Auditioning Sashing

Since light green is the Rainbow Scrap Challenge colour for October, I started playing with some leftover green HST blocks. I don't remember what these pieces originally belonged to, but they jumped out of the box and wanted to become little QST blocks. 

How do I know this? 

Because they told me of course!

I started sewing them together and when it was time to trim them all to the same size, the blocks measured 1 3/8" unfinished and will finish at 1 1/8". So little and sweet!

As I began to sew together the QST blocks, they started lining up into columns with similar friends. 

This is not what I thought I was making, but these blocks are bossy and I was just along for the ride.

Today I am auditioning sashing fabrics and trying to make it big enough for a placemat. 

Here are two options... the light green sashing on the right (maybe too light?) and the crackle batik on the left.

What do you think about these choices? A medium green on the right (maybe too dark?) and the same fabric as the block spacers on the left. I like this one but it's a stripe and there's not much left so I can't control those long dark lines, but maybe that's okay too?

How about this one? On the right side is a light spotty one (maybe too olivey?) and on the left is the crackle batik again, with a possible border and/or binding choice.

The more fabrics I audition, the more confused I get. Please help me decide and give me some feedback in the comments.

Linking up to Design Wall Monday and Oh Scrap!

Miniature Fun

1" HSTs

I discovered a ziploc baggie of little HST blocks this week that was given to me by a quilting friend who knew I would give  them a good home. The blocks were already pressed, and I just had to trim them all to the same size. In case you think this is a regular size quilt block, these are 1" HSTs. So fun!

PLAY time!

I just wanted to toss aside everything else that I was working on, and PLAY!  That is how you know what you love... when you could do anything, what do you chose to do? I love playing with little blocks. When these 1" blocks are sewn together, they finish at .5" and the little project becomes half the size it started out as. I pin the rows to the wool pressing mat to keep everything in order.

It is impossible for me to sew perfect seam allowances, and so I just try my best, which is always "good enough" for me no matter how it turns out (which is a great life lesson BTW!)

Mini quilt in hand

And here it is! 
A tiny treasure, a little quilt in my hand! There are 60 pieces of fabric in this sweet little thing, which measures 3.5" x 3".



Questions I am frequently asked:

1. "Do tiny blocks take less time to make than regular size blocks"? 
My answer: "The smaller you go, the more time it takes because it is so fiddly, with no room for fudging or stretching, and the cutting has to be accurate.
2. "Why do you do this"? 
My answer: "It's my kind of fun"!
3. "What is it"? 
My answer: "I don't know yet... I'm waiting for it to tell me what it wants to be"! 

Still waiting....

April Miniature

I finished my April mini quilt with one day to spare!

working on the layout on my messy sewing table

The seeds of this quilt were donated "cut off corner" triangles from a red and white quilt that my friend Jackie made. Instead of throwing them in the garbage, she gifted them to me. They were a range of sizes and it took a long time to get all the triangles turned into HSTs, then squared up to similar sizes, and sewn together in pinwheel blocks. 
No triangle was left behind! 
Then the blocks waited for another couple of years, aging to perfection.

Then I sewed similar sized pinwheels together and ended up with 15 blocks of different sizes. White sashing and borders were added and the quilting was done by walking foot... simple straight lines.

The HSTs in the centre block are .5" and there are 36 of them in that 3" block! So tiny and adorable! There are a total of 116 HSTs in this quilt (anyone want to check the math for me?!?! LOL)  and the finished size is 15.5" x 15.5".

I couldn't resist taking a photo of the quilt in the backyard to show that the rhubarb patch is up and the grass is turning green! Spring is finally here!
Hop over to The Constant Quilter later this week where Wendy will post the links for the April miniature finishes.

Daily Goals vs. Time to Play

When I go to a quilt retreat I make a list of projects to work on. I like to set daily goals and give myself a bit of structure. 
I do this because I know that I can fall down into a rabbit hole quickly and start new projects accidentally (see the accidental quilt post). Starting new projects does NOT result in any projects being finished!
Also I am not one of those quilters who can bring 1 project and work on it for days. I usually work on 3 different projects each day - one piecing, one quilting, and one hand work for the evening. 

While at retreat I was gifted bits of fabrics and leftover scraps. This package arrived from a retreater's sister. I was so touched by the lovely note and the gift of scraps from a deceased quilter, and look forward to making some wonderful projects from this collection. It was very hard to focus on my retreat goals after receiving this gift, full of so much potential sewing fun.

But showing great self restraint, I did stay focused!

For the first 2 days of retreat I only worked on my 150 Canadian Women project and would not allow myself to play with anything else until I had some rows sewn together. 
But after that was accomplished I allowed myself play time with scraps and HST collections.

Here is a good example... My friend Jackie gave me a bag of red and white triangles, which were corners cut off of pieced blocks. Instead of throwing them in the garbage, Jackie gifted them to me. 

morning play time at quilt retreat

This was the second year that this bag of bits attended quilt retreat. I spent many happy hours sewing the triangles together, squaring the HST's to similar sizes, and playing with various block patterns. Some blocks have 4 HST's, and one block has 72 HST's. So fun! This is going to be my miniature quilt project for March.

Do you set quilting goals for retreat or do you just play with whatever strikes your fancy? Do you ever play with another quilter's garbage?!?

True Confessions!

True confessions: I am in love with half square triangles.
Head over heels. 
Totally smitten. Can't get enough of them!
I discovered my HST enthusiasm in 1996 (read about it here) and have been "collecting" HST blocks ever since. Friends frequently pass them to me in baggies since apparently they are not beloved by everyone! But I love them... the friends and the HSTs!

Truthfully it's not often that these triangles actually get used in projects. Perhaps this is just a collection, like when stamp collectors collect stamps but don't actually "use" them for anything. They just admire the stamps and search for unique ones. Or perhaps it's just like my sewing machine collection. I don't use all the machines, but I like to have them to admire.

This week I am playing with some half square triangle blocks from a friend that were donated to my collection. I am sewing them together on my Singer 301, pressing and trimming them and think they will make a great border for a quilt that is developing in my mind. 

Okay readers... what are you loving today? Do you love/collect/hoard half square triangles? Do you think I am crazy (be gentle!)?

Happy Valentine's Day!

Enjoy filling your life with everything you love! 💕

Product Report and a Finish!

Three years ago my friend Marjorie gave me a bag of leftover HST's that she was going to throw in the garbage (gasp!). I was happy to rescue them and you can see the beginning of the project here. This is a long term leader/ender project and I was really happy with the layout that evolved over the years. I finally pulled it out again to work on last week at quilt camp, and decided this would be the perfect quilt to experiment on. I usually use my Machingers or old dollar store gloves to help with moving the quilt around, but this time I tried out two new (to me) machine quilting aids that other quilters had brought to camp.

"Batt Scooters"

They were "okay" to use, and gave me good control over the quilt movement. But my hands tired easily from picking up the batts and moving them from place to place. It might be "user incompetence", and if I used them more, I might find a better way to move them around that would be less tiring.


"Steady Betty Bands" 

These bands worked really well, and were easier to use with less hand stress than the batts. However, they allowed me to get way too close to the needle, and guess what happened? 

Yep... sewed right through the side of my finger! OUCH! I didn't get any blood on the quilt, and managed to finish the quilting anyway. It was also probably "user incompetence" but if this happened to an experienced machine quilter, I wouldn't want to have beginners trying them!
Honestly I wouldn't buy either of these products and prefer to use gloves for machine quilting, although they can be hot to wear in the summer. In the winter, like today where it is minus 15 degrees Celsius, but feels like minus 26 degrees... I want the gloves! 
The quilting that I figured out is a continuous design which means I started in one place and didn't stop until the whole thing was quilted. Well, I did also stop when I was bleeding! The design is curved lines around the light star HST's and in the centers of the blocks, and a swirly vine and leaves in the sashing. 


This photo shows the finished quilt and the truer colours. It's a fun finish to enjoy, after it started 3 years ago from some garbage!
I have finished the binding but not the label because it doesn't have a name yet... any ideas?!?

HST Heaven or Hell?

Half Square Triangles (a.k.a. HST's)  seem to be a block that quilters have a love/hate relationship with. There are so many ways to sew them and so many uses in block design. However, they can be somewhat tedious to sew if you need a lot of them. 

I like to use the Easy Angle ruler to make HST blocks, but mostly I prefer to make them as bonus corners when I'm sewing other blocks.
I made a ton of these blocks when sewing Celtic Solstice. 


For every Chevron block I made, I made 4 HST's. There are 100 Chevrons in the quilt, which means I have 400 HST's measuring 1.5"! Not all of them have been pressed or squared up yet, and I have bags of them waiting for just the right project.
Barbara Brackman recently had a great post on antique quilts using HST blocks - click here to read it. She suggests that to overcome cabin fever, you make 20 HST blocks every day until you see a daffodil, and you will have more than enough to make a quilt! 
If you want to see my all time favorite HST quilt, that I intend to make some day, click here and be inspired! 
Okay, back to pressing and trimming my 400 HST's.

2014 Scrappy Saturday

Today is the 1st post for 2014 Rainbow Scrap Challenge!
This is my third year of participating and I plan to continue most of my scrappy projects from last year, so it is "business as usual" in the scrap production line here!
This is my first Omigosh block this year in blues, which is the colour for January. This project uses my tiniest scraps - 1" squares and strips for the 9 patches, and 2" squares of background neutrals. The 9 patch blocks finish at 1.5" and are cute as a button!
This year I am adding a new focus for my Rainbow Scrap Challenge, and that is to actually use up some of my collection of Half Square Triangle (HST) blocks. 

I must brag to you that I have a wonderful and diverse collection!  There are bags and bags of them sitting in boxes. Some of the projects are started, and some are just waiting for inspiration. I know where most of these bonus triangles have come from, the quilts that I have been finished long ago, and the scraps I have retrieved from trash cans at classes and retreats (yep... I'm a proud garbage picker!)
So I plan to use up as many of those as I can in the colour of the month. Angela is posting some patterns for us and I will work on the blocks that have HST's in them. Also there are wonderful ideas posted here from the "Festival of HST's" last year. 
Here are my blocks this week. The top left is 36 HST's that were given to me by my friend Pat, and there are a few more to use up from that bag. The two star blocks use wonky scraps for the star points. These blocks are 6.5". Then there is my blue Omigosh block at 5" and my one and only blue spool block at 3.5". A pretty good start to the year!

Hop over to SoScrappy to see the more scrappy inspiration projects.

HST Collector

I LOVE Half Square Triangle blocks! I know many people refuse to sew them and I can understand that some methods of sewing (and trimming!) the HST's can be very tedious. But since Bonnie Hunter convinced me to try the Easy Angle ruler, I have never looked back. I love this ruler! It makes perfectly sized HST's 99% of the time with no trimming. (If the HST requires trimming, it's because I didn't cut it accurately!)


Here are some of the HST's I sewed this week for my latest Quilt Square Quilt Along block. FUN!

I must confess that I am a bit of a hoarder collector when it comes to HST's. I have bags and bags of these things...here are a few of my prized HST's in all sizes and colours. The potential for each of these bags is intoxicating! I found a lot of good HST design ideas at the Festival of Half Square Triangles. Maybe next year I should have an HST-UFO project each month?

Design Wall Monday #15 - Scrappy HST's

I have missed the Monday Design Wall postings since my brother has been sick, and I sure do look forward to getting back to my regular blog postings now that he is feeling a little better. 
This week I have an old project that I am working on.  These blocks were first posted about a year ago - click here to read about it. It is interesting that I sewed the HST's together into these star blocks, which wasn't even a layout I had on my original post!

Now I can't decide what to do next - to sash or not to sash?!?


And what about on pointe?!?


I don't know - what do you think?


I was hoping to be able to link up to the Festival of Half Square Triangles, but I'm not anywhere near finishing this quilt. You should see the great HST projects posted on the Flickr group...wow! 
And then when you're done surfing on that site, hop over to Patchwork Times to see more quilt design walls! But before you go, tell me what to do with my HST layout dilemma!