Ready to quilt!

The hockey quilt top is done! Hooray!

And it went from being too small to wrap around a body to full bed size! I don’t know how that happened, but apparently that’s the size it needed to be.

This is all the scrap left of that blue, so I’m very, very happy about that.

I hate piecing quilt backs, but this other hunk of hockey fabric

and the scraps will be finding a home on the back of this one!

Finally, the hockey fabric that I have saved for years will be used and gone! It’s great that AJ is playing hockey so that I had motivation to finally use it!

Use Up the Stash, baby! Woooo–hooooooo!

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Tracking the hockey quilt

And I think I’m on the right track for sure now. I decided to have alternating hockey fabric squares rather than continuing with the b/w and red.

Much better! But it’s an odd shape and size so I need to figure out how to make it more ‘normal’.

The small block on the side seemed to make sense as a border, so I made more of them. I think this will work out just fine.

I’m hoping to have enough of the hockey fabric for a final border of that, but it might be close. Even a narrow strip will work!

It’s still very boring to me to make the same block over and over, but it helps with this one that I am varying the red fabrics and only cutting and sewing a few at a time. Certainly not the most efficient way to do things, but it keeps me from going crazy with repetition boredom.

Tomorrow–hoping to have this top finished. I also found my other hunk of hockey fabric and as I thought, it will not coordinate with what’s on the front. It will definitely go on the back because I am NOT hanging on to any pieces of hockey fabric after this quilt is done!

Get it done!

Hockey quilt layout

A few blocks are finished and on the design wall. I’m not sure I like this.

The hockey print is getting lost in all the b/w and red. I may need to go back to one set of corner triangles and make more of the smaller blocks. I need to look at it for a while before I decide on how I want to proceed.

I also need to remember that this is a drag-around quilt. Maybe a big blue hockey fabric border will make it all be fine!

Figuring out a pattern

Find a pattern or make an improv design………that was the question I asked myself when faced with the hockey fabric. I invest a lot of myself into improv designs and this quilt is to be a drag-around quilt, so I was definitely inclined to look for a pattern. As I said before, the hockey fabric is a big, busy print and will lose it’s impact if it’s cut into small pieces.

After a lot of internet browsing, I think I’m going to use square-in-a-square. It’s also known as the economy block, but usually that’s with two sets of corner triangles. I made a couple of sample blocks and now I need to decide a few things.

Sticking with the red and the black/white. The blues did nothing. This is the simple square-in-a-square, with one set of corner triangles. Easy, looks good, but I’d have to make a lot more blocks this way.

This is the economy block, with two sets of corner triangles. These are twelve inch  blocks and I wouldn’t need nearly as many of them to make the quilt. And it’s a simple pattern, so……….winner! However, in consultation with my personal design expert…seriously, my daughter is an expert…and we think the larger b/w print might be distracting.

Sounds like I have a plan now. The economy block, small print b/w and red fabrics and it should be done quickly. I was going to try and use up scraps, but the bigger blocks use bigger pieces. I think I have enough larger pieces, but if I have to get a little more fabric…that would never break my heart!

Lot’s of stuff happening this week, like dye day on Wednesday, so there may not be any long stretches of quilt making. However, I tend to get a little bit of hand sewing done most evenings. Mainly because I have everything set out on a little table in the living room and I can pick it up to sew a few stitches whenever I have a minute.

I’m working on a series of ‘circle explorations’ now. I’ve finished the basic stitches defining the circles and now I need to figure out what will be next.

You know, some artists run into creative blocks and struggle to move forward. I am so lucky that so far this has not happened to me. My creative blocks only involve making decisions about how to proceed, not how to start a new project. Hope it stays that way!

Hockey quilt

Since AJ made the travel hockey team for the fall, I have an excuse to make a hockey quilt! There is definitely a reason that I have held onto this hockey fabric for so long without using it. I can’t come up with a pattern idea that I like to use it with!

I originally had three different hockey prints and used one to make that bag, which has never been finished! All it needs is a button or piece of velcro for a fastener. It may get that now. I had the second print, a lighter blue, just recently because I was going to give it away. AJ saw it and said he’d like a hockey quilt and now I can’t find that particular piece anywhere! Doesn’t matter that much because I have almost 2.5 yards of this one. Plenty enough!

It’s a big busy print and I certainly don’t want to cut it into small pieces. That would defeat the purpose of using a themed print! I pulled tons of fabrics that coordinated, and got it down to this pile.

Not a huge amount of contrast, and I may stick with only the black and white prints. Plain white looked good, but…white is not my thing and it’s a quilt that I intend to drag around to hockey rinks. So, white….not. It’s really figuring out some kind of pattern that will feature the fabric and that I’d LIKE to make that has me stumped.

I keep telling myself to simplify, simplify, simplify, but the right idea has not crept into my brain’s idea box yet. I’m confident that it will, but I may have to surf through a lot of images before the right spark hits.

Guess Google and I will spend some quality time together today!

Goal–met!

My goal for today was to finish sewing the brown quilt. I was so tired of sewing with brown, sewing blocks made the same basic way, no improv………………the thought of any additional days was mind-numbing!

I stuck with it and got it done! Hooray!

The plain brown didn’t get it for me. I decided that I needed a touch of a color to pep it up and found a bit of turquoise that looked pretty good with the brown.

I also figured out a way to add the color that could make the seams NOT line up–much easier to only have to match the ends of the rows!

So hip hip hooray—it’s done and ready to be added to the Use Up the Stash pile of UFO’s…………and that’s a whole different story!

Progress happens…

Most of my day today was spent weeding and planting my garden. Well, it took most of the morning anyway! My garden now consists of a few flowerpots in the front of the house because I’ve converted everything I can to perennials. I plant one little strip of alyssum along the front walk and call it good. I love flowers but I’m just not into all the work involved anymore.

The pots will fill in over the summer with minimum care. Easy, peasy, done! It only took that long because I forgot to get something for the antique hanging baskets that I got last fall and had to run out to the nursery.

After a quick trip to the grocery store, I got some sewing done. The brown quilt is coming along pretty quickly. I’ve been making blocks in groups of 4 and sticking them up on the design wall as I go. I’m still thinking there will be a need for a spike of color before it’s done, but I will make all the blocks before I decide.

And as I looked at the squares that I have cut, I think this is going to be a large quilt! I’m glad I didn’t cut every piece of brown fabric that I found…or I might have had to make TWO brown quilts! Nope–no way!

Little bits of sewing when I have time, and it will get done.