Saturday Morning Stock taking

Having rediscovered clay, my sewing time has been somewhat curtailed, but last night I did start a table runner.  I just discovered the StringThing quilt along blog and almost jumped into starting a full-sized quilt, but caught myself just before I started cutting strips.  
The idea for the pattern is from a free download on the moda free patterns page, here
this is the quilt:  

 It is called Modern Workshop, by Oliver and S:
 (Of course, I didn't look at the pdf of the instructions until just now, so I can see that I am sewing it in a whole different way, which I actually had thought of doing, but dismissed, since I thought for a table runner it would be easier to mix up a more limited range of fabrics if I sewed it this way, )
I just sewed 3 strip sets that are about 20 inches long, using 2-1/2" strips of fabric,-- 3 grey strips and 3 colored strips in each set:  (I'm using grey for where the white is in the one above)

 --cross cut them into 2-1/2" sections.  When I counted them up, there were 24 of them, and so I just pieced one more from squares to get 25, an odd number so that the corners would work out the same. 
To 13 of them, I added a colored square to the ends, and to the remaining 12, added a grey square to the ends.

 I put them up on the design wall, and see that there are quite a few of them, so i might have 2 table runners when I finish.  now I need to sew a grey strip between each of the pieced ones!!
In working on a knitted project, I am happy to report that I have been happily knitting along on my very simple stockinette stitch sweater.  (alliteration :) )

 I have all the main sections finished and am now doing the front band that gets sewn all around the front edges.  I am now avoiding the blocking of the pieces before it gets sewn together.... should I wash them and lay them flat? or lightly press them?

If you feel the need to see close-ups of my first batch of mugs, you can switch over to "my life in clay" blog, on the links in the sidebar!!

Bonnet Girls progress

 I spent some time with the bonnet girls quilt.  It needed a border, so I decided on a pretty simple strip-pieced squares on point.  It is a seminole technique where you cut up strip sets and sew them together in a staggered way, like a staircase, and the extra fabric on the sides is later cut away.

 To get the pattern to go around the corner, I had to add a little strip of yellow at the top and the bottom of the central unit:

 and then I added a one-inch border of the gray, and a 4 inch border of white....

now it's all ready to baste!  and I pieced a back from some fabrics from my stash, so I don't even need to go shopping for the back... I guess that means no excuses for not basting it today (or tonight, or tomorrow...)
Actually, I do have another quilt that has it's binding ready to be hand-stitched to the back, and maybe that's what's beckoning to me now.
Hoping you are having a nice Wednesday!  It is the Wednesday link-up to see what others are working on....

Finishing an Old Project

That's the big picture of a wall-hanging that I "finished" this week..   Actually, I sewed 99% of it a few years ago.  I had sewed some beads on to it and had run out of them, and although I looked for more, it was only recently that I found some that matched enough to use.  So, this week I finished outlining some of the arcs with the beads, and the wall hanging is technically done... that means I don't intend to do any more to it. 
I sewed the project about 5 years ago from using a book called "Strips and Curves", by Louisa L Smith:

 It was so much fun!
First you sew a lot of strips together in gradations of color, and then cut out various sizes of arcs, like drunkard's path blocks, and superimpose other arcs or circles on the blocks.  You can have so much fun in playing with the juxtapositions of colors and patterns.  It is hard to know when to stop.  In fact, I might just need to go make another one right now!

 Seriously, it wasn't as "hard" as the finished project would have you think.  I had already sewn my blocks together when I decided to add a few more arcs, and so I just used fusible web and machine appliqued some extra pieces right on top:

You are probably wondering what the shiny fabrics are-- the green one is a gorgeous shot silk that I had stumbled upon in a clearance bin someplace, and the patterned ones are "batik lame" (lam-ay)  I loved those fabrics.  We had them in the shop some years ago, and they were great to work with, and you could iron them without shrinkage, but I was never able to find anywhere to obtain them again.  Sad.

When I was adding the last beads, I was quite surprised by how much thought i had put into the quilting back then! (pat on the back).  I think that I've gotten a bit lazy these past few years.  However, I will try to remedy that!  I have a quilt in progress right now (the Japanese x and pluses one) that I will try to do something more ambitious than meandering on.

But a wall-hanging is really a place where you can do something special isn't it-- the smaller size means that you can twist and turn it more easily, and you can quilt it quite densely without worrying that you are making it too "stiff".
I like to do echo quilting, where you just do rows side by side around the edge of a seam...  It's like mowing a lawn, around and around...

 I think I had also just sewn a new york beauty, and so on this arc I made these "rays" like you would draw on a sun.

 I sewed the beads on with an invisible thread, which was a bit finicky.  and I see that I also couched on a line of navy thread as a little frame. 

 Now I must go see what all the others in the Work in Progress Wednesday have been doing!
    Thanks for visiting!
and Molly, I was wondering where you have been.
@Joyce, thanks,

Sewing from Kits and a note about Free Patterns

 Today I am sewing a sample for the shop!

It features Art Gallery Fabrics from the Revive collection, and the pattern is a free download on their web site,  here .  It is called Renew Me.         

 There are some lovely fabrics included!  It's another turquoise/brown/cream combination, with little additions of mauve.  We didn't get all 18 fabrics called for, so some are substitutions from other lines.  I really like the Art Gallery fabrics because they are such crisp printing on a high quality base fabric.  They use a higher thread count than other companies do, more like a batik. 

This post is pretty detailed, because I wanted to give an example of how I try to stay organized when sewing a project. It has organizational tips as well as how to add in speedy techniques when a pattern doesn't specify them.  
(So, if this seems overly detailed, or confusing, I won't mind if you just skim over it)

My first step when sewing from a kit is to familiarize myself with the fabrics. 

Kits can be put together in different ways.  Sometimes, we start with a pattern from another designer.  It can be a purchased pattern or a free pattern that often accompanies a fabric line to specifically showcase those fabrics.  We hope that the yardages given are right on.  Usually we go through and try to suss out whether the requirements are overly generous, or too scant. Sometimes we even cut and sew one kit  to see what's left over afterward.  That way we can tell whether we should change a recommended amount.  Other times, we cut a bunch of kits when the fabric has just arrived to make sure that we don't run out of a crucial fabric before we get the sample sewn. 
So, for this kit, we cut all the kits using the recommended yardage on the pattern.
There are 18 fabrics in this quilt! Thaat's quite a few to keep straight, so I decided to make a reference chart!
The fabrics are all tagged with a reference letter, so I cut a little swatch from each and stuck them onto a piece of paper to keep close at hand!

Then, I laid all the fabrics out on the floor of my sewing room in the same order as on the paper so that I could easily access the right fabric when cutting.

Often when you download a free pattern, the writers have tried to squeeze all the info into a small space so that the pattern is short and fits into one or two pages.  Because of this, they often use bare bones instructions, and rarely utilize strip-piecing or other time-efficient techniques.
So, I usually read over the pattern before I start cutting the fabrics to see if there are some ways that might make the sewing faster.
The instructions often have you cut individual pieces and sew them together one by one.  Often-times you can sew strip sets and sub-cut units to make the sewing process go much faster.
In this pattern, I noticed that most of the blocks were composed of strips:
You can see the block outlines in grey.  The finished size of the block is 8", and in the cutting instructions there seem to be a lot of 8-1/2" rectangles called for.  This is a big clue that it will be easy to strip piece the units rather than sewing them separately!!

It is also helpful to see that the little grey block diagrams tell you how many of that block you need to sew in all.  If I strip piece the sections, and then sub-cut 8-1/2" blocks, I can tell that I could get 5 blocks from each strip set  (5 sections x 8-1/2"= 42-1/2")

So I decided to start sewing blocks one type at a time.  I could see that Block 2 is the easiest.  I will need 9 blocks total, so if I sew 2 strip sets, that will give me 10 blocks, so that is perfect-- I'll have one extra.

 Sure enough, the author has made the instructions so that half the blocks can be made with colors for one strip set, and the remaining blocks out of colors for a second strip set. 

So, the width of the strip is 4-1/2" x the width of the fabric. ( I won't cut them into the 4-1/2" x 8-1/2" rectangles, because I'm going to strip piece instead.)
As I cut the strips, I check off on the pattern what I've cut. (above)
I also keep track of what i've cut from each fabric, but this isn't neccessary.  I just like the illusion of control.

 Then, rather than keep cutting, I went and sewed all the Block 2's. (sewed the two strip sets that I needed and then cut them into 8-1/2" blocks)  This photo shows one of the strip sets cut into 5 blocks:

 After I had all my Block 2's, I checked them off on the pattern that they were done:

 And then went on to some of the other easy blocks, (1, 3, and 4)  You might notice that sometimes I have extra blocks from strip sewing.  That is, while I only need 14 of Block 1, I have 15.  So I am accumulating a few extras.  This is handy.  I can use them for something else, OR, because the pattern is sort of a random looking design, I can use them instead of sewing the full number of some of the other blocks. That is I will only make 10 blocks of Block 4 instead of 11 blocks, so that I can just sew 2 strip sets. 

Now I have most of the easy ones done, and it is time for me to go sew Block 5!!!  (only 2 strip sets-- i'll get 10 blocks instead of the called-for 12)

So, I will continue this later.