sunday stash

Celebrate Seuss and Cat in the Hat by Robert Kaufman Fabrics

Available from here, here, here, here. Go shop, you have my permission ;)

It's been a while since I did a Sunday stash. I must say this stack of fabrics is probably one of my favourites for a long, long time. It will eventually become a quilt for his Gingerness, once I get some other stuffs finished first. Namely this quilt that has moved on from being a stack of blocks to a finished top. I'd intended to make it a king size, but I realised that was silly. The only king sized bed in our house is my bed and it would look really out of place in our bedroom, so it's now 80 inches square and will live in the sitting room (where it will also look a bit out place, but hey ho!) as one of the sofa quilts.
I'm out of wadding though, so the quilting will need to wait until I order a new roll. I'm thinking straight lines, each a couple of inches apart. That shouldn't take me long and then I can move on to yet another WIP. *sigh* Wouldn't it be nice to start the new year with a clean slate? Totally WIP free? I'm dreaming, of course, but it's a lovely dream.



If you're looking for the quilt along posts - head to this post for Block A instructions and this post for fabric requirements.

what to do with 5 fat quarters...

...you can make a little baby quilt. For a baby that was born a few months ago and is still quiltless (there's a running theme. I'm always late with gifts).




I love these fabrics by Laurie Wisbrun for Robert Kaufman. They're perfect for a baby, but not too babyish. (It has binding on now - white to match the sashing).

Next mission is to make a big version like this - maybe without the sashing, for the Ginger boy.

But I really need to get back to sewing those scrappy squares together......



All the previous quilt along posts are below;

Fabric Requirements
Block A instructions

Quilt Along - Block A instructions

Here we go.

Let's get this show on the road!

Block A;

Grab 49 different 2.5 inch scrap squares. Don't think too much about them, just grab blindly and hope for the best. If you start thinking you'll never get 49 squares you are happy with so it's best to just jump in feet first and get sewing.



1. Sew the squares into 7 rows of 7



2. Press your seams so they butt together - first row one way, next row the opposite etc etc



3. Sew your rows together to make 1 block. Press. Step back, admire your handiwork.

Then you have to do it all over again. Repeat this block for a total of 18 A blocks for the twin sized quilt or 12 A blocks for the big lap quilt.

I'm off to Houston next week for Quilt Market so I'll do the instructions for block B when I get back. That gives you a couple of weeks to make a start.

These blocks are pretty fast to whip up. You could chain stitch a whole heap of pairs and make up a few blocks at a time. That's what I'll be doing this evening!

For the next quilt along post I'l be holding a giveaway or 2 of something exciting that I pick up in Houston. I don't know what yet - some fab market goodies, that's for sure. So whilst you're stitching up your blocks think of a really good name to replace my (not so) working title of Scrap Vomit. Don't tell me yet - save it for the next quit along post.

Any questions or problems, give me a shout - either leave a comment here or email me katyejones at hotmail dot com.

If you need reminding what fabrics and stuff you need, the original blog post is right here.

I can't wait to see your blocks!!!!

Updated to include links to the rest of the Tute.....

Fabric Requirements
BLOCK B instructions
Strip Piecing Block B
Krista's anti voodoo chain piecing tute

quilt along - more details

Well, phew, I'm glad there are some of you crazy enough to join me in my scrap quilt along. It's possible we need a less offensive name than scrap vomit - but let me explain that a little better. I'm using any old scraps, the uglier the better. The sort that you would burn rather than add them into a quilt. My theory is that the uglier the scraps the more interesting the quilt. As a general rule we are all drawn towards particular fabrics, and if you hunt in your stash you'll find most of your fabrics, or at least a big chunk of them, follow similar themes. If I cut pieces from every fabric in my stash I'm sure I'd end up with a lovely quilt, but it wouldn't have that zing that a true scrap quilt has - there'd be a safe element to it. So I've been hunting for ugly scraps. I even swapped out some fancy fabrics for ugly scraps - and there are some absolute horrors. Fabrics with flames on, for example and realistic animals. I don't have any clowns, which I'm a bit sad about because I think it'd be nice to have a few scary clown faces hiding in the blocks. So, scrap vomit - like the most disgusting mess of fabrics chucked up on a table. Somehow it looks beautiful put together.

I first saw this quilt, or a version of it here. It was in American Patchwork and Quilting back in 2002 (which I have). The instructions were for smaller squares (1.75 inches cut), and it was strip pieced (there was a pattern for piecing squares as well). I don't care for strip piecing. I like little squares. So I've changed the pattern a bit, lost one of the rings of solids and made the cut squares 2.5 inch. Partly to save time and partly to make it a little bit easier. I've got a 2.5 inch ruler so it makes cutting squares super simple. And jelly rolls are 2.5 inches, so I've got plenty of left over bits from jelly rolls in my scrap bin.

I'll post the instructions for block A (the scraps only block at the bottom of this post) in a week. And then leave you get on with piecing those blocks.
There's no rush to get done, we have only 2 different blocks to make, so make them when you can, take your time. This could easily be a long term project, just add to it as your scrap bin grows.

It's not a difficult quilt, you are only piecing squares, so a beginner could do it. But it's tedious. I will tell you that.

However, once you're done and you've made something beautiful out of something quite 'useless' won't you be super smug and proud?

For those of you in the US wanting to order solids try Simply Solid on etsy. The blue I'm using is Kona Peacock. The black is actually a bed sheet from Ikea that I had lying around.
For UK folks head to Simply Solids and ask Mandy for help picking out some colours. She's very helpful - you won't regret going to her!

You'll find all the ingredients and what you need to order on the first blog post here.

care for some scrap vomit (AKA quilt along?)

I've been trying to get myself organised for some time and actually plan this quilt along...but it's now well into October and my intended start date of September has long gone. Oops.

Anyway - here's the deal. The mock up of a quilt above uses a LOT of scrap squares. There's a lot of sewing 2.5 inch squares together, but it's just 2 blocks and it's pretty simple. Plus - scrappy quilts are forgiving when it comes to mis-matched points, so you don't have to stress about being perfect. I'm not perfect, my points are pretty bad. Always. I've given up really caring, because I get too stressed and lose the love for a project.

Here's what you'll need -

Each 14 inch finished block is made up of 49 2.5 inch squares. Block A is 49 scrap squares. Block B is 29 scrap squares plus 12 black ones and 8 blue ones (in this case - you can choose different colours, but black/charcoal grey works well for contrast - a very dark colour is best for the outer ring).
If you decide to the layout above (which ends up at approx twin sized, or 70 x 98 inches) you will need the following;

PLEASE NOTE EDITED FABRIC REQUIREMENTS - I made a booboo with the amount of yardage you needed for the solids, and put the strips as inches not strips. I'm sorry (ducks to avoid the cutting mats and stuff thrown at my head)
Thank you to LuAnn for pointing out my mistake.

1,375 2.5 inch scrap squares
204 black squares (approx 14 strips of WOF strips 2.5 inches wide/35 inches of fabric - at 40 inches wide)
136 blue squares (or 9 WOF strips 2.5 inches wide/23 inches of fabric - at 40 inches wide)

But there's a smaller option........

for which you will end up with a quilt approx 70 inches square

fabrics required here are as follows;

965 scrap squares
156 black squares (or 10 x WOF strips 2.5 inches wide/25 inches of fabric at 40 inches wide)
104 blue squares (or 7 x WOF strips 2.5 inches wide/18 inches of fabric at 40 inches wide)




Anyone in? Or am I the only person crazy enough to give this a go ;)

time to plan?

It's creeping towards us you know



we are in October now



surely you're starting to panic?



what the heck are you going to make?



Good thing us nice folks over at Fat Quarterly have thought about how stressed you might be feeling and have put together a special Holiday edition of Fat Quarterly E-Zine.
It's available from October 15th for subscribers and the 17th for everyone else.

If you follow the blog already could you check you have us saved as www.fatquarterly.com - we've had a few server problems and had to change things a little bit.