Endless Strip Sets

About a year ago, I vowed to stop filling up bins with scraps...  and since I quilt a lot, I seem to make a lot of scraps!!!  And, for a year, I have managed to use up those scraps as i made them, doing things like string quilts.  Recently I've been sewing together strip sets - and looking for interesting things to do with them...  So, here are a couple of charity tops made up from scrap sets...  The first one is a Bonnie Hunter design from her website ;  on the second I just made snowballs out of strip blocks...

I am gradually learning to put more solids with my scrappy quilts so the eye can 'rest' somewhere - progress!  (and don't tell anyone but one row is in there wrong - in the middle - but I'm sure as heck not ripping it out!

 Boy, you sure can see the power of white in that quilt, can't you?  Not sure I would put those in there if I was doing it again...  just trying to use up that piece of scrap!!

Happy Quilting, everyone...

Kate

Flying geese flimsy is FINISHED - HOORAY!

This is a Linda Ballard center design, with a Seminole pieced border around it just for fun, as if piecing all those flying geese had not been enough of a challenge !!!! 

I hope to get this all quilted by the New Year - hope I can meet that schedule.
 

This sweet little thing is a charity quilt of nine-patch squares - put together like this they make an interesting pattern, don't they? 

A good day - one finish for me, one finish for charity !!

And a wonderful guild meeting with Kathy Miller, the "Singing Quilter" - if you have a chance to hear her, do it - she's really fun...

a great day... and tomorrow the neighborhood has a Craft Boutique, which we can just walk down the street and enjoy !!

.................and, how could I forget - I stopped up the kitchen sink with some leftover spaghetti - now I ask you, how could spaghetti stop up like cement????  DH wants to wait til Monday to have the plumber............ heck, no dishes to wash tomorrow , sounds fine to me... 

Happy Quilting,

Kate

Stash Reality

Welcome to a get-real moment with my stash:

First, there are the shelves of fabric:  here are the blues, greens, oranges, and novelties.

Now the yellows, the stripes, and a shelf that seems to be unsorted.

 And now the pinks/reds/ browns, and the hand-dyes ... 

 and some overflow that needs to be folded and put on the shelves (where??? :(

In storage drawers are strips, squares, some orphan blocks...- and another dresser full of this kind of stuff that I didn't photograph, and some bins of fat quarters - plus several boxes of UFO's and UFO parts.

 In the garage - finished charity quilts, unfinished charity quilts, unfinished personal quilts (yes, that's a RRCB Bonnie Hunter you see folder there, awaiting quilting)

 Sorry, same photo again - but imagine the other side of the garage - same photo reversed - more bins of fabric...ha

And, need I say - I don't throw ANYTHING away under 1.5 inches square - every bit is used up.  Right now I am making these from tiny scraps...

Oh boy are they cute - but let's get real - are These TINY pinwheels gonna use up that gigantic stash????  oh good grief no...

This morning I cut backs for ten charity children's quilts - and I didn't even see a dent!  

Oh well - IT'S AN INVESTMENT............
IT'S A HEDGE FUND AGAINST INFLATION...........
THE MONEY COULD BE IN MY 401K LOSING VALUE EVERY DAY.............

truth be told - I just LOVE having all this fabric, and envisioning myself cutting and sewing it...

SO - I SHALL HAVE IT............

IN FACT - I SHALL HAVE MORE OF IT...............

happy quilting,

Kate

Returning to those Roots

Wow - isn't it interesting how our lives turn full circle...??  In ways you never dream.         Growing up as a girl in the SOUTH, I remember the black cast iron frying pan that 'lived' on top of the stove.   I say it "lived" there because it was NEVER put away...  I mean, why would you put it away?????


For breakfast, mom fried eggs...  for lunch, she fried up some cornbread with collards, and then for dinner, fried chicken - or country fried steak...  every meal, the frying pan was center stage...    and, because it was a lovely cast iron pan, you just wiped it out with a paper towel, and left it sitting on the stove top for the next meal.

Well - when I left home and went away to college, I wanted MODERN cookware - so I got me some of that non-stick magic cookware - you remember - TEFLON !!!!  It was great til it flaked off...Then I had some T-FAL - stuff - magic, that was...  til it got yucky... and then there was some decent copper bottom frying pans - and I don't know what happened to them...  and , of course, a few pans that warped and nothing would cook in decently...and then I bought some "new" cast-iron and it was awful - nothing like I remembered.

Well - I've gone full circle now - just bought this on eBay...  it's a Griswold, and a beauty - all cleaned up and ready to fry up some Sunday chicken...and I've become an expert on "vintage" cast-iron... and its wonders...

You may ask why I didn't just 'get' my mom's cast iron?  Why, of course, cause she is still using it - at 86, it is right now sitting on her stove, I am sure, awaiting breakfast tomorrow morning..

I wonder if I can find any decent lard in San Francisco????  (teasing, teasing...  although chicken WAS better cooked in lard - but I will spare my poor arteries that torment)...  and will try to find more healthy options to cook in my new pan...

TILAPIA - lightly pan-fried...  yes, that's just the thing...must keep my strength up so I can quilt.

Kate 

Quilty Sunday

Hi all - - it was a great quilty Sunday here...  sweatpants and a big pot of coffee kind of day...

I finished up two charity quilts for my Guild's Community Quilts project...  I don't know who made the tops - my job was to quilt and bind them... so these are ready to turn in on Saturday at the meeting.  They are both nice and snuggly, so I am sure someone will enjoy them!

I got a box of scraps from my friend Betty in Southern New York, and I'm having fun going through those.  I recently started a postage stamp quilt, and some of Betty's scraps are already cut into small squares for that purpose...  why are OPS (other people's scraps) so much more fun than my own???

Well, here's to another Monday morning, coming all too soon.... 

Kate

Them's Whales

Whales - until today I never saw one - and now I have...

they are amazing, fabulous creatures. 

We went out whalewatching from Santa Cruz, CA.  It was a bit cold, and very choppy, and more than a few of the bunch left their breakfasts over the side...

BUT WE SAW WHALES - they came up close to the boat - in groups of two or three - fabulous, fabulous, fabulous...

disclaimer;  these aren't my picture, cause I don't have a telephoto lens - but this IS what it looked like!!

 And we saw sea lions...

 and adorable sea otters...

a fabulous day for DH, me, and some friends...

and tomorrow I'm staying home all day and sewing...

Kate

Little Cuties

I am having sooo much fun playing with these little HSTs, which were bonus triangles from some snowball blocks...  I have become obsessed lately with using up even tiny scraps (since those same scraps could be part of a jelly , a honeybun, or whatever nonsense Moda is dreaming up to get an obscene amount of money for a yard of fabric... but I digress...
So, I am trimming up these little HSTs...

 which then become the very cutest little pinwheels you ever did see... 2 1/2 inches each.

 Meanwhile, I am still learning how to use my camera correctly to get better color...  Look how different these look...

My class in camera technique has now enabled me to take different types of photos - now I just have to figure out what it will look like BEFORE I take seven pictures of the same thing..!!  Oh well, I DID learn a few things at class!

Oh - what will I do with the pinwheels??? Well, at the moment I have no earthly idea.. that's the fun of it!

Happy Quilting,
Kate