Iceblossom

Did an inventory of my unquilted tops today and took a bunch of pictures. I'll have to do some threads on the photographs section for most of the pictures.

Here's a picture of the Bright Wonky 9-Patch fabrics, pre-Tuesday group. They were from a single scrap bag at the Goodwill and have been prewashed. As I said before, I'm trying to loosen up and while there are some fabrics I would leave in or take out, I'll go by what the group thinks. Of course, you all are part of my group too so speak up!

The bright large floral at the bottom was a thrift store purchase, specifically to provide a back for this donation project which should come out around twin sized. When I'm done with this project the scraps will be going to the crumb lady.

The fabrics to the left come from a UFO top I picked up at the thrift store for $1.99 because I felt it would go well with the other fabrics. The green and orange squares were an offering from one of the Tuesday ladies, and again, I felt it was right at home with the other fabrics.

Judith1005

Iceblossom, those are some great finds. The fabrics are beautiful! I love the fabric with buildings on it. It's a fun color. I can't wait to see what you do with it.

I purchased 4 yards in the last 2 days. It is for a quilt-a-long that I am going to use it for sashing, and cornerstones. And, borders. I should just have enough.

I saw on Facebook a post of a quilter estate sale. It was so sad. She had a massive sewing room. Like at least 6 machines with all the feet galore. She must have enjoyed machine embroidery. Threads like nobody's business. I don't want to die with a stash and what nots like she had. I want to use and enjoy as much as I can before that day comes. It definitely brings new meaning to quilt and use your stash. And, let the Fabric stores house your future purchases till you need them.

In saying that, I do not feel guilty for my purchase. I only purchased enough for what I actually needed. I pretty much only buy just what I need and small amounts. Like fat quarters and half yard cuts. I don't really keep a lot over that. So, If I need more than a little bit, I have to make a bigger purchase.

But, I find my purchases have gotten extremely mindful. And, I did check and re-check my stash before I purchased any fabric.

Great job on all who resisted purchasing fabric. You are to be commended. And, you inspire me to keep checking my stash first. And to be very thoughtful, so as not to make a what was I thinking purchase.

Judith1005

Happy Late Birthday Pet. You have done an awesome job staying on track.

Judith1005

Ice blossom, I love your purple quilt. You got that together awfully quickly. Good luck with your mom. I hope all goes well.

grann of 6

Everyone is doing great. I do fine as long as I don't leave the house. I have made 17 quilts so far this year, mostly from stash. I have 4 that need to be put on the longarm and quilted. I will work on that this week. Then I will grab an artbin and start on one of my kits I made up. My kit stash would dwindle if I didn't keep finding a new pattern somewhere and pull from the stash to make it up. I have been using up the latest purchases as backings, so I really am not doing bad.

I have gotten emails in the past couple days of 2 quilt shops closing. One is not close to me, but the other one is about the closest one. But I haven't shopped there in a few years, not a lot of fabric, and it is more expensive than going out to the Amish country near Lancaster. I also don't drive that direction often. But I hate seeing stores closing. These two have decided to retire.

The staff at the Cancer Center was thrilled with my 6 quilts I took to them to raffle off to the chemo patients.

joe'smom

IceBlossom, it sounds as though you are well-organized for your stay with your mother. I hope things go well for her and for you while you're away from home. Those fabrics are dazzling!

Judith, that sort of thing does give one pause. I share your feelings about wanting not to leave too much fabric behind when I exit.

Iceblossom

Thanks for the well wishes. Last time I had to be on nurse duty I typically had 2-3 hour chunks of time of nothing to do. Sometimes I don't feel very productive but I'm taking advantage of it right now. My sleep cycle is all off worse than usual right now but mornings I'm ready to go, by noon though I'm pretty much vegetating.

I should have clarified that the wonky brights were prewashed and made ready for cutting by me And I took apart the UFO top before washing and prepping the fabric as well. While the scrap bag wasn't all tossed and turned like a bag of rags it wasn't as neat as the picture shows either. While there are a couple of fabrics that I love, I would never have amassed this collection of fabric on my own, most of it simply would not have come through the door (I do love polka dots though...) Most of it is full or partial fat quarters and some appears to have been bought originally as yardage. But accepting the bag as a collection, it works. So that is one way I am loosening up with this project, fabrics I would not have chosen myself.

BTW, I do love my wild backs! I think this is a perfect project for that one. All told, thrift store prices the picture was about $12 worth of fabric. I think the cost of one yard of fabric is pretty good for an entire twin quilt.

In my small group one of the ladies is an improvisational quilter. She makes blocks that are similar but different. Her work always comes out as fun and with lots of energy. She is also the person we made the comfort quilt for, in that case the 9-patches were wonky solely because of the setting and how they danced. In this case wonky will be a bit different. My personal name for this is "Harriet Drives me Wonky" because she is in my thoughts and is my inspiration, but it is a donation quilt so Bright Wonky is as good a name as any other.

I'll be making blocks around 10-12" and trimming them down using an 8.5" square. They will be constructed as a basic 9-patch, but the sizes of the individual squares will vary, some seams will meet/others won't. When I trim them down many will be askew, others offset in some way. There will be one Caroline block (Iceblossom's real name) that will be pretty darn perfectly sized with matching seams and I will choose and fussy cut the pieces maybe even a bit more so than I usually would. It will be the foundation block for the quilt, in the bottom left corner. It should disappear visually but still be findable because of it's location.

Right now I'm thinking that the "center" of the 9-patch will always be a square/rectangle with 90 degree angles. When I get about halfway done with the blocks I'll reconsider on whether I want to cut some of the 3-unit strips askew to give more variety to the finished product, still 9-patches per block but more irregularly shaped. For the size I'm shooting for a 7x10 grid gives me 56x80" without a border, so 70 blocks. Unless I decide midway to use some form of sashing. I'm just starting this with a concept, trying to be loose.

The end result should be a glorious riot of colors and confusion that is too loud to sleep under, basically a crazy quilt of 9-patches. Someone will think it's great -- I hope!

Iceblossom

Oh, the 'Blossom has been a bad bad girl. So backing up to Thursday, my son called just before I was about to leave for my mom's with car problems. I took him back home to Seattle and then was on my way to the Ferry and the big Goodwill in DT Seattle sucked me in. Got about 8+ yards of a fun cats and dogs in space flannel, that will be donated. Got 4 yards of a fabric that is strange cotton but goes well with the flannel, cats and dogs again, no maker name on the Selvedge, it has sort of a Japanese feel to me, but no way to say... There was a glorious piece of vintage Waverly yardage that actually had selvedge info on it that I will keep. I was guessing late 40s-mid 50s, looked it up online and by the way the name was, it is no earlier than 1951, so pretty much still in my guessing range.

Mom got out of the hospital today, but they were out of Walkers and they really wanted her to have one and it was really needed to help her get out of the car, but I knew the Goodwill pretty much always had them... so on the way home I pulled in, got her a walker and me a small bag and another piece of fabric that I will be sending on.

So not much stash gain, but lots of buying!

AUQuilter

Free download at Shabby Fabrics for those who like both written as well as the YouTube instruction:https://www.shabbyfabrics.com/Assets...orDownload.pdf[

QUOTE=oksewglad;8247921]Iceblossom..this is a free pattern from Wilmington called "Simplish"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3K76_K7ZcvI[/QUOTE]

oksewglad

AUQ, I knew there was a PDF and couldn't find it at the time. Thanks for sharing it. I'd rather have the PDF too.