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Wednesday, January 21, 2015

Snow Day

Hi Everyone,

It's another "snow day" here, although it is more of an "ice day."  This time, both of my nieces are over.  They did their online  schoolwork and now are doing "art."  It's always easy and fun to do art projects here at my house.  They wanted to sew, but are settling for construction paper, scissors, glue sticks, markers, etc.

Now that my computer is free, I can write this post!  If you remember last week I was mentioning that a new project interrupted my work on my big, complicated quilt.  As I explained, every member of our guild is asked to provide a kid's quilt,  They are taken to Camp Watcha-Wanna-Do, which is a camp for children who have been diagnosed with cancer or brain tumors.  Each camper is given a quilt to use and then take home.

While going through all of my fabric, I had already "assigned" some to this cause.  One group was all of my leftover moose and bear, etc. fabrics that I collected and used while in Alaska.  I haven't made an Alaskan theme quilt since.  (Did that stop me from buying a plethora of Hawaii themed fabric while in that state?  No, but I'm sensing future kid's quilts from that stash, too.)  One day I pulled them all out and looked over what I had.  I had a piece that had sort of preprinted squares, etc. on it.  You could use it as is, or cut it up.  I wanted to fussy-cut some of the motifs.  I had another piece which was a panel, only with long-ish rectangle pieces.  There was another with fussy-cutting possibilities, and then a bunch of fabrics with all-over moose and bear, woodsy prints, etc.    I gathered up a bunch of them and took them to the local shop to try to find a fabric to use with all of them.  This was not easy as some had neutral backgrounds, and there were golds, browns, dark greens, and reds in the mix.  I ended up choosing a light green fabric that played well with all of the others.  Luckily it didn't have flowers on it as I wanted to make a quilt for a boy.  (It's so easy to make girl quilts!)  I didn't have any idea what quilt I was going to make, but since there was only about 2 yards on the bolt, I bought it all.

At that point, I didn't have a plan, so I set everything aside.  I knew what I wanted:  a quilt with different size squares and rectangles, all sashed, that would fit together a bit like a puzzle.  At various times, I looked through my books and then one day I was on Pinterest, and I found just what I wanted.  I set out sketching the quilt.  I began with the larger squares finishing at 6", but that was too small of a scale.  I wanted to try something larger, but it was time to go to bed, so I had to leave it.  I hate leaving something when I'm in the middle!

The next morning, I leaped out of bed after the alarm went off at 5.  I went back to my graph paper and tried 9" squares next, and that was a bit too large,  8"  anded up being perfect so I drew it all out on paper.  I would need *' and 3.5" squares and other sizes inbetween  I began wondering if my panels and pieces would fit the size squares and rectangles for the pattern  so I took my sketch upstairs to my quilt room.  I grabbed the fabrics and YES!  they were going to work great.  I got right to cutting.  It was fun seeing what I could fussy-cut to the needed sizes.  I cut shapes from the all-over fabrics, too.  Pretty soon, I realized I needed to lay it all out so I could see if I was getting a good color-balance.  I cleared off my design wall and started laying it all out and cutting some more.  With a start, I realized I was an hour away from needing to be to my quilting group and I was still in my pajamas!  "Curses," I thought, "I have to leave my quilting to go to quilting!"  Haha.


So I got ready and went to my bee.  When I got home from that, I had about an hour before I had to run another errand, so I ran back upstairs and kept at it.  I was liking what I was doing!


Finally, the next day, I got all the pieces positioned and next it was just a matter of sewing it all together with the green sashing.  It went quick, since it was all easy sewing--nothing is really pieced, so everything fit together great.  The sashing strips were cut 1.5."  Once all the row elements were together, I joined the rows with more sashing in between and surrounded the finished piece with 2.5" strips.  The two yards of sashing fabric was enough, with just a little left over.

Here is the finished top.  I have the backing and batting ready.  I just need to layer them and I can machine quilt it.



This quilt was lots of fun to make and I'm really glad that it will be finished.  As I mentioned in my last post, these sort of projects are fun for me when I have a plan and get excited.  If I'm stumped and not in the mood, they seem more tedious.

Have a great day!
JoAnne

17 comments:

  1. What a great woodsy themed quilt to receive at "camp". : )

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  2. I think it is just terrific!! What a great way to use all those bits and pieces and puzzle it all together for such a great quilt. I am sure it is going to be a much loved quilt.

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  3. What a wonderful quilt for a special camper! I'm interested in learning more about your guild's project as one of my goals this year is to go through my stash and make some charity quilts.

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  4. VERY cute!! Some kid's really gonna love it!!

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  5. WOW....what a great quilt for some boy at camp! I'll bet some nice flannel would be perfect for it too!

    Sounds like living near family has really been great for you and you're enjoying having the nieces close by :)

    OH...and you set an alarm for 5am? Oh my girl.....I am so glad I don't have to do that anymore...I get up when my eyes open :)

    Have a great night and a great tomorrow....it's snowing here in NJ and it looks so pretty out!

    Peggy

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  6. What a great quilt! Some little boy is going to be thrilled to receive it. I agree that it is so much easier to make quilts for females. Sometimes it's really hard to find fabric that doesn't have flowers of some sort, or "girly" colors or patterns.

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  7. Perfect quilt for a camp outdoor theme :-D

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  8. LOVE that quilt. What a blessing to work on something with such excitement and for a great cause.

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  9. What a great idea, and what a fabulous quilt you have made! It's just wonderful, and I know it will be such a treasure!

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  10. Love how you laid the quilt out--great use from your fabric stash

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  11. What a wonderful quilt...will surely make a boy very happy! Love when a lightbulb moment occurs and everything works perfectly!👏👏

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  12. Wow, what a great quilt! It's amazing what you were able to do with such a varied array of fabrics. It will surely put a smile on one happy camper!

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  13. What a great Alaskan/northwoods theme quilt! (That look is always a favorite here in northern Wisconsin). It will really brighten the eyes of a special young camper.

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  14. That is one great quilt. I might be thinking of keeping it if it were mine. You've done a great job on it. And, I agree, girl quilts are easy but boy quilts take more thought and purposeful purchasing. My guild makes quilts for the local nicu unit. The nurses tell us that more baby boys are in the NICU than girls. So I try hard to make several boy quilts to one girl quilt. Congratulate yourself on a great quilt that someone will really love.

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  15. Great quilt! It will bring lots of joy to a great kid!

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  16. Wonderful quilt and what a wonderful cause!! Nice job, JoAnne!! Some lucky kid is going to be VERY happy and excited ;-)

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