stashbusting

Yep, I am hitting a stack of fabric that has been piled up on the pressing table for a couple of days now in preparation for some kit cutting. I have several ideas for donation quilt tops---all using a different technique or some blocks that the quilt group or a quilting friend has sent us. I am not entirely sure whether some of the fabric was sent by Finn, Cher, Pam, my mom or the donation box at this point. I hope once the tops are done, that some one will recognize it and smile when they see it has indeed been used for the kids.

One top I already cut out this morning/afternoon will be a Railroad Crossing type quilt but use a striped fabric instead of pieced strings similiar to the one you see pictured. THIS time I will have the stripes going vertically to the block and not horizontally, LOL. I like how the quilt turned out but I know that I "messed up" since it was not my original intention.

I found a nice lemon yellow at the long arm quilters shop the other day for a background fabric and pulled a primary colored stripe from my stash. I am counting this as my February challenge fabric from JudyL--pull a piece and get it stitched up. Does buying background fabric negate the fact that I am stashbusting the actual piece? HMMMM. Originally I had bought the yardage to make some bias binding on a quilt that had all the primary colors but got plenty of it since I knew I would eventually make a top much like this one. Truth be told, I probably could make another one just like it but could use the leftover stripe for backing.

The 2nd one that I just cut is probably the technique that Bonnie showed in her posting of Jan 16 HERE. She had described it as a "double cut nine patch". I found the book, used, on Amazon and had been looking at one she called "The Village" as a possible one to try. I had some cut squares of all manner of transportation things that I thought would work out for the giant ninepatches---15 1/2 inches before you cut them. So many of them have a blue background so I pulled a light green from my brights bin for what will be the sashing. A piece of green solid that came from somewhere for will be eventually be the cornerstones. I whacked up the rest of the yardage for binding. I also cut some of the bright primary stripe fabric for this and also a strip of that neat yellow with polka dots that I know Finn has used in this top---or one very much like it--for a little more interest.


There is a nice piece of light green background with trains on it (again from Finn maybe?) that could be the border fabric or backing--too nice to cut it up too small. Just looking at the pattern there is no reason why you can't just sash and cornerstones a bunch of cut squares but the idea is to try something new---keep it fresh.

Next one up is cutting the corner half square triangles and quarter square triangles for a zigzag strippie set that I want to use for setting Nancy's framed 4 patches in pink and brown tones. I found a light pink print on Monday when at Hancock's when Linda S asked me to help her pick out some backing fabric for a top she had just finished. (I'll get back to it once I finish up this note)

I was testing out an Easy Set ruler (by Sharon Hultgren and that I have owned for some time to cut the RR crossing. Pretty slick cutting everything off of strips instead of trying to cut a humungous square into quarters on the diagonals. No calculations needed but you cannot use it for in between sized blocks. I also own a Setting Triangle by Lynn Graves of Little Foot, Ltd. fame that was given to me as a gift. That one requires that you line up by the unfinished size of the blocks and you can use it on measure a full inch mark as well as a half inch mark ( i.e. 9 inches and 9 1/2 inches). At this point, no preference of ruler. As far as I can see they each have their use.

On a personal note, our house guest arrived after we had gone to bed (he sleeps in the van regardless) last night. He and DJ left about 8:30 to go play 18 holes and will also get a round in tomorrow. I had originally planned to go up to the quilt shop with Linda S and out for lunch but I had a horrid sinus headache this morning and called to cancel. I medicated and then went back to bed for a while and enjoyed the quiet house. Once I got up for good I did the laundry and started calculating and cutting. I'm not cooking tonight--we can go out for something--so far the choices are BBQ or Chinese. I'm leaving it up to DJ as I "pick" any other time.

Tomorrow, more cutting---probably a "Leap Frog " Old favorite from McCall's Quilting Quick Quilts May 2001 or framed blocks of some sort. (I found a pdf file for something with a slightly different twist but do not know the source to share it---the author gives no website in the file). Also I would like to cut some setting blocks for a "Road to St Louis" top that will use some of the 8 patch blocks we have made though I will need to resize the cutting directions to accomodate our sized blocks from 6 to 8 inch finished. It is an old Trudie Hughes pattern from Even More but I found a picture of one online HERE scroll down about 2/3 rds of the way. JoAnn Belling's quilt classes and some neat eye candy on the way.

Friday and Saturday I'll be off retreating so I'll be ready to get some of these kits sewn. Guess that's it for now