Scraps and Apps and Appliqué

I am having a blast with another of Cynthia's of Quilting is More Fun than Housework scrap-a-palooza quilts, this one the May quilt, which you can see here. I love playing with the colours in my stash, and I love piecing.  Love.  It.

I misunderstood her first directions to have lots of contrast, so I only cut 2.5" squares of dark and light blues, and had pretty much decided on an off-white with a bit of a salmon and kind of dull gold fleck in it for the zigzags.

And then, I saw hers coming together and realized, duh, contrast between the blues and the zigzags, dummy!  So I happily cut up a few a ton of mediums, and this past weekend allowed myself to start playing, sewing them together into blocks.  I decided to do both Block A and Block B, and see where it takes me; if I hate it, I can just add another row to Block B to make a Block A, right?

I let it sit for a few weeks, as I wasn't sure about the off-white for the zigzags, and I was working on a couple of other things.  I kept thinking how I do love blue and green together, so last night I shuffled through my green stash and found these two fabrics.

I quite like it!  What do you think?  I think the ivory would make for a duller, as in quieter quilt, but I still might do it just for fun.  I might have enough blue squares cut for a second quilt!  And a third...not gonna lie.  Unfortunately the dilemma now appears to be that I do not have enough of either green for the zigzags for my planned size, 7X8 blocks.  Ugh!  My quilt could be 6X7 blocks, which would be 48X56", so not a bad size for a lap quilt.  I did download the app Cynthia mentions, Robert Kaufman's Quilting Calculator, The Quilter's Little Helper.  I tried it just now, and my mathematical calculations of last night were about right.  But so much faster with this cool little app, which does much more than tell you how much yardage you need for 21 blocks that are 4.5" by 8.5" for example!

In my searching through the medium blues, I came across these beloved, blast from my quilting past fabrics:

My face is red from embarrassment, but these little babies are...


dear god....


from 1996.  I'm sorry, Cynthia!  I can't believe I have scraps that old!  Okay yes I can...  This was my very first quilt out of a quilting magazine, all cut with a rotary cutter, and all fabrics except the muslin backing, bought from Lori's Country Cottage, my then LQS.  My daughters, aged 8 and 10, stitched the strings of the mittens.

Here it is today:

It was my first attempt at stippling.  Not a quilted stitch in those burgundy borders, gulp!  I copied out this poem on the back, one I liked from our guild newsletter:

Gak!  WHAT is that brownish-red spot?  If you thought blood you are right.  I wish I had a story to go with it, but I've got nothin'.  Can't recall how that got there.  Nor why I haven't managed to get it out, since the quilt has been washed several times.  It sits out for the month of December and January (well, now only part of the month of November since we head south for the winter!) draped over a chair or a bench.  I'm happy to see that the Micron Pigma pens have held up so well.  The date on the opposite corner where the label is, a pre-made one that Lori's used to give out for free with a purchase, is December 1996.

I still do love these blue fabrics, especially the one with my two favourite shapes, hearts and stars, on it.  I'm glad they have found their way into this latest quilt.

I also am plugging away on my round robin:

Stole the idea from Judy at Quilt Paradigm to use a sampler as the background for the photo

There you have a half hour of work:  cutting out the shapes I'd traced from Steam-a-Seam 2, placing them on fabric, cutting again, leaving a slightly less than 1/4" seam allowance, folding seam allowance under, and gluing with gluestick, pressing.

And another half hour for these tiny petals, which are 1 1/4" finished in length

Linking up for Anything Goes Mondays at Stitch by Stitch.