Crumb Quilt-Along #6

Last night I began working on Log Cabin blocks for the Crumb Quilt-Along sponsored by Jo's Country Junction. Here's what I learned from this phase of the project.

You can put more than one of your Log Cabin units face down on a single strip to quickly add the same fabric to all of the units at the same time. (You probably can't see the long strip very well in this photo because it's white -- just like the table.)

As your block approaches its finished size, it's a good idea to use really wide strips. Had the red heart fabric been 3/8 of an inch wider, this block would have been ready to trim.

Instead, I had to add another light strip and then off-set the ruler so that the final light strip would be triangular rather than an impossibly skinny rectangle.

 Here are two other finished blocks. A fourth one is almost done, but I need to post before leaving for work.

As Jo suggested, I'm going to use these blocks for the corners of the quilt. My colors for these are quite a bit darker than the previous blocks. Log Cabins always scream, "Contrast! Contrast! Contrast!" while I'm sewing them. So what can I do but obey?

Crumb Quilt-Along #5

Due to circumstances beyond my control (a.k.a. "real life"), I'm a week behind on Jo's Crumb Quilt-Along. So this week I've been working on liberated blocks made with triangles. When I rummaged through my drawer of white scraps, I discovered that I had a lot of small, white triangles.

I paired them with rectangles like this and sewed down the hypotenuse of each triangle using an approximate 1/4 inch seam.

Then I cut away the excess colored fabric . . .

. . . and pressed open the resultant square.

I found that I could also pair single white triangles with any colored scrap of approximately the same size.

Here are some of the 1/2 square triangles I made:

 And here are the three blocks I finished:

I like these blocks, but even though I did them without any measuring, they don't look very wonky. I suppose that's because I started out with the precut white triangles.

I look forward to doing some Log Cabin style blocks next, and hope to be caught up to everyone else by the end of the week.

Crumb Quilt-Along #4

This week we are doing Nine Patches and Four Patches. (You can see all of the steps here at Jo's Country Junction.) Usually, I can't get to my crumb project until Friday, my day off. This week I had to work on Friday, so I didn't actually sit down at the sewing machine until Sunday evening.

Fortunately, I had quite a few trimmings left from previous projects which  I thought would give me a head start on this week's blocks. Unfortunately, I was half asleep.

I'm not very satisfied with this little Nine Patch. I surrounded it with precut half-square triangles. It just looks blah. I think that the value of the inner triangles is too close to the value of the outer ones.

This little four patch is even more disappointing. Not enough contrast, I think. I put the pink half-border  on in an effort to perk it up a bit. I think I'll have to make a few more Four and Nine Patch based blocks just to prove to myself that I can do it

Crumb Quilt Inspiration: The Case of the Teeny Tiny Triangles

"The true economy of housekeeping is simply the art of gathering up all the fragments, so that nothing be lost. I mean the fragments of time, as well as materials. Nothing should be thrown away so long as it is possible to make any use of it, however trifling that use may be..." Lydia Marie Child, The American Frugal Housewife, 1832.

When I read this quotation, crumb quilting immediately leapt to mind as it makes use of my smallest bits of fabric. Though I probably waste too much time rooting through my scrap drawer in search of the right color or perfect sized bit for those cute little flying geese units or star points.

Which also reminds me . . .

Years ago I bought a grab bag of scraps at my guild's Trash & Treasures meeting. The contents included a Ziploc bag of tiny right triangles. But how could I use them? I always work with preshrunk fabrics, but obviously I couldn't toss these little guys into the washer -- not even in a lingerie bag. They'd turn into a tangled mass of threads. So they remained in my stash all these years. And though I considered them unusable, I couldn't bring myself to throw them away.

Yesterday, when I was making my Wonky Star blocks, it occurred to me that these little triangles might be useful as star points. Perhaps I could preshrink them by spraying them with water and then ironing them dry. I put a piece of muslin on my ironing board and gave it a try.

Eek! The color from the triangles leached into the muslin. So much for that idea.

But what if I sewed them into something that would never be washed -- such as a pin cushion?

I'm having a go at that tonight. If it doesn't work out (and I have real doubts about what will happen when all those points meet in the middle) maybe I really had better toss them in the trash. After all, Ms. Child mentions advocates the wise usage of "fragments of time, as well as materials." 

Crumb Quilt-Along #2

Today I finally got to sit down and do my free-hand flying geese blocks for the crumb block sew-along at Jo's Country Junction. These were fun, but very slow to make. I'm trimming them with my six inch ruler which means that they'll finish at five and a half inches.

Here's a picture of the first one before trimming. I wasn't thrilled with it and resolved to attempt some smaller geese.

 

These geese are smaller and cuter.

Here's another photo taken after the blocks were trimmed.



I like them, especially the one with the smaller geese, but I find that I'm using more strips than crumbs. I read on Bonnie Hunter's website that she makes three and a half inch blocks. I think that would probably make it easier to use up more of the tiny scraps. Not to mention being unbearably cute. But you'd probably have to be really crazy to attempt a whole quilt made with such tiny blocks.

I was trying to explain crumb blocks to a friend when I suddenly remembered that this is not the first time I've worked on a crumb-like project. Years ago I was working on a "Mile-A-Minute" quilt, inspired by an article by Carol A. Coski in the Winter 2000 issue of American Quilter. Ms. Coski speeds up the process of crumb piecing by sewing her small scraps to a long strip of fabric and then cutting them apart to make little two patches.  These "twosies"are then rotated and sewed to another long strip and then cut apart to make "threesies. And so on and so on. Basically, you are making crazy patchwork fabric. (I tried, unsuccessfully, to find a website by the author which might explain this process in more detail. However, here's a link by another blogger giving a short tutorial for it.)

Here's a picture of the quilt top I pieced using this technique:

Here's a close-up of one corner:

The basic unit looked like this:

The sashing and cornerstones helped to stabilize the bias edges which some of the blocks had after cutting. Then I joined them into rows.

I never finished it because I decided that I'd rather have a lap quilt than a wall hanging. I even cut more sashing and cornerstones, but in all the bustle of moving (four years ago), I never got back to it. I'm thinking that perhaps I will sash the special crumb blocks that Jo is teaching us to make and add them to this quilt.

And after that, who knows? My mind keeps returning to the thought of those three and a half inch blocks. Maybe I am that crazy!

A Crumby Temptation

Oh, dear! So little time -- so many enticing projects.

I just found out about the "crumb-along" which is being hosted at Jo's Country Junction. Every Tuesday for the next ten weeks, Jo will be posting "...ideas on fabric requirements, block construction, layouts and the like. You'll have a week to make 2-10 blocks a week depending on your preference and your schedule." Her goal is to make 36 six-inch blocks for a baby quilt, though participants can make larger or smaller projects as they prefer.

While re-organizing my sewing room I've become aware of just how many crumbs I have. So I'm very tempted to dive into this sew-along. (Actually, I have two other crumb drawers as well as a couple of plastic bags so the situation is dire!)

I think I might try making 3 1/2 inch blocks a la Bonnie Hunter so that I can use up my tiniest crumbs. (See her crumb tutorial here.) Then I could save the bigger crumbs for the project on yesterday's post.