Summer Sewing

 I've been playing with some ideas snagged from the internet which have been sitting in my idea OneNote folder.  Some are novelty and others are using up scraps.  

This first one called Circling Novelties was somewhat easy, though I didn't plan well where I started stitching on the partial seamed square in the center.  By the time I worked my way around to the last seam, I had to some ripping to do.  Lesson learned, make that center square a bit bigger.

This was a scrappy idea from Quilt Momma (a speaker at a long ago Valley of the Sun retreat who I have been following on FB.  I was able to clear out a lot of random scraps and used a very old specialty ruler (Scrapmaster) which made cutting the triangles super easy.  I think it was one of my first ruler purchases and had forgotten all about it.  I remember being confused about how it worked.   But now after 20 years of quilting it was easy and very helpful.  I wasn't sure when I first put the blocks on the design wall as it was so chaotic, but now that it's done, I think it is one of my favorites.  Originally planned to be a donation, it's now my nap quilt and makes me smile every time I look at it.  I'm calling it Super Scrappy Triangles.

I recently completed a hand piecing forever project which I'll talk about in a separate post.  These are most of the left over 9 patches from that project, started about 15 months ago.  It made a nice donation baby quilt.

This very fun quilt was made using up 2.5 x 4.5 left over novelties.  The idea was from a free pattern called Finding Your Way Home by Free Spirit Fabrics.  I did not follow the pattern, but instead just started laying out the rectangles while referring to the pattern picture.  This version only uses one quadrant of the pattern but made a nice size for a baby quilt.  I'll definitely be doing this one again (or some variation).

The next quilt is a much-repeated pattern called Frugal Patch.  It is one way to use up some of the miles of piano key strips left over from fussy cutting.  It had been a few years since I had made one.

I still have some left over patriotic fabric donated by a quilting friend who has now moved to Chicago.  I decided to try and use up some of what I had on a pattern seen online. I'm calling it dancing waves and it is kind of a strange pattern to lay out, but it has lots of movement.  I was able to use up the beige star fabric from the donated fabrics. 

Another quilt to use up patriotic scraps.  This pattern from Bonnie Hunter's String Fling book is one I've made previously.  This time rather than the usual strings, I used fabric printed lengthwise for bindings.  I also was able to use some cream fabric from my stash, no idea where it came from as I never purchase off white fabrics.  But it worked perfectly for this quilt.  The red triangles are some VERY old fabric from my stash.

A quilting friend who lives in New Zealand made one of these that caught my attention.  She always has such great scrappy quilts and I've gotten several ideas (and a pattern) from her.  This pattern was designed by Revelation Quilts and called Faux Diamonds.  There is lots of cutting, then sewing, then more cutting, then more sewing.  But it does turn out very dramatic.  It made a small dent in my blue basket of scraps. 

This variation of shadow box turned out very nicely.  I like all the movement created by the dark vs light strips.

And another novelty using black and white which turned out very striking but was super easy to sew.  I made strip sets for the black/white/black and reverse sections between the novelty squares, so it went together very fast.

I've always been intrigues by tessellations and the art of E.C. Escher.  I've looked at several patterns over the years but always decided they were too intricate to piece.  Then I ran across this cat one.  The fabric was donated by my cousin, who thought it looked like something I'd like.  It was perfect for the cat bodies.