Ivy Arts

… but hanging on the clothes line, it reminds me of Tibetan prayer flags. Only on this windy day, it looks more like a crazy dinosaur flag. I chain-stitched the nine patches together with the focus fabric blocks in long rows and now I have to sew those rows together. A ‘pieceless puzzle’ my quilting teacher calls it. The chain-stitching holds everything in exactly the right place. Super simple is good sometimes.

At least I think so. The Fabric Place had a 25% off everything sale last weekend. I found some fabric to back the dinosaur quilt that was 50% off and these fat quarters. Not bad for a fabric addict. (I got some thread and needles too but they don’t count.)

This is the first queen sized quilt that I made. It’s been on our bed for the past six years now. It’s a wonky and scrappy Broken Dishes pattern from Jan Mullen. I love it and it’s been well loved but I can see how much I’ve learned from mistakes I’ve made early on. For one, it’s not sized very well. You can see how it comes down on the sides but not at the foot of the bed. It’s now been retired to our guest bedroom that I had painted a lovely lilac color to coordinate with it.

This is the latest quilt that I finally finished binding and is now gracing our bedroom. This one is professionally machine quilted and much more intricate than the first. Still lots to learn though. I guess I need to keep working.

Doesn’t that mean I need more fabric?

I’ve completed the nine patches for the dinosaur quilt. Last night at class, I was barreling through these giant nine inch blocks while my classmate Jackie was painstakingly chaining one inch strips and squares. Like I said before, sometimes you just need an easy, breezy project to get your momentum started again. Next time, Jackie says.

I love a project that moves right along, especially after a long and difficult one. This quilt for the boys is a simple focus fabric block alternating with nine patches. The nine patches are ready to chain piece together and this beauty should fall together in no time (fingers crossed).

We’ve finished painting everything that was going to be done right now so now the real cleaning and organizing can begin. It’s really beginning to feel like home.

This is a before picture, formerly a guest bedroom.

And here’s the after – a first glimpse of the sewing room (paint = Benjamin Moore Hathaway Peach). I was able to start arranging and unpacking a bit yesterday. I’m really excited. I’ve claimed all the random shelves and tables that don’t belong anywhere else and so far it seems to be working. I haven’t even begun to unpack and organize my fabric stash yet. I’m saving the best for last. I’ll get a picture of that soon (I hope).

I think I’m going to have to put the scrap quilt on hold for a bit to start another boy quilt. The small boy is out of the toddler bed and so a new full size quilt is in order. I picked up this focus fabric which I think will be a big hit. I’m working on a simple grid of this fabric and some nine-patches like this one that is in the same room. My quilting teacher has a template for nine patches that sounds like fun. I’ll check it out tomorrow night.

I got the Chez Moi quilt back from the machine quilter yesterday. Wheeee! Very exciting. There’s no binding on it yet and my preliminary measuring of the brown tonal has me barely eeking out the necessary length. I’ll figure that out somehow. Nevertheless, I’m so excited. The wonky star looks great. And I love the colorful variegated thread in the quilting. The quilting certainly hasn’t tamed the colors in any way but it has unified the overall look somehow. I think it’s striking but not jarring.

I tell myself that if I race, I may be able to get this on our bed soon after our move. Who am I kidding, we’re moving next week. Anytime in the next month will be lucky considering how much needs to be done during the whole moving chaos. More photos when it’s truly finished.

Here are a few more blocks for the scrap quilt. Very different color palettes. It will be challenging to layout this quilt. I’m beginning to think that I can’t be happy quilting if I don’t make it difficult for myself in some way. Let’s see… there was the ribbon border without pattern measurements, the half-square triangle math blunder, the crazy Chez Moi blocks. Hmmn, I’m sensing a pattern here. It’s a wonder that I love quilting as much as I do.

Here are the first large blocks for the scrap quilt. As I mentioned before, I’ve so far only used truly scrap fabric. Despite having most of the big blocks either sewn or cut, I have not made the slightest dent in the scrap bag. I truly believe that I can construct this entire lap size quilt from the scrap bag and not so much as touch a fat quarter in my stash. Oh yeah, and I’d probably still have scrap to spare. This is not how I had envisioned it. I have some fun and beautiful stash fabrics that I thought I’d bust out. But I can’t ignore the thrift and practicality of it all, not to mention the challenge. I guess I’ll just have to save my lovelies for another day.

I cut the pieces for 8 out of 9 large blocks for the scrap quilt from my scrap heap the other night. These aren’t stash pieces or fat quarters, these are from the total discard pile. A saner less fabric addicted person would have thrown out these pieces long ago. My thrifty grandmother would be so very proud. This makes me inordinately pleased.