(Inherited) Scrappy Crow Quilt

Quite the name, I know, but it's sure 'scrappy' and as far as I can tell the fabric was called 'a year to crow about' -- so scrappy crow it is!

The scrappy top came together quickly, and is adorable -- if neither perfect nor my taste.

(I know, I'm supposed to find indirect sunlight without shadows of trees, but give me a break, it's over 90 degrees out there and I'm actually accomplishing stuff! If I hold out for either better photos or better weather, nothing will ever happen here again.)

I just added 2.5 inch square patchwork between each block and then all around as a border. It's really busy, but cute.

For the back, I just pushed together scraps until I had something large enough to work with. It's not nearly as cute, but it's going to work.

And by using the same fabrics, it does coordinate perfectly, which is nice.

By far the cutest detail on the back is this little corner:

which was built of more of the started but not finished pieces that came with the blocks and fabric I've used. I think it will make a natural and perfect quilt label area.

Binding is already made for this one -- scrappy as well, of course. So, it's just a matter of basting. Which is where I bog down on every project these days!

I'm hoping to get some folding tables set up outside some time and have a basting party. I do have some spray baste to test out, but I want to start with something smaller (I think). I also have a newly improved stash of pins, so hopefully I can get a couple things done while I have a good setup going -- assuming I can do such a thing!

Butterfly Charm Blocks for Dresden Plate Quilt

Slowly but surely, I'm making progress on these butterfly charm blocks!

Not including my mistakenly too bright yellow butterfly, I'm currently standing at 3 of 4 done:

Aren't they adorable?!

The green is made up of the last tiny pieces of one of my very favorite green scraps. The yellow and tan butterflies are made completely from coordinating scraps that came with the quilt.

These blocks are taking me around an hour to an hour-and-a-half a piece to finish, so it's been a challenge to squeeze them in to my day. Then again, knowing exactly what I have to do -- and how long I'll need to do it -- is helping everyone else get me the time to work on them. Which is a lot of fun.

Basting, quilting, even working on larger tops is harder to squeeze in. It often feels like I'm finally set up to start and boom! Time's up!

I'm crossing my fingers to get the orange one done yet tonight. I can't wait to see all four of them finished. I'm also crossing my fingers to have enough background fabric left to piece these 5 inch squares into 12 inch blocks!

Inherited Dresden Plate Quilt

Out of all the options I could come up with for the two extra blocks needed to finish the top of the Dresden Plate quilt I've picked up, I finally chose to go with paper pieced butterflies.

It gives me a chance to dig through my scrap containers -- thankfully organized by color -- as well as trying to pull from the coordinating scraps I received with the quilt blocks.

I love paper piecing, but I am not particularly fast at it. My husband was kind enough to give me almost two hours of baby free time so I was able to finish my first of (probably) four butterflies.

This is my first try at Lillyella's wonderful free butterfly charm blocks. Although there are three different patterns available, I've chosen to do multiples of the Pepper pattern. Although I had made this particular butterfly in a hope to coordinate with the Dresden plates, it is far, far too bright lemony a yellow and simply does not work. So, I'm sure it'll come back as something else cute later, but not with this particular quilt.

I'm thinking one in yellow, one in oranges, one in tan, and one in green. I'd like to do some pinks or blues, but I'm trying to stick near the palette given in the Dresden blocks.

The (new) yellow butterfly will use the golden/yellow from the plates and the future border, as well as some of the tan-ish fabrics from the plates. The tan butterfly will also use at least some of the fabric straight from these scraps. I have hopes to use the dark brown fabric from the plates with two new oranges for the orange butterfly -- and hopefully I can find some really coordinating oranges! The green will be pulled completely from scrap, so it will be the least matchy-matchy of the set.

I can't wait to see how this turns out!

Another Inherited Quilt

I can't tell you how many 'inherited' projects I've picked up so far this year -- and there may be a lot more to come from what I hear. I figure I'll have several to pull out in the future, but I've got a couple I want to work on right away. These tend to be the larger ones, or the ones where what to do with them is more obvious. Some of the other projects are just enough blocks that I can't justify doing nothing with them, but not enough to easily turn into anything without me making more blocks of the same style.

After checking to see that my initial guess on who 'needed' this top were wrong, I've got a new intended recipient in mind (assuming she turns out to be a she-- or even turns out at all since I'm jumping the gun just a little bit here!) and I'm so much more excited about working on this one.

Fortunately, whatever the plan was with this particular top when it was started, coordinating fabrics were kept with it, so I'm close to ready to build a top already!

Unfortunately, there are only 7 of the Dresden plate blocks. I can't imagine what was going to be done with seven, so perhaps theysimply didn't get finished. But I haven't any more fabric to make more that match... not even of the plain background they are hand stitched onto.

I'm feeling the floral print (I'd call them black eyed susans) as the backing, and I've already cut the yellow into sashing and borders. I'm thinking the dark brown will be binding, and maybe a detail in the sashing if I'm detail oriented enough.

But two additional blocks? That has me a bit stumped at the moment. Well, while I stumble along looking for inspiration, I'm pinning ideas away here.  Hopefully I'll stumble across something I like, but in the meantime, at least I've got some ideas on sashing and other details between here and a finished quilt!

Again in June!?

Hey, what do you know -- two posts in June? And I actually have made progress on a quilt or two? This is a big moment after nearly a year of doing almost nothing -- well, almost nothing quilt related!

Thanks to a 3 hour get-away with my local quilting group, I've made quite a lot of progress -- some progress on one of my inherited projects and a finishing touch for this old 'embraceable' quilt, which is perhaps now known as the 'serviceable' quilt.

This top was made up with the leftover pieces from a Persimmon charm pack + jelly roll, while the fabric pieces I purchased the two pre-cuts for went to a different project. This top has sat around waiting for binding for way too long -- and the inherited quilt I've already introduced you to came with fabric colors that coordinated just enough that I thought I could get away with using some of it for binding. As much as I like going to the fabric store, it's always nice to find something in the stash that will work instead.

I think the lucky coordinating sheet back is one of my favorite parts of this quilt. It is just such a perfect match. And the butter and blue scrappy binding coordinates well with the back too -- another lucky moment!

It's in the wash right now, waiting to be turned into a baby shower gift the moment it's dry. I'm excited to have it done, but really, I'm excited to have had a baby shower gift so ready to go. And lucky too, because my stash of finished quilts has really dwindled over the last year or so of minimal activity.

Thanks to my own projects and the inherited ones, I'm trying to slowly build up another stash -- but so many friends having babies this fall is making that a bit more challenging! But I'm not complaining at all.

June Check In

So... I'm managing about 30 minutes of sewing time every month, and I'm only making it to my local quilt group about half the time (once a month). So, not much is happening around here. Well, not in the sewing or quilting area. There's lots of stuff happening elsewhere -- we've got crawling, and lots of attempts at walking.

But yesterday I had a few minutes of time to myself, so once I cleared off the sewing desk (which was a challenge), I had a chance to work on something. It's true that the last thing I need is one more top waiting for basting... but that's what I started on anyway!

Do you ever wonder what will happen to your stash if you can never return to it? I don't really mean that as a morbid question, but I suppose it is a little bit... I have wound up with a small pile of unfinished projects from a relative who quilted. (There's a much larger pile still waiting for the family to go through it, so this may only be part one of the "inheritance" or it may be all I'm going to get.) While this relative had a lot of projects going on, things were left in such a way that most people coming in after won't be able to guess what the plan for each started project was, much less try to finish it that way. (And my stash is the same, lots of started projects with no guidelines for anyone!)

Some of these started projects are far enough along I think I can turn them into finishes with only a little bit of effort. Others are probably more destined to be orphaned blocks for a long time... but it's a fun new challenge, and right now, it fits my time allotments better than basting!

So, I pulled out this pile and set to work to see what I could make of it. The big blocks were already completed, as were some of the patchwork borders -- though it was clear that they'd been assembled block by block rather than in a short cut method. There were scraps and precuts made for whatever the other 'sampler' blocks were going to be, but with no directions, I couldn't figure out what to do with them. So, I made a few more patchwork strips.

I obviously have a few more to make before this is ready to assemble into a top, but I ran out of time to keep working on it. Most of the patchwork block strips are only 5 - 7 blocks long. I've left them that short so I have a better chance of putting them all together in a variety way instead of a patterned way, since my next set of patchwork blocks will be coming from a different pile of precut scraps. I didn't have much of the orange or green in the blocks I made, so I want to aim for more of that next time around, then ensure that the little strips get mixed together as they assemble into longer strips.

When I first put out the blocks, the one in the center was one of my least favorites -- but with the addition of the patchwork stripes, I think it's become my very favorite!

I'm thinking this will be another baby quilt, though I have no idea where it'll end up in the long run. The fabric choices are a little more 'primitive' than I would ever have chosen, but it's actually quite cute so far (if I do say so myself), and I'm looking forward to seeing how it finishes up. There's probably not enough coordinating fabric to make it any larger than a baby size -- though if I wanted to be incredibly scrappy I could aim for a twin with a non-coordinating back... but I'm not that brave or scrappy! I do have a couple blocks for the back that look like natural quilt labels, so I'm actually really excited to see how that turns out.

Hopefully I'll get a little time to work on this over the weekend. If not... we'll see how it looks next month!