Gypsy Wife plus 2 Spinoffs

When I went to the Silver Thread Guild's quilt show in Creede a couple of months ago, I picked up Jen Kingwell's Gypsy Wife pattern. It looked like something that would be fun to make. It was!  You select your own fabrics - no directions are given for that - and you plug your blocks into whichever size spaces you want.  I like how there are 1 1/2" strips running vertically through the quilt that give it some continuity. 

Gypsy Wife

When I finished Gypsy Wife, I thought that Jen's concept would translate easily to designing more quilts like hers, so I grabbed some graph paper and planned out one that would use up some of my orphan blocks.  I'll be taking it to the longarmer's tomorrow, but thought I'd post a pic of the top.

As I was looking around on the web for sites about designing your own quilts, I saw this page, about making a crocheted blanket using different sizes of squares. I thought it would translate well to a quilt, and grabbed my bags of 1.5" strips.

I think that I can teach a class on doing this, so I'll be talking to my local shop folks tomorrow about that.   Wouldn't that be fun?

Things I've been working on lately

I haven't posted in a long while, but I've been busy!

Used up a bunch of low-volume strings - a smaller version of "Sunday Morning" from Sunday Morning Quilts

"Parachute" - inspired by Jacquie Gering

"Fake Geese" - actually pairs of HSTs

Top made from blocks acquired from a swap

Star Struck

"Christmas Swoon" - hanging at my local quilt shop - I taught a class on this one

Baby quilt for my great-nephew

Two Classes I'm Teaching

I get to teach two classes at my favorite quilt shop! The first will be in March, and the second in April. Both will be at Cherry Berry Quilts in Calimesa.  I just finished making these two quilts, had them quilted by January (who owns Cherry Berry), and now they're hanging at the store so people can sign up!



This will be basic string piecing, using Bonnie Hunter's technique and paper from phone book pages.




This one is New York Beauty foundation paper-piecing - I'll be providing patterns and the participants can do them however they want (scrappy or planned, batiks, prints or solids). Maybe this is the start of something good!

Ideas for Scrapbusting Classes

These are class ideas for a friend, but I don't mind other people seeing this post.

1.  x+ quilt 

I would show the planned version with the striped fabric, and then the scrappy version. I have figured out the size of the quilt - 44 x 52 with a 4" border, along with the fabric requirements.  We could do the initial corner pieces (x) one day, then the center pieces (+) another day, and begin piecing the blocks together either that day or an other one. In the photo above, my scrappy version has a border of strips - but I'm taking that off and replacing it with a solid border in red, blue, green or something like that (I need to see what I've got).

2. bow ties mini quilt

Uses up 2" and 1 1/4" squares.  Makes a mini quilt about 20 x 15 (I can get exact measurement later).

3. strings, or strings and crumbs

The first two are simple string quilts.  This is a one-day class to show the technique of sewing the strings on a phone book paper foundation. Fabric requirement is a bag or box of assorted strings. The third quilt is called Crumb Chaos, and it uses small pieces at first, and incorporates spare triangles if people have them, and uses a lot of strings.  This quilt top shown is a King. 

4. 9-patch HSTs

The above are the ones I told you about in the shop today - using 2" squares and HSTs (the HSTs are made from 2.5" squares and scrap triangles). I've given away the top 3, but I the bottom one and can get it sandwiched and tied or quilted.

5. tiny squares

Both of the above are made from 1.5" scraps. The top one has 100-patch squares surrounded by more tiny squares. The bottom one is all 36-patch squares.  Neither one is sandwiched/quilted yet.

6. New York Beauties

This is the one we discussed at the shop today. I'll bring it in to be quilted soon. I have paper copies of the patterns as well as .pdf files - how would we deal with those? Perhaps people could provide their email addresses when they sign up, I can email them the patterns and ask them to print them up at  home and bring them, and then I can provide paper copies at the class for late joiners or people who don't have computers.

7. boxed stars

This is a block I designed myself based on the one called "boxes #2."  It uses up a bunch of 2" strips, since I used the companion angle ruler to make the hsts.  The neutrals are 3.5" squares, if I remember correctly. I don't have that top any more, though - I donated it to CBQ.


This last quilt is a completed quilt made during an online sew-along. I can show it as an example of something made entirely from scraps and orphan blocks.

Keeping Busy

One of the joys of retirement and doing some subbing is being able to say no when I'd rather stay home and sew. So lately I've spent lots of days in my sewing room, working on various blocks for swaps, blocks for sew-alongs, and all kinds of miscellaneous projects.  As a result of doing this for many months, I've developed a huge backlog of tops that need to be completed.  I decided to make backs, and will be taking several tops and backs tomorrow to my guild for donation to community service. Someone else can donate batting and quilting! 

This one is a scrappy trip-around-the-world top I made with some of the blocks I won in Block Lotto. I have more, and will be making another top with them.

This is one of four string tops I've made with blocks I made while camping in my trailer. I've tried different patterns; this was the first.

A couple of years ago I was in several different swaps where I kept asking for browns. I also made a bunch with some coordinating fabrics. My goal was to make what I came to call Don's Manly Quilt - he asked for browns. Originally it was going to be a queen, but he and I decided to make a smaller one for him to use as he sits in his recliner. The top above is made from some of the leftover blocks.

First string top

Remember these?

I've had those 5 1/2" string blocks sitting in my closet - I made them 3 years ago. Yesterday and today I put some of them together, and ended up with this top. I had a bunch of 2 1/2" strips that I used as a border - needed to use them up.

This will go to my guild's community service program, where someone else will sandwich it, quilt it, and give it to whomever they give their donated quilts to.


I still have several dozen already-completed blocks, and five gallon-sized zip bags full of strings, so I guess I need to get crackin' and make some more!

Evidence of a busy weekend

Except for a few breaks to eat lunch, I had two busy days at the sewing machine.

This is the beginnings of my Crumb-Along quilt. Today I made the entire alphabet - it's stacked on top of everything.  I sewed them into "words" of 4 or 3 - and found myself singing my ABCs all day!  In addition to the blocks I made following Jo's directions, I've added about a dozen "orphan" blocks from the orphan basket. Not in the photo are several dozen small stars from which I'll make a couple more rows.  Then I'll add a red border like Jo did, then the alphabet and any other stars needed to fill in the blanks.  I should have a flimsy completed by Tuesday!

This is the October blocks for the Bloggers' Block of the Month.  This one comes from Vicki of Field Trips in Fiber. The process was a bit different - no HSTs to cut, and therefore a bit of waste. But I put all the waste HSTs in my HST bag (which is getting stuffed - another project to do!)

These are the 68 5.5" string blocks I made earlier in the week, waiting to be trimmed.

Done.  Trimmed to 5.5" and ready to be used in yet another project.

Tomorrow:  Water aerobics, then lunch, then work on my Crumb-Along quilt.

These will be a quilt some day...

Once in a while I'll spend a day making string squares. I used Bonnie Hunter's String Quilting Primer to get started, and so far have made almost 100 squares. They're 5 1/2 inches, and I think I'll need almost 300 to make a full/queen sized quilt. Or is it almost 400? I don't know right now. I just crank 'em out. About 5 hours of sewing produces anywhere from 25 to 35 squares.

Blocks from Strings

If you haven't visited Bonnie Hunter's Quiltville, you're missing out on a master quilter. You could spend days looking at all the quilts she's done, as well as all the ones that others have done using her patterns and instructions. She's done several mysteries, too, and is in the middle of another one. When I grow up to be an experienced quilter, I'll join one!

Bonnie is also known for her scrap-user's system, and all the quilts she's made from scraps and strings. I decided to adopt that system, and will be organizing my scraps weekly (unless I'm out of town). I also decided to make it a goal to make at least 2 string blocks a week. I will be using 5 1/2" squares from the phone book for the foundations instead of fabric. Above are my first two!