Not a baby quilt

  Name:  Guest Pancakes in Blue

Design: inpired by Tula Pinks Pancakes pattern that is no longer available

Size:  79" by 89"

Fabric: Stash fabrics in blues, Kona white and Kona navy

Quilted: by me with Aurifil 50 wt in grey in free motion switch back

Backing:  by Amy Butler

 I started this quilt about a year ago after Stacey Day gifted me a whole pile of her scraps.  Her scraps are not like my scraps and there were a lot of blues.  Big chunks.  I had always loved the Tula Pink Pancake pattern so I started cutting up the scraps into what seemed like an enormous pile of 5" by 10" rectangles.  And an even larger pile of little white and navy squares for the corners.  I actually started it on my Featherweight at a friend's house but a bunch of other projects got in the way of making any progress.  Now this is quite unlike me as I usually work on one quilt at a time and finish it before I start another.  This one lingered in a basket.  It is destined for our daughter's house for the guest room.  I pulled it out again when I got my new Juki TL 2010Q and thought it would be a good one to work on while I got to know a new machine.

 In all honesty I have 4 sewing machines now and a serger.  I kept my Janome Horizon because it does things the Juki cannot.  And the Juki does things the Janome cannot.  I am giving away my 28 year old Kenmore to a friend and keeping the featherweight so it all makes sense.  At least that is how I see it. 

Anyway here it is a big giant queen size mess of scraps in blue.  It came together way better than I hoped and it really is quite striking for what is essentially an very simple pattern.  Quilted with Aurifil in dove, switch back free motion and backed in Amy Butler.  I bound it in the same dark navy Kona.  I think it is Storm.  A finish requiring so many clothespins and looking quite awesome in the fall late afternoon sunshine last weekend. 

A gift for a friend

   Name: Scraps Springs Eternal #2

Design: Inspired by a quilt found on Pinterest by Kati Spencer and published in Scraps Inc.

Size: 67" by 67"

Quilted: by me with Aurifil 50 wt ilight grey, irregular grid

Fabric:  Various prints in orange, nayvy, aqua, red, grey and white and sashed with Kona Ash

Binding and Backing: Kona Navy binding and backed with a thrifted sheet.

I have been most busy this summer but I have not been keeping up to date here so I have some work to do.  I am more often found on Instagram it seems as so many bloggers have migrated.  You can find me there at @cathyeric  Anyway, I made another one of these scrap quilts this summer.  It was the first finish of the summer in truth.  This quilt is based on a picture I found on Pinterest.  As quilt by Kati Spencer in the book Scraps Inc.  I do not have the book but I do want to credit her design.  Not having the book, I made my blocks 18" square and with strips of varying widths in a controlled colour palette.  So much fun.  This is the second one of this design.  Here is the first.

Backed with a thrifted sheet in sunny bright yellow, I gave this one to a dear friend who just bought lake property and will be cabin building.  A quilt was in order for sure.

Scrappy Bow Tie Baby

   Name:  Scrappy Bow Tie Baby

Design:  Inspired by Blue Elephant Stitches

Size:  39" by 39", blocks are 6"

Fabric: Stash fabrics and scraps

Quilted: by me with Aurifil 50 wt in white beside each square

So I saw this quilt on Jolene's blog, Blue Elephant Stitches.  I love so many of her quilts.  I had to make it.  I think the beauty of this one is in the variety of the background solids and not quite solids.  Lots of pale Kona solids in blue, pink and pale yellow with a dash of light grey dots and a few squares of an out of print Sweetwater fabric in a colour I remember they called pickle.  The bow ties are almost all scraps but I also used some leftover bits of  2 different Moda Candy packs.  This is a wonderful way to use those little 2.5" squares.  The binding is a floral print that does not read as baby at all but some how it works with this.  I truly believe the zing of orange and navy is important to this design.  So be brave if you try this quilt.   So much fun.  The quilting is simple.  Just Aurifil 50 wt in white around the seam lines.  The backing is a ditzy floral print that I have had for ages.  The flowers are pink, orange and turquoise with a bit of grey.  It totally works.  Light and soft.  There it is below when it fell out of grandmother hazelnut.

Scraps Springs Eternal

    Name: Scraps Springs Eternal

Design: Inspired by a quilt found on Pinterest by Kati Spencer and published in Scraps INc.

Size: 67" by 67"

Quilted: by me with Aurifil 50 wt ilight grey, irregular grid

Fabric:  Various prints in orange, nayvy, aqua, red, grey and white and sashed with Kona Ash

Binding and Backing: Kona Navy binding and backed with a thrifted sheet.

So I noticed a picture of a quilt on Pinterest by Kati Spencer and I was quite taken with it.  I wanted to use up a lot of my scrap strings.  That was the hope.  The hope that springs eternal was that I would really make a dent in the scrap supply.  I will say that I did use quite a pile of scrap strings.  These are randomly pieced strings of various widths and then trimmed to a 18" block.  I used 2.5" wide sashing in the Kona Ash.  And used a rail fence layout with the super sized blocks.  The scrappiness is toned down with a fixed colour palette rather than just letting it rip and mixing in all the colours.  The grey sashing also helps.  The navy solid binding made a nice frame.

I had this idea to do another irregular grid quilting and I decided to quilt from the back because the sheet I used for the backing had a small check pattern.  Bonus!  So I used Aurifil white in 50 wt on the top and Aurifil 50 wt in dove on the bobbin.  Then I went for it.  It turned out quite well.  I will not say that the grid is regular and I was not intending it for it to be.  It has a little wonk.  Enough so that Husband noticed it.  He is not a fan of the wonk.

The funny thing is that whenever I am ready to take photos of a finished quilt, I pick up the quilt and the camera and start heading outside.  Webster, our dog, understands what this means and gets all excited.  He loves taking pictures of quilts.  He is always close by in the background, approving the shoot.  This time, I got him to sit in front of the quilt.  He is a little wonky.  He has dysplasia but that doesn't stop him from being a really great photo-dog and able quilt photo assistant!

On the pea plant support fence.

And the back.

Close up with a bit of wonk.

Those darn scraps

I have to do something with all my scraps.  They are breeding like bunnies.  I saw a picture of a quilt on Pinterest and I used it as inspiration for these blocks.  Supersized at 18" square, these are put together with string scraps of different widths.  Going just from a picture, I did not have an idea how big to make the blocks but big seemed to be the answer!  I am using a controlled scrappy colour palette and I will sash the blocks in grey.  I am aiming to make this a big block big quilt because I want to use a lot of fabric!

Baby Blue Two

 Name:  Baby Blue Two

Design:  4" squares

Size:  36" by 42"

Fabric: Stash/scrap fabrics including some prints from backed in  flannelette and cotton

Quilted: by me with Aurifil 50 wt in grey

This quilt was like dealing with sourdough starter because I used a bunch of leftover 4" squares from a baby quilt made last year.  I just had to add a few more squares.  I guess I got a little square crazy when I made the last one.  As it turns out, I even used the leftover backing from the first quilt for the back of this one.  I just had to add a bit of extra fabric to make it big enough.  I quilted this one with diagonal lines which I marked with a hera marker with a lovely light grey Aurifil.  I love this kind of quilting.  And you know, you don't really even need to mark the lines because once you get in the groove, you can aim corner to corner and its just fine.  

This one is bound in a favourite white dot on grey that I bought a ton of... it is a perfect shade of grey. Soft and clear.  The little owls are from some fat quarters I bought when a quilt shop was going out of business.  It adds just a little bit of fun with this simple patchwork.

And that reminds me of the pictures my husband took of a little visitor to our yard the other day.  This wee Northern Pygmy Owl visits from time to time.  What are you looking at?  Aren't those eyes amazing?

Linking up with Amanda Jean for Finish it Up Friday.