Greek Cross Quilt Finish

A few months ago for the Joy do. Good stitches bee we were asked to make the Greek cross block in brights.  It is such a lovely effective block that I decided to recreate it and use up my pile of pink scraps up.  Sadly it barely it made it dent.  

 After quilting for over 20 years now, I have to start doing some significant purging on a regular basis or monthly make a scrap quilt in order to keep on top of the scraps.  While it is nice to have a variety of fabrics to make just about anything that one of my bee mates requests, sometimes one can have just too much that does not allow for any new pieces to come in. And making scrappy backs out of the other pieces can make a good dint in things it can also be more time consuming, cause I of course want the back to have some sort of a design if I am going to mix up my fabrics. Is it odd to say that I find it so much easier to do a solid back rather than have to work hard to mix it up. 

When I had some time I made a kit of sorts of all the pink scraps and background material all cut into the appropriate shapes and put them in a ziploc with instructions so I could just take them out and sew. I am finding that the moments some weeks to sew is very limited so having something that I can take up and put down is good. These blocks I can do one in less than 5 min which helps me to feel productive. 

 

Once I had made 25 blocks I laid them out and played around with a setting that was pleasing. I really like how striking this top is and envision another one coming to this blog sometime soon. The quilting is an all over loop pattern and was done by Tracey.

Greek Cross quilt

One of the more recent bee blocks that we did up for Joy do good stitches was called Greek Cross. Since the block was dead simple and  a good way to use up the scraps. That led me to pull all my pink scraps out of the bin and spend a few hours cutting and ironing pieces to make into this quilt. 

About three hours of sewing and I had a lovely set of blocks and still more to come.  I had no clue I had cut up that many scraps of pink to make this quilt, but I can easily make two quilts with all these scraps.

But before I go with the two quilt option I think I will make this one a bit bigger and see if it will use up the large majority. I am sure that I will have no issue finding a home for this very pink quilt.  Too bad I didn't replace that one block in the bottom right corner where it is very very pale pink.

Birthday Flowers

I love flowers.  I think I miss the garden the most living in the barracks.  At home my lilies and other summer flowers are in bloom and making the yard pretty. That is if the dogs have not dug them all up.  For some reason they really seem to like the bulbs of the lilies. 

My mom and dad sent me flowers for my birthday.  They are gorgeous and all in my favorite color, pink! What a lovely treat to start Monday after a mini iron man march.

Pink, Yellow and Zig Zag

I made these blocks back before we moved to our new home, that would be in 2009 or 2010.  Then they sat or hung on the design board waiting for  something to happen to it and make it a quilt. It wasn't until I saw some fabrics like the zig zag did I want to finish this.

The extra fabric acts as a frame around the blocks and moves your eye around the quilt. Uncommon and pretty I think. Perfect for a baby girl. During Christmas I got this back from the long armer and was able to put a solid pink binding on it and call it done. Quilting is done in a pale yellow thread in a double loop pattern all over the quilt.

When Pigs Fly

I laugh when I hear the words when pigs fly. There was a shop in Edmonton when I was a teen that was called that.  It was on Whyte Ave on the way to the university, painted bubble gum pink with green and had a big pig on the roof looking like it would lift off.

That brings me to a piece of fabric that I saw at the Cloth Castle.  They had just gotten it in and I think I got the first cut. But it had pigs on it.  So cute.

Pig fabric

It is made by .... drat, I can't find that slip of paper with the designers name on it. 

The pattern that I chose I found in Quilty magazine.  It is a simple pattern but most effective in showing up the fabrics. Unfortunately I don't like the orange in this quilt top.  It stands out too much for my liking, but I will wait and see if quilting will help it out any.

Hugs and Kisses

I was going thru the scraps and decided that I have to get to work in using up the oodles of scraps that are piling up.  Good thing I have been looking for some scrappy quilts patterns so I can use things up.  Its amazing how fast they pile up.

For this week I will be working on the a block called Hugs and Kisses from Little Miss Shabby.  I have seen this block used before in a scrappy boy quilt when it was chosen as one of the bee blocks earlier in the year. Its quite effective.

So I decided to use it to use up scraps of pink, orange and yellow with a bit of white thrown in.  I can believe how old some of these pink fabric scraps are... Amazing... And more than enough time to see them gone out of the scrap pile. I'm not sure how big this will be, most likely a large baby size.