Filling the Holes

All the corners are sewn together and I think this will be the final arrangement.

The top half, looking up.....

and the bottom portion.   My place has windows on the north and east so even though it's a nice sunny day, I'm in the shade.  Nice for summer heat but really bad for picture taking.  

It's working out to be about 54" x 63".  I have two of the five inch charms left and about 12 of the layer cake pieces.  Once it's all together, I may be able to add some length  or width to it.

Except for the Pink Flamingo fabric, the rest is all from stash and leftovers from other projects.  There are 2 shades of green, 2 shades of yellow, turquoise and white.  The white is a metallic type from last Christmas and really shows up in the shade.

This is the entire piece.  Now to put all my puzzle pieces together!

Linking with Busy Hands Quilts for Finished or Not Fridays and Can I get a whoop whoop?
Show Off Saturday,and Quilting is more fun than housework

Making the Stars

The stars for my Stars Over Pink Flamingo are made by using dots on the wrong side of the fabric.  I had thought I was probably the last person to know this method, but several people have commented on the narrow blades and my terminology of "dot method"  so if I'm not alone, here is the method. There are a lot of pictures in this post!

Finished Star

The directions given in the download are to to cut the star pieces (green) one half inch wider and longer than the back ground color, pink.  This resulted in a lot of fabric cut off and into the scrap pile. I resized to make both pieces the same width. So far, no problems and little less into the scrap pile.

Start with the background size that you want.  Here I'm using a 2.5 inch strip. Measuring 1/4" in from the edge, place a dot in the center of the fabric's wrong side.  Do the same on the  other end of the piece at the length of the points.  Draw a line to connect the dots.  I used a pencil but here, I used a Zig pen so it would show better in the photo.

Next, place this piece on the star fabric right sides together aligning the left hand side of the fabrics.  This where I stopped cutting the individual pieces and just used the entire strip, leaving some excess at the top and bottom

With the center dot facing you, sew along the left hand side

Cut the pieces apart and press open so that the star fabric is facing left.

Repeat for the other side

Press that side open, making sure that the entire background piece is visible.  Here is the view from the front

And ready for trimming.  Trim to the size of the background...the pink piece.

You will end up with three layers of fabric on each side.  Trim the two bottom layers, leaving a 1/4" seam.

Do this four times and you will have all your star points ready to assemble.

I do hope that this is understandable and the photos are clear enough to see...another grey day in the Pacific Northwest!  Please let me know if you need anything clarified or see any glaring errors in my method.

Linking up with Em's Scrapbag

Still Seeing Stars

This is where I'm at at the moment.  The large pink squares are laid out to mark the approximate size that I'm going for.  I need a few more stars and then I'll try fitting it all together without too many seams or smaller pieces. I did find that my charm pack is a noticeable dye lot difference from my layer cake.  You can see it a bit in the turquoise star on the left hand side.  Once everything is together and quilted, I'm hoping that it will be less apparent and look like a trick of the light.

The instructions do show how to lay it out in units but I didn't really understand them.  Lots of half stars to be combined in different sections.  Since I don't have the fabric to make all the sizes of those stars I'm doing it on my own.

In my last post, I showed the pile of scraps left over from just one star.  It was a large star but still too much waste for me...I used almost an entire fat quarter on it.  The instructions gave a size of one half inch larger than the pink piece.  I reduced that by half inch and could probably go a little smaller without too much of a problem.  The half inch doesn't sound like much but with eight pieces per star, it adds up and I already have lots of scraps.....hence the title of my blog!

Linking up with Oh Scrap! , Em's Scrapbag and Monday Making

Seeing Stars

My new project is a free pattern from Robert Kaufman Fabrics called Stars Over Pink Flamingo.
I've always wanted to do a star pattern and I really loved the look of these stars.  Getting the Pink Flamingo fabric has been more of a problem than I anticipated.  I ordered a layer cake from a deal on one website along with a charm pack (they were out of yardage)....after several emails, they shipped my layer cake three weeks later but cancelled my charm pack.  After more emails, I got the charm pack but still no yardage available.  Right now, I'm making what stars I can according to the pattern directions and will probably make it as a lap size quilt.

The white fabric of the smaller star has irridescent  circles and doesn't seem to be on the Connecting Threads website any longer.

The stars are made with a new to me technique involving measuring dots and drawing seamlines on the back of the pink fabric.  It makes very nice stars but there does seem to be a lot of fabric cut off.

This is the waste from the large pink and green star.  I'm trying to look at it as precutting my next project!

Linking up with Em's Scrapbag

Slow Progress....

I started this version of Melissa Corry's Playing the Scales quilt several weeks ago as an attempt to use the ancient blue stash.  Got it cut and then it sat.
These are the strips, finally sewn into the groups of two. I decided that this time around, I'd just sew all strips into two's and then rearrange for a better color/pattern distribution.  It's difficult to work with no floor space left and this quilt  is too large to lay out completely without moving furniture around.  My cat left this alone until I ironed the strips and then decided that she only wanted to sleep on ironed fabric!

Another view

I have 11 more strips to lay out and sew together. I'm looking to finish by the end of the week.  It really is a fast quilt to do unless  you are a fiddler like me.  I can sit and stare at it. move one strip, then another and so on.....

Linking up with Oh Scrap and Em's Scrapbag

May Quilty 365

I really haven't accomplished much this month except to choose my fabric of the day.....I did make it through the month with a few circles of interfacing left but I'm out of pale yellows in my stash for backgrounds.  I know I've got some gingham I was planning on using but that has evaporated when needed!

So, for this month, I'm in mourning for my three machines that died on the same day.

On a more cheerful note...a weeks worth of polka dots!

Digging way down in the stash, a few Lida Enche fabrics from my second quilt...circa 2013. She's a local artist and her fabrics were included in a kit from a local designer I bought in 2012 at a quilt show.

Butterflies, dragonflies, sea creatures and a creature make up this month's selection of animals.

I did finally remember to get a box to store all my circles in....thanx Leanne!

I'm also about 25% done with putting together a quilt top.   Hopefully, I'll be able to finish that in the next several days.  Unfortunatly, I've found that my Kindle Unlimited and BookBub subscriptions are the biggest detriment to my quilting time!

Linking up with Leanne at Daisy and Jack Handmade

Stash Busting and Featherweights

I love having a stash of fabrics.  I really love that I can see and be inspired by a quilt online and immediatly pull fabrics to at least start that that quilt.  I may have to order some backgrounds or a specific color but I can usually get a good start on a new project....and I like to have several projects going at once.  Recently, I've discovered that I have almost NO fabric left. I do have a stack of FQ's in blue with some blacks and some solids in odd colors and several yards of mint green (which I'm using for the background of the In My Neighborhood row quilt) and about 1.5 yards of a cream and the same in tan.  I also have several bins , boxes and totes stuffed full of scraps...in fact, I probably have more fabrics in those than in finished projects, hence the title of this blog.  I'm one of those that saves everything over one and a half inches!  And it's all unorganized, or organized by the date I put it in the box. So, I'm taking steps...starting this weekend I'm dumping a box a day and cutting it into strips or 5" squares.  Anything smaller will go into another bin for a scrap vortex quilt.  I'm still undecided whether to sort by colors of sizes..any pros and cons for either method?

This is my initial pull for a new version of Melissa Corry's Playing the Scales quilt.  I wasn't completely satisfied with my last version due to the fabric selection.  I feel that some of my lights were just too dark for the contrast to show completely.  Some of these have been in my stash for years and came from the local Goodwill in the first place.  I did discover that the navy and red geometric was 35" wide so I'm sure it was in someone's else's stash before it came to live with me.  Finally, it will get to be in a quilt!

I've sewing on my featherweight machine and discovering how much I've missed using my vintage machines.  Retraining my eye to see the quarter inch seam allowance is the main adjustment I've had to make.  I used to be very accurate without using a quarter inch foot. On my large vintage machines I can use modern feet if need be but I haven't tried it with the feather yet.  I've had it for several years and really have had a love/hate relationship with it.  I bought from a charity auction site (not eBay) for under a $100 at a time when every feather, even non working ones. were going for over $400. I'd logged in and found a machine listed a "old Singer...works" in an auction closing in 15 minutes.  I glanced and saw that it was a feather with case, foot pedal, manual and a bunch of other pieces.  I bid and got it.
  As soon as it arrived. the case fell apart and I eventually dumped it as I couldn't get the smell out.  It did work after some fiddling with tension and needles that had been inserted incorrectly. After about an hour I turned it off and went to pick it up, burned my hand and discovered that it had scorched the tabletop.  After some googling, I found that was a fairly common problem and bought it a new foot pedal and it has worked perfectly ever since.  As a bonus, I found that the new foot pedal worked perfectly with my 1928 Singer 99.
If you are sewing with a feather, I've found The Featherweight Shop to be very helpful for oiling points and other info.  It's much easier to see than the manual.


Linking with Busy Hands Quilts for Finished or Not Friday