Another Scrappy Quilt Begins

Comfortable (above) began in 2018 when I gathered all of the random 2.5" strips into one box.  From there, I made several quilts - finishing Comfortable in 2020.

Interestingly enough, while I created my own layout without consulting a pattern, tutorial, Pinterest, or Google Images, it turns out that this approach has been used in many different ways.

There is a pattern named Zip It by Emma Jean Jansen, a design named Now and Later by Kathie Holland that was sent along in an American Patchwork and Quilting marketing mailer, Jo from Jo's Country Junction shared this tutorial on her blog after making her Brick House Quilt, Katy from Katy's Quilts just finished her version done all in 30s prints, and I am sure there are other patterns or tutorials out there.

Clearly there is very little new under the sun.

Anyway . . . I spent most of Saturday cutting up leftovers from the resource boxes.  Some of these were rotary cut (2.5" wide by whatever length was available) and the wider pieces are ready to run through my die cutter (8.5" width yields theee 2.5" strips) so I can make another version of Comfortable.

The current plan is for this to become a comfort quilt, one that will probably not be finished until 2023.

I also die cut a group of warm neutrals into 2.5" squares, using up the last of each of these fabrics.

Since I didn't pre-calculate exactly how many of either shape I needed, I'm pretty sure I cut too many squares and rectangles.  I'm not worried about it though.  More fabrics makes it easier to design once the segments are sewn together and we all know that leftovers are, as Wanda puts it, seeds for another project.

The box above contains roughly half of the rectangles and all of the neutrals.  Time will tell how closely their numbers match up.

It was so nice outside Sunday that I spent some time on the back porch pairing and pinning so I can use these as leader-enders when I web the two waiting tops, etc.

I'm not in a big rush for this new project, although I'm sure that will change at some point.  

I've given it a working name of CAIM which means "Sanctuary; an invisible circle of protection, drawn around the body with then and, to remind one of being safe and loved, even in the darkest times."  

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Note to file:  My "word" for 2022 has been MAGIC with each post ending in a somehow-related quotation.

Starting with this post, I am going to deviate from MAGIC and use quotations that relate to ART or ARTIST instead.   I have a large number of quotes so this theme may well carry over into 2023.  

Quiltdivajulie

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"Art has the role in education of helping children become like themselves instead of more like everyone else."

Sydney Gurewitz Clemens

(chosen in honor of Little Man's first day of kindergarten)

Comfortable - the Quilt

(drum roll please) . . .  

Comfortable is a finish.

48" wide x 63" long

Lower right corner flipped . . . 

. . . lower left corner flipped.

(this is a made-entirely-from-the-stash quilt)

The flimsy as revealed HERE felt unfinished - 

so I added 3" borders all around - 

what a wonderful difference.

Backing fabrics (left to right):

Contempo's Wings by Jennifer Young for Benartex,

Savernake Road by Monika Forsberg 

for Anna Maria Horner's Conservatory (Free Spirit),

and Birdsong by Clare Therese for Windham

Binding made for another (long ago) quilt 

that had never been used, until now. 

Liberated unmarked free motion quilting

using  Glide thread in Graphite

Quilting design inspired by Christina Cameli's Spectrum 

(page 146 in her second book Step by Step Free Motion Quilting)

Comfortable looks so good on our back porch swing . . .

This super scrappy quilt finish makes me so happy.

Quiltdivajulie

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“I don't know what would have happened to me if I hadn't been able to hear.”

Ray Charles

Reciprocity Pt. 1 - How It Happened

In late 2017 I gathered all the random 2.5" strips 

from various spots in the studio and put them into a big box.

(strips cut for bindings but not used,

projects that were started but abandoned, etc.)

Some of those strips were cut into rectangles/squares

 that became this quilt top originally called Mercyful One 

but now known as Comfortable.

It waited in the to-be-quilted closet for almost a year

but is now bordered and paired with a three-fabric  

pieced backing - all of which has been pin-basted for quilting. 

More of the 2.5" squares were used to piece 

a double four patch table topper named Reciprocity

that would later become one of my

Kitchen Table quilt projects.

More of the low volumes were cut into squares

that became four patches in Squares Aplenty.

(top donated to Covered in Love)

Last December I used still more of the low volume 

strips and squares in the scrappy back of Zephyr.

(Zephyr is hanging out in the to-be-quilted closet)

The last of the 2.5" strips were used 

to piece the top for Bemused -

our Kitchen Table Quilt for January 2020.

* * *

After almost a year of waiting,

the blocks for Reciprocity's top and back 

were finally sewn together last month.

The quilting is done and on Wednesday, 

I'll share photos of the finished quilt.

Quiltdivajulie

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“Listening is not a reaction, it is a connection.  Listening to a conversation or a story, we don’t so much respond as join in – become part of the action.”

Ursula K. Le Guin