Quilt Reveal: Scrappy Cat Collage Mini Quilt

 I am continuing to make progress on each of my quilts fifteen minutes a day. It is a lot of fun to pull out the old projects and make some progress on them, but it is hard to put them away when the fifteen minutes is over. I've been really good about staying organized and putting the projects back to make room for the next projects. I think they will be easier to bring them back out again in 2024 to get them finished off.

Here's a quilt I finished.

This quilt was started in September 2019. I wanted to make another fabric collage quilt, so I collaged a bunch of little strips of fabric on some fusible. There is a link here with a mini tutorial.  I cut out some animal shapes and even eventually finished a camel and a giraffe quilt out of this one sheet of fused fabric.

This month, I am bringing out each of my old works in process and I quilted the scrappy cat  as one of the projects on my Youtube channel, Quilt and Color. 

I only did the quilting on the video, but since I was so close to the finish, I added the words and the binding after the video was over. This quilt wasn't on my list of quilts in progress because it was a scrap from the camel quilt, and not technically its own project, but I am counting it anyway. Like I did last time for the giraffe, I will add it with the start date of the camel quilt and the current end date.

 Circle Block 280

 

On another day, I worked on the Quilty 365 quilt. Since I have been showing closeups on this blog, I wanted to make sure I included them here. This one uses the background fabric from the Portraits quilt. The red is from Boundless, the blues are from Seaglass rooftops, the blue on the right and the orange are from Rey and the Death Star.

 Circle Block 281

  

This one uses the red and blue from Rey and the Death Star, the blue from Seaglass Rooftops and the green is from the Olympics quilt.

Circle Block 282

This one uses the green from Olympics, the background snake fabric is from the Portraits quilt, the light green is from the backing of Zou the Elephant.

 Circle Block 283

The red fabric is from the binding of Boundless quilt

 

Circles and a Brand New Project

 

 

I had a productive week working on three quilts. I sewed the latest batch of circles with the last batch(es).

 I had a question about the order I put the circles. It is chronological, but very loosely. I try to put the big circles in a way that will balance with the other big circles in the quilt. That is why the big circle that was not made in this batch but is on the right. The circles on the left were made in previous batch(es) and the ones in the middle were the latest batch. I don't try to make them chronological in each batch. I am allowed to change the circles around if I want to separate certain colors, shapes, etc. 

Generally, I would be making one row at a time, but because of the big circle, I decided to make them by columns. I want to be able to sew these together so that the circles don't get lost. I do have a box to put them in, but putting them together as I go along keeps them in somewhat chronological order.

This is only half a row. I will add more circles as I make more batches before I attach to the mother ship.

 I pressed the Jazzy Blues triangles. I still need to trim them. I will count them after I trim them. I want to make sure that I keep making progress on this quilt.

I've been invited to join the Dust Off an Old Quilt Book Blog Hop which is coming up in March. You can join too. 

I have decided I should get started so I can be ready by my blog hop day. Last time I showed a finished quilt top but it wasn't quilted. I thought about quilting the same project because having that deadline will make progress on it, but I decided that the blog hop readers deserved a new quilt. Hopefully using a jelly roll will make it a quick finish.

2023: 15 Minutes to Stitch Week 6

I had seen these little buttons that you record words so that your dog can communicate with you and I got them about the time I got Zoey. I want better communication with my dog. I have been pushing them and getting her to push them but she hadn't made the connection that she can communicate with me using them.

 

After my post last week, Zoey pushed the "Love You" button. It might have been an accident, but I gave her attention, scratched her ears and gave her a treat. She went back and pushed it again, and she got the same treatment. I think she made the connection, and she ran to test the "Go outside" button. So I let her out. She has been pushing the "Go outside" button all week and she definitely understands what the buttons mean. The "Love you" button got pushed under some furniture so she didn't use it during the week. I am so proud of her. I have more buttons I can use, but I wanted to make sure I didn't rush it.

I worked on three quilts this week!

 

15 minute days this week --7 out of 7

15 minute days this year -- 42 out of 42 days

Success rate  = 100%

 

 

Linked with:

 15 Minutes to Stitch

More Quilty Circles

 On November 16, 2015, I read a blog post from Audrey at Quiltyfolk who was working on a calendar quilt. She was cutting circles and appliquing them onto a background square as a record of her year. I decided to join her and I have been making daily circles ever since then. As in, every time I make a circle, it is a day. And even though I started in 2015, somehow there haven't been enough of those sewing days to make a full 365 blocks. I'm actually not sure how many blocks I will need until I will call the quilt finished.

But I really like making these circle blocks. They let me play and use up the fabric scraps. I was pretty good at throwing away little bits of fabric in January, but this month, I feel like I should use them. And the circles is a great way to use them without the guilt of starting another project. That guilt is coming soon though. 

So lately, I've made a few more blocks. My circle blocks, by the way, don't look like the circles that other bloggers made. Mine are more inspired by circles than they are actual circles. They aren't in any particular order, but numbering them helps me keep track of how many I have made. 

The funny thing is, other bloggers have also been talking lately about their 365 projects that were started with Audrey.

Circle Block 273

 

The background is from Aunt Daisy / Jazzy Blues. Yes, I am still using it up before doing the inventory to make sure I don't need more of it. The red is from the rail fence I showed you in my last post and the green is from the One Tree I showed you earlier this year.

 Circle Block 274

 

These are all greens from the One Tree quilt. I will press it at some point.

Circle Block 275

 

The pinks are from Sonder.

 Circle Block 276

 

The map fabric is from the back of the Camel quilt. The off white is from Aunt Daisy and the pink is from Sonder.

 Circle Block 277

 

Background from Aunt Daisy. Green from One Tree.

Circle Block 278

 

Background from Sonder. Red fabric from Boundaries.

Circle Block 279

 

Background from Sonder. The sun is from Lansing Leaves and was also put it in the Inspirational Quote Quilt.

 

 

Another Year of 15 Minutes to Stitch

Kate is hosting 15 Minutes to Stitch again this year. The plan is to try to stitch for at least 15 minutes every day.  I am happy to do this again this year.

As usual, I had a strong start to this challenge. I spent the week with circles. I made a whole bunch of yo-yos, and now have 201 of them. I don't know about these types of quilts, but I would imagine they would need special care to keep them in shape.   I think yo-yos will look best on a flat surface and a bed in the guest bedroom will probably be the best place to put it where it has a chance of staying clean, so I have a bunch more of them to make.

I realized that the size of my Quilty Circles 365 quilt has not grown in a long time, although I have made some blocks. I decided to make more circles so that I can sew some more rows together to add to the rows that have already been made.

Circle Block 269

 

 

A nice simple circle block to start a new batch.

Circle Block 270

 

These are leftovers cut out from the block 272.

Circle Block 271

 

A sweet candy to start off the new year.

 Circle Block 272

 

This one makes me think of The Little Mermaid Disney movie.

2020:  Week 1 of 15 Minutes to Stitch

I spent this week making circle blocks and yo-yos. To make the weeks end on a Sunday, I am recording 5 days for this week.

15 minute days/week =  5/5 days
15 minute days/2019 = 5/5 days
Success rate  = 100%

Linked with:
Kate's Life in Pieces 15 Minutes to Stitch

Return of the 365 Circles

I am happy with my progress for this year so instead of rushing to finish anything else, I decided to move a number of projects forward so they don't feel left out and I can continue to call them WIPs (work in progress) instead of UFOs (unfinished objects).

Here are a few more circles I made for my circle 365 project. It is a project I started a couple of years ago, and was supposed to make one block a day. I decided not to keep my circles simple to avoid tedium, but circles that are not simple take more time.

Circle Block 265

 

I am going to be using this fabric in the yo-yo quilt.

Circle Block 266

These are scrap pieces that were leftover from making the courthouse square blocks.

Circle Block 267

I like the holiday mood on this block.

 Circle Block 268

I know I've done a block like this, but not with these fabrics.

Week 49 of Fifteen Minutes to Stitch

 The year is flying fast and we have finished Week 49 of the year. I didn't post last week, so this recap is for two weeks.

• 15 Minute sessions of stitching these two weeks: 14 out of 14
• 15 Minute sessions of stitching this year: 303 out of 342 days
• Success Rate: 89%

Linked with:
Kate's Life in Pieces 15 Minutes to Stitch

WIP Inventory

Having finished a couple of small quilts, I decided to take inventory of my current works in progress and their current status.  I am hoping that this will help me see that progress is being made during the spring and summer slowdown. These are just the quilts I have been working on in the last few months, and not the other unfinished projects that are stored away.

Some people might be overwhelmed by the number of projects listed here, but I really enjoy getting to choose which project I want to work on. Since they are not standing in a straight line, being worked on one at a time, in order, when progress is made on one quilt, the whole group is making progress.

Here they are in no particular order.

 

Drunkard's Path

Ethnic Drunkard's Path was started in August 2003 and it is the closest to completion. It is already basted and a lot of the dark purple and blue spaces have been quilted.  I need to finish quilting it and bind it.  It is a fairly big quilt -  a big lap quilt. 

 

Colonial Bricks

 

Colonial Bricks was started September 2018. It has been pieced and the backing and binding fabric has been chosen and cut. The backing needs to be wider, so I am piecing the leftovers to insert to make the backing wider.

 

Sunlight in Winter

 

Sunlight in Winter was started December 2018. I am making the blocks one half yard of yellow fabric at a time. I used up half a yard of the butterfly fabric, and half a yard of the grunge fabric. I had a whole yard of the grunge fabric and since it is the darkest yellow, I decided to use that half yard to make the squares because I think the squares will show the pattern and it is my darkest yellow.  All of the yellow fabrics are very similar. I like that look but will consider adding more patterned yellows when I am closer to completion. I will not make the whole blocks until all of these subblocks are done.

 

Uncommon and Unexpected

 

Uncommon and Unexpected was started February 2019 as a part of a quilt along.  One of the things I really liked about the original quilt is how the cornerstones made the sashing look like circle dancing around the squares, and my eye moved from one overlapping circle to another.  My quilt does that, but the diagonally placed squares, and the striped fabric, and the small number of blocks stop the eye from bouncing too easily at the circles.  I want to add more blocks to help show more of that movement. Some of the border has been pieced but I am still thinking about how I want to accomplish that.

 

ATC Holder

 

ATC Holder was started November 2018. It doesn't look like a lot of progress has been made on this, but there has been.  All of those photo corners have been cut and pressed. I think that was the hardest part.  I need to strip piece the cornerstones and once I do that, I think I will be able to piece this pretty quickly. There isn't any decision making left on this quilt until the center has been pieced. It is deliberately plain to let the ATCs stand out.

 

Circles 365

 

Circle 365 was started November 2015, and I have been sporadically working on this quilt since then. I am putting the circles together into the quilt top when I have enough, and it is 2/3rd done. The quilt is getting pretty big now so I have decided not to take it out since my blog readers have seen this quilt grow from time to time.

 

Fourth Rail

 

Fourth Rail was started January 2019 as a leader / ender to use up scraps.  The layout has not been decided but this one looks pretty interesting to me. I have a lot of pieces already cut so it is just a matter of sewing them together.

 

Stitchery 

You probably forgot about this stitchery, but it is pretty close to completion. It's been a while since I worked on it. The first time I mentioned it on my blog was August 2018, so it was started about then, but I  bought the kit from the thrift store a long time before that. It is made with yarn.

 

Seiring Genealogy Book

 

I don't think I have shown you this genealogy book, but I started it shortly after I finished the Priest Genealogy Book in December 2017. I have the pages all ready and all the genealogy information has been printed. I need to make the cover, add the genealogy printouts to the pages and embellish the pages a bit more. The cookie box is going to be used in the quilted cover to give it more stability.

 

Cultural Fusion Rail Fence

I showed the Cultural Fusion Rail Fence as part of the Dust Off a Quilt Book Blog Hop. It was started November 2015.  The quilt top is done and the backing and binding fabric has been chosen.

 

Be a Diamond

I will be taking a part of this blog hop. My day is April 25. I want to keep it simple so this will be my April mini of the month.

 Bunny Parade

I am giving you a sneak preview of this quilt which I finished yesterday. This is a free pattern from Moda Bakeshop called Bunny Quartet. The designer of the pattern also provided a tutorial for a carrot on her blog, which I used as you can tell from the photo.  So my bunnies are a trio and not a quartet. She changed the name to Easter Parade, but since I have Elephant Parade quilt in the works, I am going to call it Bunny Parade.

Since it is a bunny quilt, I will show the whole thing to you on Easter. Since the diamond quilt will be my April mini of the month, Bunny Parade is my May mini of the month, so I will also show it to you again in May as a reminder. I don't want you to get tired of it so I am only giving you a preview now.  I know from personal experience that if you buy a Christmas present in July, it still counts as a Christmas present, even if you can't wait and give it to the recipient in July.

 

Quilt Statistics

 Since I pulled up my spreadsheet to record the finish of the bunny quilt and give you the start date for all these quilts, let's talk about the stats, shall we?  I have started 127 quilts and have finished 99 quilts, which is a 78% completion rate.

It takes me an average of 242 days to complete a quilt. This number has gone down, mostly because of all the mini quilts I have been making lately.  A lot of my quilts get done much quicker than 242 days, but I also tend to pick up projects that needed an incubation period. When I get an old UFO completed, that average number of days to completion goes up, but that won't stop me from working on my UFOs. The stats are there to record my progress, not to tell me what to do.

 

15 Minutes to Stitch: Week 11

I spent this week making the Bunny Parade quilt. I also took inventory of all of my works in process.

15 Minute sessions of stitching this week: 7 out of 7
15 Minute sessions of stitching this year: 76 out of 76 sessions
Success Rate: 100%

I checked my results from last year, and I was at 100% on March 18th, so I am on track for this year.  The following week, the 25th, I sewed 2 out of 7 days. I'll see if I can beat that this year. It doesn't sound like a high bar to reach.

Linked to:
15 Minutes to Stitch
What I Made on Monday Yes I did make all of these today, why do you ask?
Peacock Party

This Week's Quilting Progress

Circle Block 264

I sat down to watch a show (Frontline) and thought I should be stitching something, and since I had talked about the Stitch Meditations, I thought some handwork would fit the bill.  I made a circle block instead of a separate Stitch Meditations to make more progress on that quilt. It reminds me of a shirt I had a long time ago.

Jeans Quilt

I was going through my bedroom, using the Konmari method, ala Marie Kondo, and found this quilt in the bench/chest. This quilt is one of my oldest, if not THE oldest UFO I have. It looks like I stuffed a couple of big unfinished quilts in the chest to get them out of the way.  Way back in the early 90's, I had sewed some jeans together, improv style, and planned to applique and embroider designs on it. It has an eye, a fish, a house, and a tree already appliqued on it. All of these were made out of jeans as well.  I remember asking my family members for stuff to add to this quilt, and my mother had given me some patches, but I hadn't added them to the quilt.

Anyway, I also found, in a separate place, some fireman embroidery patches my mother had given me and  I thought I should add them before they got lost and make more progress on this quilt. They have numbers embroidered on the stabilizer EQ0173, EQ0174, and EQ0179. I looked them up just for fun, and you can still buy them for $10 each. Now, my quilt's value just went up by $30.

If I ever make a quilt like this again, I would applique first, before joining the pieces. It is difficult to comfortably add applique in the middle of the quilt. I will try a hoop next time I add anything to the quilt.

I'm not planning on picking up this quilt to finish just yet. I am already feeling overwhelmed with the current Works in Process and the new quilts I want to start!

 15 Minutes to Stitch: Week 8

This week I made six circle blocks, and appliqued some patches on an old jeans quilt.  I also worked on joining the Butterfly Wreath blocks. It looks like I missed reporting a week, but I sewed almost every day so far this year, and for those days I missed, I more than made up for it during the week.

15 Minute sessions of stitching this week:  7 out of 7
15 Minute sessions of stitching this year:  55 out of 55 sessions
Success Rate: 100%

Linked to:
15 Minutes to Stitch

More Circle Blocks

It is a quilty lottery for you to come visit my blog. You never know what you are going to get. Is it going to be an improv quilt or a traditional quilt. Bright funky colors or calm subdued colors?  Neatness or casual?  Let's spin the wheel, shall we?

Here are a few more circles I made for my circle 365 project.

Circle Block 259

As you may know, I've been working on cutting up my shoe-box of scraps. One of the scraps I found was this little circle, and knew immediately that I had cut it into a circular shape for the Quilty 365 project.  It is a long term project where I am making 365 or thereabouts blocks that look like circles if you squint at them long enough. I would say something about a block a day or something like that, but you and I both know that would be a lie. I don't know if the original intention was to add something else to this block or not, but the new intention is to leave it small and simple.

Circle Block 260

While I was at it, I figured I might as well make a few more, and before long, I had to make five to make them blog worthy. I saw a quilt that had these kinds of open circles yesterday on my blog travels. A normal person would call them rings. I'm sure they were better arranged than these, but I don't use fusible for these so the sewing machine tends to overrule my decisions about where the circles are placed.

Circle Block 261

The red and green scraps are from the Islamic Tile quilt.  This background and the gold is in the Butterfly Wreath and probably also in Life of Plenty.

 

Circle Block 262

These oranges are in Ringo Lake (now known as Sorrento) and the scraps are cut up for Fourth Rail (formerly known as Four Rails). This  idea is from a free quilt pattern I found yesterday in my blog travels. I've done suns before on this quilt, but I needed to do the sun dance yesterday because it was so cloudy and dreary, and it worked! It is sunny today.

 

Circle Block 263

This one is clearly from Butterfly Wreath. I had some extra HSTs and thought they would be perfect for this quilt. I was going to piece the sashing, but since the circle is applique, I figure the whole block could be applique.


My elementary school teacher friends celebrate 100 days, but I am pretty sure it is 100 days into the school year and not 100 days left.  I am so close to having only 100 "days" left!

Linked to: WIP Linky Party
  Can I get a Whoop Whoop! It's a big deal to get started on these blocks again.

Day 2: 31 Day Blog Challenge: Circles

A random quilt picture selected from January. These are On Ringo Lake blocks. The project is now a quilt top.

It's become a mystery of sorts, hasn't it.  With a standard title like Day 2, you have no idea whether it will be feast or famine today. Will you get just a random picture you have probably already seen before, or will you get to see some quilty eye candy  or anything worth a click?

Winner

The sun is out today, and it has energized me to make more progress on a quilt.  Today, the lucky winner is the Circles 365 quilt. You. I mean you are the winner, because you get to see quilting progress.  When I put 365 away for the gathering, I had plans to put the existing blocks together in rows, but I didn't have time. So now I have done that.  Before I could, I had to add a couple more blocks.

Circle Block 257

I had X's on the brain from the 70273 blocks and grabbed the first available fabric to make this block.

Circle Block 258

This bird circle was already in the box with the rows so all I had to do was put it on a background fabric and sew it down. I hope the wrinkled fabric doesn't make your eye twitch.

And with these two blocks and some coping strips, I put the three sets of rows together.  Here it is in multiple photos. As the rows get added, the blocks seem to get smaller and smaller in order to fit into the camera range.

Left side. The newest blocks wound up on the bottom left, in two separate rows. The quilt is not put together in chronological order.

  Left middle

Right middle

Right side

Whole quilt

 15 Minutes to Stitch

This week,  I made some x blocks for the 70273 project, two circle blocks, and put the rows of circle blocks together.  My progress as of Sunday was:

15 Minute sessions of stitching this week:  7 out of 7
15 Minute sessions of stitching this year:  283 out of 336 sessions
Success rate: 84% 

Linked to:
15 Minutes to Stitch