3 more colors in the Bumblebeans Color Challenge

The next three colors in the Bumblebeans Color Challenge are tomato red, grape, and bubble gum pink.  I had more pink in my stash than I thought I'd have - as well as plenty of tomato and grape.  These stars are going to look great together in the finished quilts - one large, one small.  I'm glad I decided to do them on white.

Blocks and more blocks

I thought I'd do a post about some of the blocks I've made lately, as I continue to have a good time going through my stash and using as much of it as I can. I joined the Yahoo group Stashbuster, where the focus is on not buying more fabric, but using your stash. I clearly fail at the first part, as I even bought more fabric today, but I think I do a good job of making things out of my stash.  I like to use as much of my fabric as possible - anything larger than 3/4" square gets used.

These are 10.5" blocks made from strings. I started with 5.5" squares of phone book pages, sewed the strings (alternating between light and dark) at a diagonal, trimmed up the squares, and sewed them together in groups of 4 to make the 10.5" blocks. This stack has 57 large blocks in it, from 228 smaller ones.  I keep my strings in photo storage boxes (the ones that are the size of large shoeboxes) - and those boxes are overflowing again. So I need to make more string blocks, wonky log cabins, and crumb blocks!

I wrote about these in a previous post.  I've gone through my scraps, and used the solids or tone-on-tones to make up a bunch of what I call "kits," and then use them for the bases of these stars. I have a basket of 3" squares along with other scraps that make up the star centers and points, and I assemble these while using them as leaders and enders.  The above picture has 40 stars in it already, and I made 3 more just today while working on a couple of blocks for Boomerang.  I've got these planned for two  "mish  mash" quilts - one is for Jo's Crumb Along,  and the other is a medallion quilt I started based on ideas from Bumblebeans 15 Minutes Play.

These are some assorted blocks I've collected using up even more scraps. The Shoo Flys were made using up a bunch of leftover HST squares and some 4- and 9-patches I'm using for the centers.  They, too, are now set up in "kits," so more of them will be on the way as I continue with other projects.

More spare blocks, most likely destined for the two mish mash quilts.

This is a basket of 280 9-patch blocks. For a long time I was using 1.5" squares as leaders and enders, sewing them into 9-patches.  Every time I made 10, I'd pin them together and throw them in the basket. I guess that's enough for a quilt. I haven't decided how to do them - sashing or not, alternating with solid blocks, etc.  I welcome any and all ideas!  Half of them have light corners, and half have dark corners.

Tonight I have a meeting at our local community center - the main purpose is to discuss how to continue using the center and raise money to keep it open. I'm on the agenda to propose a quilting class making all the stuff above.  There are so many classes at the local shops about traditional projects, and some of my guild members have expressed an interest in learning how to use up their stash doing some of the things I do.  I'll report later how that proposal goes.

Block for Operation Uniform

Victoria was given a friend's Air Force fatigues (he is now retired), and was commissioned to make him a quilt.  He knew that there would be lots of fabric left over, so he asked her to use the leftovers to make a quilt for Quilts of Valor. She asked her readers to volunteer to make blocks, and I was lucky enough to get my name in. 

She gave us rules to follow:  use the fatigue material, incorporate some "made" fabric, and use colors that went with the theme. Of course, I used red, white, and blue in my "made" fabric.

Blocks for 15 Minutes

Victoria's Basket of Flowers

Julie's Hybrid Tea Rose

Bonnie's Cactus Flower

Just trying to keep up with the BOMs on 15 Minutes Play.  I have so much "made fabric" to use up, with more scraps to use.

At quilt guild yesterday I learned that there are many, many women who do not use their scraps. One woman had made a pretty quilt, and came to the meeting with a garbage bag full of the scraps left over. We're talking about large scraps, too.  She donated them to be used as stuffing for a doggie bed.  I wanted to shout, "give them to me!" There were enough in there to make a whole quilt!  Don't they realize that our scraps also cost $9 a yard?  I was talking to the president during the break and mentioned the garbage bag of scraps, and she said that a lot of the ladies just don't "do scrappy."  Well, they're going to see my scrappy!!!

Two More Blocks

Sue, this info is for you--since there's no way to email you. The blocks are part of a Block of the Month activity using "made" fabric on a block called "15 Minutes of Play...Bumblebeans." the link is http://www.15minutesplay.com/.

Victoria, of Bumblebeans Inc. manages this blog where we try out various activities and tutorials, including how to make the fabric. Right now there are several things going on--the blocks of the month, a solids challenge that turned into a swap, and some bees (swaps). In the block of the month activity, different blocks are posted with tutorials, and we give them a try. Miki's block was a square within a star.

This next one was a pinwheel; directions posted by Margaret.




I realized while I was assembling it that a couple of the triangles had tips made out of the same orange as the background. So the tips disappear.

The tutorial for the next one was posted by Victoria. She calls it Beacon Lights.






Those will be the last ones for a while, as we leave this campground tomorrow and head for Canada. We'll spend 1 night at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Great Falls, Montana, 1 night in Fort McLeod, Alberta, and then 4 nights with no electricity in Bow River Provincial Park west of Calgary. Then after that I doubt I'll have time to sew for a while since we'll be busy seeing all the sights of Banff and Jasper.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Finished 6 stars

Yesterday and the day before I made fabric, and finished off a crammed-full gallon ziploc bag. Today I made 6 stars using Miki's tutorial.

Here's just a fraction of the fabric I made.






And since the 6 stars pretty much all look alike, here's a pic of two of them.







Now I'll try to get to work on the pinwheels.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad