Scrappy pineapple....

Blogging is rare these days but this quilt finish is so lovely I just had to share....or at least record it so I can review in years to come!

This is my scrappy pineapple quilt that I started to make blocks for last January.
After falling madly in love with Crazy Mom's Plenty of Pineapples version that capped off her 2014 year and her 101 scrap finishes, I had to have one.

It was the perfect sewing project to take away to our shack last summer where I have limited sewing facilities. I set myself up for sewing all of my 20 blocks at once, each growing at the same level of intensity, row by row. It allowed me to balance my colours matching each strip opposite each other. I guess this ensured a little bit of colour continuity for me. I managed to get to 11" sized blocks before having to come home. And once we did, we all went back to work and school and those blocks have sat in their unfinished state for the last 8 months or so.

I rifled past them in the storage box every now and then and funnily enough started to like the blocks less. I was using scraps, many of which had been turned over in the scrap pile for some time so I was probably a little sick of them. Other fabrics had been gifted, thrown into the blocks because they weren't really my usual choices. So the whole idea of a pineapple quilt of my own loomed less and less on the near horizon.

That is until L invited us to her 'Girls Night In' fundraiser for cancer research which also came with a request for raffle items. Naturally, I thought I could easily make a quilt and set about sorting through the cupboard. My first instinct was to make a kitchen sink quilt out my orphan blocks. (Which I did make but fell soooo in love with it couldn't bear to part with it...but that's another story.) Another sort through bits and pieces and I chanced upon the now very buried pineapple blocks. Bingo, these only needed corners and they'd be finished! That done, multiplied by 20 blocks and a 5" border delivered a lovely little lap size quilt of 52" x 64".

And guess what? I love it again. Isn't it funny how that happens? But I had the good sense after my first about-face to tell L that it was for her straight away, that way I couldn't change my mind again!

The binding is scrappy, cobbled together from left over ends of quilt bindings. The backing fabric was gifted by M. Add that to the gifted scraps that appear in the blocks I feel so many of my sewing friends have made this quilt come to life for L's fundraiser. I'm almost wishing I might be able to win it back!

And to celebrate this finish, I'm linking up to this quilt's inspiration, none other than Crazy Mom's Finish it up Friday!

Strips from the scrap bag....

I've often said how I don't throw away any of my fabric off-cuts. These are stored ...ahem...hoarded...in various storage systems around my sewing space. I have zip-lock bags of triangles from bindings and selvages. Bigger pieces are 'filed' in other receptacles. But my best bits are the strips that get cut from backing sides or rectangles left over from cutting out blocks. These are all filed in my strip scrap bag which is one of those study studded plastic bags that you get when you buy a set of sheets.

The strip scrap bag has been bursting at the seams for some time now and needed a little urgent attention. So with one of my client's baby due date drawing closer, I thought I'd merge the two situations to my quilt making advantage. I love a small baby quilt finish. It delivers such satisfaction.

Ready made strips are ideal for scrappy log cabins. Very little preparation aside from straightening an edge or two...unless you're purposefully going for wonky....! I chose a range of centre squares of varying sizes and rainbow colours to start me off and worked out from there. I was aiming for 12 blocks around 14" right from the start, so it was a really simple process of chain piecing each one. I had the whole cot sized top done in  a day.

The binding is a Sarah Fielke black and white from Spotlight that I had in the cupboard...I've cut the selvedge...for storage of course...so can't remember the name but Mondiali rings a bell. The back is a piece of Ikea's Cecilia bird fabric in green that my sister gave me recently. (But not shown.)

All in all...something lovely from seemingly not much at all! A cot sized quilt (41" x 54") that was gifted today and received with overwhelming delight. Yay!

I'm linking up to Crazy Mom's Finish it up Friday.

Tinker Taylor....

I've have finished my Scrappy Summer quilt and just in time for Joe's great nephew's first birthday party this weekend.

The pattern is Scrappy Summer by Alison of Cluck Cluck Sew using the free tutorial on the blog.
This quilt was so lovely to work on. I loved the colours I chose and the easy piecing, much of it chained which helped it come together like a dream. The way the white blocks run through the quilt gives it a really crisp summer look.

Everything I used in this quilt I had, so it truly is a scrappy quilt. The backing came off another that I had got as far as basting but it just wasn't doing it for me on that one. So a bit of an un-pin and re-pin and voila, backing ready to go. It's a Denyse Schmidt floral in blue and green from Spotlight, from the range after Picnics & Fairgrounds....Sugar Creek.

The binding is a fabric I bought from Fabric Shack from their cheapy discounted section. It's a perfect zingy stripe (and dot) in red and aqua which picks up the reds and blues in the quilt. Unfortunately, I cut off the selvedge and didn't have time to go back and investigate the name.

This time I decided to machine stitch the binding. I know a lot of quilters claim that it's more durable and an expedient way to attach a binding...which it is, but....I don't know, I don't love it. It's got stitching through it. I honestly prefer the neat finish of a hand stitched binding. This is probably only about the second or third time I've attempted machine stitched binding and I respect the fact that practice makes perfect, but those little oopsies when the stitches come off the rails on the back drive me nuts. All that being said, I'm not undoing it! It will be fine and no-one else cares except me!

Now that's two little whinges I've had in this post so we'll leave it there for now. I do love this quilt, it's perfect for a little boy and I hope he gets lots of use out of it, at least as much as his big brother got from his a few years back. Happy birthday Taylor!

Tour de force...

There has been an absence from this blog space for some time now and that's because we've been traveling for the past month, spending time in the UK, France, Brussels and Holland. I wouldn't have called it a holiday as these kinds of trips tend to be exhausting with all the sightseeing and jammed packed adventure that gets crammed into virtually every waking moment so as not to miss out one single thing. Coupled with the fact that for Australian's to visit these countries we have to travel to the other side of the world making regular visiting difficult and seeing as it's been a long time between our last trip and this one, we're probably not going to get back again for some time to come, so we were certainly making the most of it.
We've been back a week now and I'm still digesting most of it but there were many highlights and a few dramas that I still shake my head over and wonder how we got through it. One of the things I came to realise is how resilient our kids are and how well they coped with what was being thrown at us.
I spent much of the trip instagraming and sending daily updates on Facebook, so in order to write a recap here, I'll have to review those posts to refresh my memory. However, the clearest was being able to catch up with dear friends. I took three quilts which would become a welcome, a thank you and hello again gifts. (This was also my method of overloading my suitcase to make room for purchases!)
I have previously blogged about my Happy Trails quilt which was a welcome gift for baby E who is now 6 months old, and my low volume quilt was a thank you present to E & P for putting us up for 10 days in London. It was lovely to see it instantly put to use in E's lounge room and I'm thrilled it co-ordinated so well with her decor.
The third quilt was gifted to our dear friends who have been in the UK for two years now. They headed over to run a country pub. The process of getting the pub into shape nearly killed them and they eventually sold and are now based close to M's family and working in London. Luckily, L was between jobs and M took a few days off and they were able to spend time with us and act as tour guides whilst we were there.

Their quilt is my 'This way and That way' quilt. I haven't shared it before but I did post a snippet on instagram which went off for 'likes' and even had a request for a tutorial. (!) It's made from the triangles that are created when making pennants for bunting. There's always one (or two if fabric is doubled) at the beginning of the strip and one at the end and given that I was making bunting out of some of my most precious fabrics there was no way I was going to chuck them so they were filed into a ziplock for safe keeping. I realised that I had quite a few, so I set them into white vertical rectangles a'la Gwen Marston style. The block is actually known as a dog-tooth block. I managed three rows of dog-teeth, and laid them in alternate directions floating in the bottom third of the front.

The back is the red floral from Denyse Schmidt's Picnics & Fairgrounds range which I've used over and over....and never tire! Binding is a black and white stripe which I picked up from Fabric Shack for a song. (I've become quite partial to exploring their 'sale' page and seeing how much I'm not spending! You can get a lot of fabric for not much in that section!)

Needless to say, M & L loved their quilt and started to use it straight away. I hope they think of us whenever they do and when we'll next see them home because whilst it was the best thing ever to say hello again, saying goodbye is too, too hard.

X-ing and +-ing....

I've been in love with the Japanese x and + quilts, inspired by Setsuko Inagawa floating around the blogasphere of late. Most recently Ara Jane's of 'You know what I love?' and this one by Leila from 'Where the Orchids Grow' which has been on my pinterest board for an age.
For a great tutorial on how to lay out and piece the block go to Amy Gunson's badskirt site for a good explanation of the block construction. But....be warned, the sizes quoted aren't quite right. Now Amy was the first to admit in her tutorial that the blocks she designed were loose and about having fun so I'm not pointing an accuracy finger at all. It's just that when I decided to use scraps for my quilt and realised I had an abundance of 2 1/2" squares and strips, I thought that I'd prefer to use them as a whole rather than cut them down to Amy's measurement of 2". When I tried to enlarge her units for her 7.5"/8" block, the square 3.5" piece didn't come out at a 'regular' size, in fact it was something like 4.32"! The pure fact that I couldn't work out what that could possibly look like on an inch ruler called for a halt in cutting proceedings!
Then I found this post by Occasional Piece-Quilt who'd discovered the same calculation problem but had worked it out based on 2 1/2" units using a quilt block computer program....salvation!
So I've worked with her measurements:
Centre cross = 1 x 6.5"x2.5", 2 x 2 1/2" square
Edges of the cross = 4 x 2.5" square
Background triangles = 8 x 2.5" square
Branches of the x = 4 x 4.5" square
These measurements yield a 10" block which is a great size.
I've spent the last few days on these blocks. I had an initial oops and should have re-read Amy's tutorial where she specifically explains the mixing of colours for the 'branches of the x'. I didn't do this for the first three and matched mine. I swore, abandoned ship and slept on it, deciding after another look not to pull them apart.

I'm so glad I didn't pull them apart because in the mix of the now scrappier blocks, it's hard to tell which ones they are. I find it hard to contrast my fabrics and scrappy is just as hard for me but as I'm working through these blocks and the fabric choices are diminishing, I'm getting better...and as Amy suggested....having fun!

From little things.....

Big things grow.

I've been inspired by Amanda Jean who in turn, was inspired by Katy's flickr posting of the Birmingham Quilt Show and in particular Ingrid Press's absolutely stunning little house quilt. I can't stop looking at it, it's so beautiful. Amanda Jean quickly siezed on the wonderful notion of getting her Sew Connected Quilt Group to help build her village (how Amish!). But I don't have that kind of support (yet) seeing as I've only been blogging (and quilting) for a little while. So......I had a go at construction last night using nothing but my scrap bin. It's very liberating to realise that each of these little house/tree blocks have been made out of reclaimed fabric. I stayed up way past my bedtime and managed 14 blocks. Only 11 more to go! Some of my buildings turned out a little larger than I originally intened but with lots of white around them they'll soon look smaller against the background. I'm aiming for 12 1/2" square blocks for each.

I'm thinking this quilt might be a nice little fundraiser for R's Girl Guides. And I'm also thinking that down the track the girls might be able manage one of their own!