Easy Street-Step 3

From Bonnie is complete!

                                                                 The two sections

                        It passes the accuracy check Bonnie told us how to do! No white showing!

                                                                         63 to go!

                                   All 64 happy little shaded 4 patches hanging out together!

This is the last step I will be able to do until after the new year. We are leaving soon for a trip to Florida to visit all the relative for the holidays. I will have to be content watching everyone elses progress. While I am gone I will have to content myself with hand sewing.

I have also decided my new leader ender project and have been chopping/kitting up for it. I have chosen "Blue Ridge Beauty" from Bonnie Hunter. My last leader ender was the postage stamp quilt. I wanted to start out with a simple pattern to get the hang of the whole leader ender concept. Let me just tell you it is an awesome way to keep from wasting thread and of doing an extra quilt while you sew!  So for the last few days I have been digging through my stash/scrap bins to find every blue and neutral I have for it.

Happy Holidays to all!

Happy Quilting!
Cindy

Final Finish for Christmas!

I did it! All the Christmas gift quilts are done! This is a Triple Irish Chain quilt I made for my sister in law as a replacement for "Disaster Quilt". She has been patiently waiting for over 2 years for a quilt. When I saw this fabric line I thought of her. This is Summer Breeze from Moda.

I love scrappy quilts. I love the randomness of them. To get this random look, I could not strip piece this. So each square was individually pieced.

Now that I am caught up on the quilts, today is earmarked for canning some sweet potatos.

Happy Quilting!
Cindy

Another finish!

It is done! My queen size, scrappy, postage stamp quilt is finally done!!! I sewed on this quilt as a Leader Ender project between 5 other quilts. It has 3840 (after sewn) 1 1/2 inch pieces in it. I went through my stash and picked every floral print I had (which was alot) and used them. The sun was so bright yesterday it was hard to get a picture that didn't look washed out. Plus this quilt is heavy!!!! My arms were shaking from holding up my side!

Today's agenda is to finish my sister-in-law's triple Irish chain. The binding is almost done so I can share pics soon.

Happy Quilting!
Cindy

"Easy Street" Step 2.... DONE!!!!

                                                                       127 to go!

 

 

After sewing for 8 hours I finished them all! I started out just saying to myself that I would just get the strips cut out, then I thought that I would just get the shapes cut out...... and it kept going until I finished them! I was one tired sewer last night! I have two very large quilts that are Christmas gifts that I want to get the binding finished on this weekend so I wanted to knock out as much on the mystery quilt as I could.

Isn't it amazing that no matter how hard you try to keep things random there is always order that comes out of the chaos?? Every scrap quilt I have done has at least one piece that works out this way. I just leave them that way and put them in the quilt. Somehow I think Bonnie would approve! Down the road some one will notice that wierd block and think either one of two things. They may cluck their tongues and say, "Oh isn't it a shame that quilter missed that the fabric was the same..." or they may just say, "Oh I love how that quilter was so free and wonky she didn't care!"

I want my quilts to be one of a kind expressions of ME! I am a bit wonky! Off to get these bindings done so I can post pics!

Happy Quilting!
Cindy

Small finish!

Finally finished the small flag Bargellow wall hanging quilt I designed for my Mom. I think it turned out pretty good. I made one small mistake with the stagger. I was one row off from the pattern I drew, but to me it was not very noticeable. Not worth ripping out over half the quilt for.

97 4 patches done for Bonnie's mystery quilt are done. I need to get cracking today to finish the rest as she is releasing the next mystery step tomorrow! Off to the sewing room!

Happy Quilting!
Cindy

Disaster Quilt! aka The quilt that beat me up!

It is beautiful being held up by my DH isn't it??? Well let me tell you looks are deceiving! This is the quilt that made me stop sewing for over 7 months! What you can't tell by the picture is this quilt is all kinds of wonky! I swear I don't know what happened when I put this quilt together. My mind must have been in outer space.

When you lay this quilt on a bed it puckers like crazy. I measured it and it was 4 inches off in spots. I was so embarrased about how badly I assembled this quilt that I just couldn't face sewing for a long time.

Every time I would go into my sewing room I would see it and get so depressed. It was meant to be a gift to one of my sister-in-laws. So finally after 7 months I hid this quilt. I started another simpler project and it went together really well. I got some of my confidence back. I have made 4 or 5 quilts and they have all been successes. I am back!

So now I have dug out this disaster quilt and have spent the last 4 days disassembling it. I am breaking it down to the basic blocks. I will try my best to salvage it. I have measured as I have been ripping and it seems that the culprit was the inset triangles. I was so lucky that I was able to find replacement fabric online for the inset triangles. The fabric line was discontinued about 5 years ago.

I won't let this quilt beat me!

Happy Quilting!
Cindy

191 to go!

I have decided to do Bonnie Hunter's mystery quilt this year. I really regretted not doing it last year. I was afraid of her bold choices of colors and decided to pass on doing the mystery. I was so dissapointed when I saw how gorgeous Orca Bay turned out. This year I have decided to take the "Easy Street" outside of my comfort zone. Again this year she has made bold color choices and the little " be safe" voice in my head rebelled against the colors. I decided to ignore that voice and be bold myself. Here are my fabrics!

I didn't have any of these colors in my stash. They are not colors I "normally" use. I had to go buy all of them. But once I got them laid out I can see them working together, even though my safe side is screaming in protest.

Here's to an interesting journey doing this mystery. Off to the sewing room!

Happy Quilting!
Cindy