Scrap Squad 5 Revealed

My #5 scrap squad quilt was revealed Thursday on Quiltmaker's Quilty Pleasures blog.   It seems like a long time since I finished it.  There have been all sorts of things happening at Quilty Pleasures including a treasure hunt.  

When we received Bella Amore (aka #5)  I started browsing my stash right away.  I wanted to use as much from my stash as I could.  It is so easy to see what I have in yardage as it is stored on open book shelves in the studio.  I picked a piece I had purchased in a local quilt store when I lived in Pa.  I liked the whole look of the fabric:  the color, the design, even the background color.  With that fabric in hand I started grabbing "go withs."  I looked at the yardage area of the studio and in the boxes of fat quarters and odd pieces I have on top of the book cases.  Heck, I even looked in the old plastic containers where I used to keep my fabric. Really, only the dregs are in them.  In the end I didn't need to buy all that much.  I did add the luscious dark gold used for the inner border and some greens because I ran out of them.  That brighter turquoise got thrown out and a darker one took its place and was used for the backing. 

Although this looks complicated it really is only 3 blocks: a square, a half square triangle and a quarter square triangle.  That's it.  Amazing once you figure that out.  I really love Deb Tucker's Tucker Trimmer especially for doing quarter square triangle. You can find her videos for her various rulers here. Here are some of the units. 

I didn't like the large, light setting triangles in the original quilt that was in the November/December Quiltmaker magazine.  I tried to use some of the extra units and, gee whiz!  They all fit. Notice the turquoise half square triangle. Those are some of the extra units I used in place of setting triangles.  I played around with coloration and placement on the design wall and then started putting the quilt together.  I tried to have all seams abut however that was difficult.  In some places there are 8 seams coming together.  It was not a pretty scene when I got to the long arming.  


One thing I try hard to do is use long pieces for my borders.  Yes, I'll piece my borders if I have to but if I can I'll use a length.  To make sure I have all the length I need I often refold and then cut strips off the length of fabric to use in piecing my blocks.  See the main fabric up above?  Yep, I'd already taken off a strip to use in the center of the top.  

Because I was trying to finish this in a hurry, I decided to do an open stipple on it.  It worked well except where I tried to go "over" the bumps rather than around the bumps.  Oh well, live and learn. And, honestly, you can't really tell unless you look up close.  

 The quilt traveled with me during Thanksgiving so I could do a photo shoot someplace other than my own house and yard.  My son lives next to Bristoe Station Battlefield so we took the dogs, the quilts and cameras for a walk. It was fun to stage quilt pictures in a different location. In the photo above you can hardly tell there is a big road just beyond the fence. Hum, a quilt on a cannon?  It was hard to keep the quilt on the cannon and out of the bird residue! 

Just for fun I tried to get a picture of the 4 dogs, the quilt and the cannon. If you think it is hard to get a bunch of people to all look at you, keep their eyes open and snap a picture -- try dogs and a breeze!  Three out of four isn't bad. 

Kona, Homer and Raggs watching me take the picture, Cassie staring off in a different direction. 

This quilt now resides on the wall in my dining room.  I really love the colors in this one. And, it definitely is a scrappy quilt. 

Happy Quilting All!  

Great Weekend!

Friday with Kevin and Aimee in Maryland

Two Dogs On A Couch

Posing Most Kindly For Me

And Soon Off They Go

Raggs on the left and Homer on the right. Attempted Haiku by Bonnie.

People posed fine but Homer, on the left, didn't want to pose with Cassie on the right. Aimee and Kevin did well.

Aimee did some really early shopping. Pat and I came over for breakfast that Kevin made after Aimee came home. (Sorry, I just couldn't get up early enough to do early morning shopping.) We were lucky to be able to stay at Jen and Brian's townhouse while they were in Ohio.

The boys did some "This Old House" work on the bathroom. They were going to put a new flooring down. But decided to remove the floor and then realized the toilet bolts (you know those little bolts under the funny cap that is a pain to clean around) were completely corroded. So off came the toilet (it's in the bathtub in the picture to the right.) Then the flooring was done, next the toilet was replaced. And, how uncomfortable is that -- no toilet for several hours! It all turned out well though.

Aimee was productive -- she cut out two Take Five quilts. I kept her company and read a book. We brought Chinese in after the bathroom was restored.

Pat and I came home Saturday as Pat had a concert on Sunday. I put in a couple of hours in the studio on Saturday afternoon. It felt good to be back quilting. I decided to make Carolina Christmas mystery quilt at Quiltville.com. I've got more photos to share but will wait 'til the next post.

Happy Quilting All!