Soul Searching In The Rose Garden

 

It's a finish!

Soul Searching in the Rose Garden

84 x 84

Hand quilted

I finished the top back in 2022. I used red and white rose themed prints.

The inspiration came from the book Making Quilts by Kathy Doughty. Her Soul Searching quilt is 84 inches wide and 72 inches long. I added 3 rows at the top and bottom so I could have a little wider quilt. 

I big stitch hand quilted it with red and white threads - perle #12.

The back is a gently used sheet from the thrift store with roses.

And sew on...

Finished Or Not Finished Friday at Alicia Quilts

Slow Sunday Stitching at Kathy's Quilts

Finished Soul Searching

Soul Searching

It's a finish!

42 x 60

The quilt was inspired by a quilt called Soul Searching in the book Making Quilts by Kathy Doughty. I say "inspired" because her blocks called for 2.5 inch width rectangles and I used 1.5 inch width rectangles instead.  

I started making blocks last year when I finally cleaned out my 1.5 inch width scrap bin.  I finished enough blocks to make a small donation quilt top in April of this year. 

And now I've finished it with some spiral quilting on on my DSM. 

The backing is a green floral and the binding was a neutral. 

And now it has been washed so it's soft and crinkly and is ready for donation.

And sew on...

Finished Or Not Finished Friday at Alycia Quilts

 

A Finish! Soul Searching In The Chocolate Box

Soul Searching In The Chocolate Box

It's a finish!

56 x 72

It was inspired by a quilt called Soul Searching in the book Making Quilts by Kathy Doughty. I say "inspired" because Kathy's quilt called for 2.5 inch width pieces and I modified the pattern and used 1.5 inch width pieces because I was cleaning out my 1.5 inch scrap bin last year (finally!) and most of the scraps in there were brown. 

I made the top in October 2022.

This month the theme in my sewing space is "brown stuff" so I decided to get this brown stuff quilted. I quilted it on my DSM with chocolate swirls in a variegated brown thread. 

The binding is scrappy - all brown pieces from my left over binding box. 

Pieced backing.

Pieced backing close up. I thought it kind of echoed the blocks on the front. The other neutral fabric is a wide back trimming. 

And sew on...

Finished Or Not Finished Friday at Alycia Quilts

Peacock Party at Wendy's Quilts and More

 

A Little Soul Searching

Little Soul Searching

It's a top!

42 x 60

Why is it called Soul Searching? The inspiration came from a quilt by that name in the book Making Quilts by Kathy Doughty. Her blocks were made with 2.5 inch pieces but mine are made with littler 1.5 inch pieces ---Little Soul Searching. 

I started making the 12 x 14 inch blocks last year when I was emptying out my 1.5 inch scrap bin.   I ended up with several blocks but not enough for a small comfort quilt. I like to make those roughly 40 x 60. 

The other day when I was looking at a few UFOs I noticed I only needed 3 more blocks and I could move this UFO to flimsy stage.   

I had my purple scraps out for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge (RSC) so made a purple block. 

Then I noticed I could really use an orange block since I hadn't made one of those. But I had very few small orange scraps in the orange scrap bag so pulled those out and then supplemented those with some yellow scraps and mixed them up a bit for this block. 

Then I always seem to have a lot of blue scraps so I made a blue block and then there were 15 blocks and I was ready to make a top.

And so I did make a top. 

To be continued...and quilted...and sew on...

Finished or Not Finished Friday at Alycia Quilts

Peacock Party at Wendy's Quilts and More

 

Pink Potpourri

Monkey Wrenches

7.5 inch finished

When PINK was declared as February's Rainbow Scrap Challenge (RSC) color I went right to my pink scrap box to see what I had in there. Mostly I have bigger scrap "chunks" - larger than 5 inch width piece and smaller than a FQ (fat quarter) - but there were a few smaller pieces I wanted to deal with so I pulled those out. 

The first pink pieces I worked with were 3.5 inches and 2 inches in width.  With those I made Monkey Wrench blocks - 3.5 inch HSTs combined with 2 inch squares. 

I have quite a collection of Monkey Wrench blocks in 3 sizes and will continue to add to those collections most of this year and at year end I'll see how many donation quilts I can make. 

Bow Ties 

3 inch finished

and

Squared Away

7.5 inch finished

While I had the 2 inch pink scraps handy I first checked my bag of already made 3 inch Broken Dishes blocks to see if I had four pink blocks I could turn into a Squared Away block. I had enough for one block and while I was in there I also pulled out four gray blocks.  I cut sashing from 2 inch scraps and made the Squared Away blocks.   Then with what 2 inch pieces were left and big enough for a Bow Tie block got made into Bow Ties.  I have a big collection of those, have been making them for several years and am going to make a big quilt with them someday.

Little Soul Searching

12 x 14 inches finished

Late last year I finally emptied out my 1.5 inch scrap bin and one of the last blocks I made were some small versions of a block called Soul Searching.  I need a few more blocks in order to have enough blocks for a child sized donation quilt. I didn't have a pink block so decided to cut 1.5 inch strips off of several of those pink chunk scraps I mentioned and then I made a Little Soul Searching. 

Then I used the 1.5 inch leftover pieces in some Little Baskets that finish at 4 inches. 

I was putting the book Scrappy Firework Quilts by Edyta Sitar away now that I'm finished with my Hexagon Roses Quilt from that book and noticed I had Lil' Baskets bookmarked. So, I didn't put the book away but put it with my new project.   I've had a fabric with little baskets on it for a number of years and thought it would be nice to use for the alternate squares in the quilt. I'm shocked I have enough! It was meant to be!   So I will make baskets in the RSC color of the month as well as use a cream background and make the "basket" part of the block in reds or browns. 

Monkey Wrenches

5 inch finished

and

Switch Plates

3 x 5 finished

and 

Windmills

4 inch finished

and 

Chinese Coin strip 3.5 inches wide

Back to the pink scraps...

I had a few pink 2.5 inch pieces and along with some 1.5 inch pieces I turned those into Monkey Wrench blocks. Then any 1.5 inch pieces long enough for a Switch Plate got cut and made into those blocks. (If there were any 3.5 inch scraps left that  I could cut to make Switch Plates I would also have made the Switch Plates from those scraps. In this case I didn't.)  Then any 2.5 inch or 1.5 inch scraps I could cut into 4 identical 1.5 x 2.5 inch pieces got cut and made into Windmill blocks.  The Chinese Coin strip was what was left of the 3.5 inch scraps after I made those Monkey Wrench blocks and cut squares. 

Any scraps left got cut into squares or 1.5 x 2.5 rectangles (for Lego blocks). 

And sew on...

RSC ScrapHappy Saturday

 

The 1.5 Inch Scrap Bin Is Empty!!!!

My goal for a couple of years has been to empty a 16 quart bin of 1.5 inch scraps.  I've made several blocks and quilts over the years using scraps from this bin but now I'm trying to use scraps as they happen so want my bins of scraps sorted by scrap width empty. Now my scraps are stored by color. 

I've made a few 12 x 14 Soul Searching blocks  and will continue to make these until I have enough for a donation quilt. I'm thinking maybe a kiddo sized quilt. 

Windmills (4 inch finished)

18 patch (6 inch)

Coin strips made from pieces less than 1.5 inch square and greater than .5 inch. They do mount up.

Switch Plate blocks (3 x 5)

1.5 x 2.5 pieces for Lego blocks

1.5 inch squares for a postage stamp quilt WIP. The squares at top are sets of four and I put those in the Monkey Wrench work box. 

All of the above was completed before October 25. I made a draft post and meant to schedule it for when I was off with cataract surgery but forgot to do that.   Since then I have made more blocks and emptied my bin as follows.

4 inch Windmills

Switch Plate and Chinese Coin strips

Lego pieces

Postage Stamps

The bin. 

I put a bag of neutral 1.5 inch scraps with the rest of the neutral scraps and I put a bag of solid 1.5 inch scraps with the rest of the solid scraps. 

Mission accomplished! Goal completed! The bin is empty. Now what should I do with it? 

And sew on...

 

More From The 1.5 Inch Width Scraps

For several years I've been trying to empty out my 16 quart 1.5 inch width scrap bin. I'm starting to see the bottom of the bin now that I cleared out all those brown scraps making Soul Searching In The Chocolate Box.   I've vowed to completely empty the bin by year end so I made a few more blocks for the collections I have in process. 

These are 6 inch Eighteen Patch blocks. 

4 inch Windmills

3 x 5 Switch Plate Blocks

12 x 14 Soul Searching blocks

6 inch Potato Chip blocks

I still have a few more scraps to use but I think I will make my goal of an empty bin by year end!

And sew on...

 

Soul Searching In The Chocolate Box

Soul Searching In The Chocolate Box

56 x 72

It's a flimsy!

You may or may not know that I've been trying to empty out my 1.5 inch width 14 quart scrap bin. I vowed to do just that by end of this year. Most of what was left in there were brown scraps. 

Earlier this month I made a quilt inspired by a Kathy Doughty pattern in the book Making Quilts called Soul Searching to use some of my rose print scraps. That top was made with 2.5 inch width scraps. I liked how that top turned out so I decided to do just a little Soul Searching and make blocks with my 1.5 inch brown scraps. I decided to also use cream, taupes, tans with the browns.  I have a drawer of bits and pieces of neutral scraps and as much as I didn't want to sort out and then cut most of those bits and pieces I did just that. 

I was just going to see how many blocks I could make from the browns in my 1.5 inch scrap bin and go from there.  I figured I needed at least 24 blocks for a good sized quilt. 

Imagine my surprise when I used up most of the brown scraps and counted up my blocks....24!!! 

And now I'm close to reaching my goal of an empty 1.5 inch width scrap bin. More on that later. 

And sew on...

Oh Scrap! at Quilting Is More Fun Than Housework