.  After adding the second row, you start seeing the pinwheels.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Easy Street

More flying geese units!  But I perservered and got them done today.  For those who view my blog who are not participating in the mystery quilt project, I have put samples of the parts we have done each week into a document, then saved as a picture so I could post it here.  Unlike some, I cannot imagine what the final quilt is going to look like........actually, I haven't really spent any time trying to figure it out........will just wait on Bonnie's big reveal!

Chunky Churn Dash

This is one of Bonnie's free patterns that I did several years ago.

Feedsack Chevrons

I had quite a collection of feedsacks......some came from my Mom.........some from an Uncle and Aunt's estate, and some I purchased (the most expensive fabric I have in my stash).  Had no idea what to do with them, until I saw a picture of a vintage feedsack quilt on the back page of a magazine.  So I paired up feedsacks with coordinating solids and here is the result.

Kool Kaleidoscope

 

This is from a book by Ricky Timms.  Another batik stash-buster quilt.  Had lots of fun with this one.  Might try another one in more neutral colors one of these days.

Scrappy 3-inch Squares

I have been sewing together 3-1/2" squares (to finish at 3") from my scrap stash off and on for several months.  I put them together in 16-patch bocks, then decided to put them on point.  Just got finished laying them out on my design wall (and a little bit down on the floor).  When I get the top together and add borders, it will be king size.

I have a basket of 2-1/2" squares that I plan to do the same with..........but not soon!  Since I'm working on Bonnie's mystery quilt, I won't start too much more.  Too many UFO's drive me crazy!

Update - Got the 3" finished squares top together today (Saturday, December 15) except for borders. There is a total of 800 squares in this top.  They are not all different.....didn't have that many in my stash, but it's scrappy enough to suit me.  So my design wall is now empty.  Tomorrow I plan to work on Part 4 of Easy Street so I will have it ready to link on Monday.

Ripples & Reflections

This is a pattern by Laurie Shifrin that she designed to be a Block of the Month.  I am too impatient for BOM's, so I contacted her to see if I could purchase the entire pattern, which she graciously agreed to.  (The little white block on the side in this picture is the #tag that was attached to it at our local guild Quilt Show which was held on November 2-3).  This is all batiks (15 different ones) and the colors are the same as she had used in her sample.  I had most of these in my stash but did have to purchase a few.

Kelsey's T-Shirt Quilt

I finished my very first T-shirt quilt last week.  When asked to do this, I admitted that I had never done one before but was confident it would be no problem.  It took a lot more "figuring" to determine the layout and the measurements for all the background fabric, but I enjoyed the challenge.  This one is for the daugther of a friend of my daughter.  But my granddaughter has seen it and is already picking out T-shirts from her stash for me to make one for her. 

Good Morning!

I can't believe I have created a blog, but decided why not?  I am a quiltmaker and decided this would be a good way to share some of my projects and ideas.


I am currently working on a Mystery Quilt from Bonnie Hunter at Quiltville.com called Easy Street.  Here are pictures from Steps 1, 2, and 3.