Crumb Jar Nines Finished!

It's a happy Friday to have a finish again! This week it is the mini nine-patch I have been working on from my crumb scraps.

It is bright isn't it? Not my usual style, but I like it nonetheless.  All of the nine patches were made from fabric scraps in my "crumb" jar. These are scraps below about 3" square.  The little mini-nines measure 4.5" square.

I used solids from my stash for the asymmetrical sashing.  Lots of fun fabrics in these scraps. This kind of quilting is my favorite, when I am using "leftover" pieces and turning them into some thing useful and beautiful.

For the borders I pulled from my string box and did sort of a continuous "Trips Around the World" a la Bonnie Hunter.

The border got dogwood, or orange peel, style quilting while the body of the quilt got a large loose stipple.  I had a really hard time deciding what thread color would be best and ended up just choosing white.  There wasn't anything that would have blended on ALL those colors, but I think our eye tends to glance over white since it is sort of a "non-color".

The back is a nice grey and aqua print I got at Hancocks.  I am a generally a big believer in using flat sheets, or whatever is available, for quilt backings, but I have found that when I do FMQ I have much less thread breaks and skipped stitches using actual quilting cotton for the backing. Live and learn (I still have no problem using sheets for straight line quilted quilts.)

This quilt finished at 54"x69" and will be a wedding gift for a coworker of mine and his new wife. I hope they will enjoy it!

Linking up to Finish it Friday at Crazy Mom Quilts.

WIP Wednesday Goals

Happy Wednesday! I am off work for a few days and feeling very productive. At the moment I am working on quilting the Crumb Nine Patch quilt. 

My goal is to get this one quilted today.  The borders are getting the dogwood style quilting, the rest will get a stipple.

I have already been busy today.  Six new half pints of pepper jelly are cooling on the table.

And of course the supervisor is standing by to make sure I don't work too hard :)

Linking up to WIP Wednesday.

Working Late Wednesday

Tonight I have been basting, that least favorite of all quilting tasks.

First was this hand print quilt, which will be a gift for a retiring teacher.  Someone accidentally volunteered me to make this one (insert indignant sigh here).  With supervision my mom mostly pieced the top (she felt guilty), but I'll be doing the quilting and binding.  I think the design we chose turned out pretty good.

Second was the crumb scrap quilt I've been working on.  The further along this one gets the more I like it.  I've decided it's going to be a wedding quilt for a coworker.  Best of all, the scrap busting continues!

This is a late addition to WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced.

Bordering (on maddness)

After a week or so of not blogging I am finally working on something again! The Crumb nine-patches quilt is getting a border and, you guessed it, it's made of scraps!  These came from my strings bin, cut to 2" strips and pieced into sort of an endless "Trips Around the World" block/border.

Here's to more progress soon!

Linking up to WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced.

Crumb Jar Nines

One my design wall today, all the blocks for a quilt made from those nine-patches I made from crumbs scraps. Crumbs are the smallest size scraps I keep.  Anything below about 3" square I call a crumb.  Quite a few of mine were actually not large enough to get a 2" square from, but these squares came from the ones that were. 

I put asymmetrical borders on the nine patches using solids from my scraps and stash.  Hoping to piece this together some time next week :)

Linking up to Judy's Design Wall Monday.

Crumb Jar Quilting

It seems like I just go from one are of my scraps to the next, tackling whichever is the most out of hand.

2" scraps

First it was the "stacks," which are larger pieces. Those went into the Rainbow Waves quilt.  Then it was strings, those became several small and large quilts.  Most recently the crumb jar was packed full and could hold no more.  The last time it got full I cut 1.5" pieces from it to make the Sherwood Forest quilt.

2" squares from the crumb jar

This time I decided to cut 2" pieces. I separated out the 2" squares but also cut a pile of crumbs that are 2" on their long side.

Tonight I sat down to sew and quickly made a bunch of these mini nine patches. More to come tomorrow!

Linking up to Freshly Pieced WIP Wednesday.