Recent fun with novelties

 After reading a discussion in a quilting group about the size of people's stash (3000 yds & more), I felt very convicted about my own stash of novelties (which is well over 50% of my total stash and very likely near 3000 yds).  So I determined to go through all of it, cut one 4.5" strip and two 2.5" strips off of every piece.  Then iron & refold the remaining large pieces neatly, cut up any small pieces and make up a bunch of kits ready to sew.  I've realized over the years that I really dislike the fussy cutting and refolding.  So having precut strips in my most used sizes saves time a lot of time & effort and encourages me to get sewing.

The resulting newly cleaned baskets were so neat and pretty and gee I had a bunch of room in every color.  And look at all those strips, organized by color, and ready to be cut into kits (4 baskets full and now I know why so much room in the others).  

And here are some quilts.  The first one is what I call a chandelier quilt.  Very dramatic.  I don't love doing on-point layouts because of the bias but they do look very cool.

This next one was super super easy because the precut strips were already grouped by color, many of them ironed and cut together.  All I had to do was cut off the end.  Very fun, I'll definitely be making more like this.

I got the idea for this from the pattern called Woven Whimsey by Mill Street Quilt Company.  But I changed the construction method to maximize the novelty fabric piece sizes.  It made it more complicated than the original pattern and I'm not sure it was worth it.  But it was a good experiment.

This is super simple pattern just uses a strip set of 4 rails, then add a triangle.  Putting the blocks together was a little fiddly because you end up with matching seams but I was able to nest them without too much trouble.  And they didn't have to match exact.

After all the cutting, I was overrun with left over strips less than my standard 2.5" wide.  So I made a BUNCH of piano keys for borders.  But I had so many I decided to make a string quilt to use up some. I've done this pattern several times and it's very easy and a great way to use up scraps of varying sizes.

The idea for this quilt came from a very graphic quilt a friend made using batiks.  It's basically a trip around the world layout, but with black sashing between the columns.  It didn't turn out as well as the original, but it's not bad.

I found this pattern called Valor, designed for QOV.  But it works great with novelties.  It was especially fun because I got to both match colors for the large squares as well as use other fabrics in the small ones that never get used because they don't match anything else (especially the tans).  This one is definitely worth repeating.

With all those precut strips, I'm excited to get a bunch more novelties done this summer.  Stay tuned!