Stashbuster

Although I have not purchased fabric in a long time (unless it was for a specific project for which I did not have suitable fabric in my stash), I still managed to accumulate a fair amount of stuff, either leftovers from previous projects or things received from others.  

I am reaching a landmark birthday and have decided to declutter by making new art.  Smaller pieces since I have difficulty and am no longer able to make larger quilts.

My first  project is turning this bin of batting cut offs

 

into these 

Unfortunately, I did not mark at the time what kind or brand of batting I used so I could not sew them together to reuse in quilts (since different battings shrink at different rates).

I am making 10 1/2" squares which I will use for these (planning on 75 small art pieces)

to be made from these 

leftover ties.  And I have another two bags of ties which I haven't gutted yet.

Needless to say, I will have enough to keep me occupied this year.  I will hopefully post as I go along.

 

 

 

Fabric scraps, battting scraps

 

My next project is to  use up batting scraps and fabric scraps to make a floor mat.  I will sew the batting scraps into a 2.5" "jelly roll" and then attach fabric scraps as per some youtube videos I have watched.

The youtube videos mention buying the 2.5" wide batting rolls.  Ha - like that is going to happen. And the fabric used is purchased from commercial jelly roll fabrics.  Ha ha again.

This is where I am starting.   

 Updates to follow.

 

 

 

 

Out with the Old In with the New

My first finished 2026 project.

I started this one in December.  Matty gave me four of Mel's z"l ties.  I used the same pattern from "Necktie Quilts Reinvented" as I used in the quilt of Marty's z"l ties.  My hands weren't shaking when I made Marty's quilt.  

I had four ties to work with.  Three I used for the petals/blades and the fourth for the binding.

I sewed the blades down onto two layers - top fabric and binding.  Then I sewed the blue lines from the bottom with the thicker blue thread in the bobbin.  Then I added the backing and quilted over the blue line in one of the machines embroidery designs in a grey thread which is not terribly visible. 

I also didn't realize how difficult it would be the do a binding with an interfaced tie.  And I didn't have enough of the tie to go around so improved with the gold tie on the top edge.  At any rate, I couldn't get the corners to miter properly and there was some exposed fabric at the corners.  After auditioning all kinds of ribbons, buttons and beads, I used flower shaped findings and beads at the corners.  Not perfect but OK.

All in all, I am fairly happy with how it turned out and especially happy that this small (18" ish) wall hanging can be returned to Matty.  I also have some leftover tie pieces which I hope to make with Alissa into silk scarves for Sari and Johanna.

The future will be challenging with my shaking hands.  Hard to thread needles, put together fabrics to sew by machine, etc.  I will do my best.
  

Phew, Finally Finished

This one was hard.  Although I made the quilt top quite a while ago, I just recently got to quilting it and binding it.

I had real trouble manoeuvering the quilt sandwich on my domestic machine.  I used my walking foot which was a bear to attach with my shaking hands.  And the vibrations caused the needle to fall out.  Which was, again, a bear to reinsert with my shaking hands.  I had used a duvet cover for the backing but after auditioning all of my fabrics, couldn't find something suitable for the binding.  I went to Sew Sisters and found a fabric which wouldn't compete with the batik frame and wouldn't compete with the may coloured scrap pieces.  

Cutting the 2.5" strips was not a problem.  But then for some reason when sewing them together, I sewed on the diagonal in the wrong direction.  Seam ripped them out, and again had to stop because of shaking hands.  I machine sewed the binding onto the back of the quilt, and then machine sewed it onto the front.  I struggled with the corners until I came to the last corner where I had to rip out the stitching.  I only had about 12" left to sew but again, shaking hands.  I finally finished the last stitches this morning. 

So the quilt is finished and so is my large quilting "career".  And this quilt is fitting as it is made from scraps of 20+ years of quilting.  I can recognize fabrics from the various quilts I have made over the years.  So it is quite meaningful in that it represents the many quilts I have gifted over the past two decades and it is my final quilt gift to my niece.

Now onto smaller creations. 

Last Quilt

Long time no write. 

I returned at the beginning of September from a lovely visit with family in Israel.  Because of war logistics, my flights were through Athens.  It was crazy hot and I had to run from one terminal to another in Athens.   Barely made the flight which was fine but freezing from over air conditioning.  Long story short, I returned home with a terrible cold, sore throat, coughing that hasn't ended yet - three weeks later.  Not Covid - I tested.  Menachem also caught it from me.

Needless to say, I was not feeling up to doing anything and even now am  not overly motivated.

However, my niece, Michelle, moved to Windsor for school and I promised her a quilt.  I already had the scrappy quilt top done but needed to  quilt it.  I used part of an Ikea duvet cover  for the backing.  Pinned it and turned to quilting.  

Did I mention that my hands are now sometimes shaking uncontrollably?  It was very challenging to attach the walking foot to my sewing machine.  And don't even ask about inserting a new needle.

I have,  nonetheless, managed to do half of the quilting.  I'm doing diagonal lines and have finished in one direction.  Now the other.  I find that moving the quilt sandwich under the needle and sewing exacerbates my shaking so I can only do a few quilting lines at a time.  Her;e is where I am so far.

 

 But I have pretty much decided that my large quilting days are done.  I'll stick to smaller projects.

 Update - i finished the quilting.  now i have to figure out what to use for the binding.

Flower Power Fabric Almost Finished

Although it has been almost a month since my last post, and we have been busy waiting to hear if the grandkids would be coming to visit, when and how, I did manage to finish three more "flower power" pieces, each one totally different.

This was  the first one (imagine it rotated to the left, since I don't know how to rotate the image).

 I was not enamored of the finished project.  I relied on fusible to attach the fussy cut flowers.  The fusible did not stay put so I had to tack the pieces down with beads.  Finished result - meh.

The next one I did I enjoyed a great deal more.

 

It was simply duppioni silk pieces, raw edges, sewn one to the other and appliqued on the flowery background, embellished with beads and buttons.

The next one was made using a technique where you lay the pieces, in this case 2.5 inches, on a fusible interfacing and then fold the fusible along the lines to stitch.  Hard to explain but here's what it looked like in progress:

 And the finished piece.  The advantage of this method is that the corners match up perfectly.  Not sure I'd replace sewing row by row to this method. 

 

And for the final piece, I reverted to my favorite embellished crazy quilting, using the flower power colours to determine the stitching threads and beads.

I pretty  much confirmed that I like the crazy quilting process most of all so I may just sew up a bunch of crazy quilting blocks from my wedding fabrics and embellish them depending on what borders I chose.

And here are the four pieces together.  I had hoped that they would all turn out the same size, 12.5 " ish, and unfortunately the "ish" is not the same...

 And I still have a 5.5" by 12" piece and a few smaller pieces of the flowery fabric, so keep posted. I may do something with them.

 

One Down One or Two to Go

 You may remember this fabric from a previous post.

I made these:

 (they are supposed to show vertically but I haven't figured out yet how to rotate them.)

Then I started on a larger 12" ish square.

 Then I stalled.

This week I finished it.

 Aside from some basic quilting stitches in the solid fabrics, the flowers are beaded, more of a tacking them down than a design element but finished nonetheless.

Now I am working on another piece using the fabric, this time as the background with elements of duppioni silk and a little bit more of the flower fabric.  So far this:

 

I will let you know where it goes when I get there...