Leftovers Get New Lives

Although I find the 'stitch and flip' method for adding squares to rectangles to make corner triangles quick, it produces leftover triangles. If the squares are less than 2 ½", I toss them. When the squares are 5", as were those in Suburbia, it means leftover HSTs that, when sewn back together, are 4", finishing at  3½", much too big to waste, and, get this: there were 65 of them!! What to do? Make a matching cushion, for starters!

When Brady was here in August, I had just finished making Suburbia. It is going to Jordan, Brianne's boyfriend, for Christmas. Brady always like to sew something when he's here, so I asked him what he thought of sewing the HSTs, which I'd sewn back together and squared up as I made the quilt, into a coordinating cushion cover. He thought that was a great idea, and started playing around with them to make his own design. I'd shown him several ideas that one can do with versatile light/dark HSTs, but he said, "No, Nana, I want to do my own thing."

I shouldn't have worried one iota, but I did say to be careful it doesn't turn out to be a hot mess (poor choice of words, I admit; some subsequent hurt feelings on Brady’s part, I found out later, and for which I deeply and wholeheartedly apologized). I'd forgotten just how creative he is, and that he'd taken an Art class the previous year in grade 11, learning about value, colour, perspective, and much more, where he'd produced some incredible work in his Art portfolio. I was blown away when he stepped back and said, "Well, Nana, what do you think?" and showed me this 'lozenge' type design using sets of six HSTs! 

I loved it. When they're sewn together, it really has movement, doesn't it? I had him sew it together using the 'Book it!' method, a technique I learned way back in my early days of quilting when I took a colour wash class, and still use today for assembling most of my quilts. The tutorial is under the Tips and Tutorials tab. He started off great, stitching away on my Featherweight, but after a couple of sewing sessions, he lost interest, and this was where it has sat since, three columns ‘booked’ and the top rows sewn into 4-patches. Well, my 'to do' list was caught up, so I pulled it out and sewed it into a top. I made one small HST change where the three blues, actually two different shades, come together in the left column. 

I layered the top with a 100% cotton flannel batting and a beige tonal fabric as backing, and popped it onto Avril to do some stitching in the ditch horizontally and vertically. When it came to the straight diagonal lines, I had an issue with a ‘blockage’ at times on Avril when I’m stitching on diagonals, worse going lower right to upper left, which my husband is going to check into further. Might be Bella dander and fabric and thread lint gummed up in the wheels. The table may also need re-levelling. I do clean the track every quilt or two. So I took it off and went to my Bernina. I wanted to accentuate the zigzag effect he’d made so I did straight lines along their path with my walking foot. I then put it back on Avril to do the vertical ‘water’ FMQ in the light diamonds and dot-to-dot in the squares on point. 

I totally forgot to take a photo of the back of the cushion but know that I had enough left of Suburbia’s backing to make an envelope-style back. You can see a tiny bit of that gray peeking out at the bottom of the cushion.

Brady highly approved!

Placemats

I still had 29 HSTs left. Sit back, take another sip of your coffee or tea, and settle in for storytime. About a month ago, Brianne had asked if I'd make a mug rug for a good friend of hers. She'd recently been to his house for the first time. This friend, like so many gay people, leads a double life. He has been married to his husband for well over a decade, yet very few people know this. His place of employment does not know, nor can they, or he would be dismissed on the spot. This sounds ridiculous in today's world, yet it is a fact. This is Alberta, remember, the MAGA province of Canada: Make Alberta Great Again, I kid you not, hats and t-shirts, let's separate, become a state, deep longstanding hatred for Ottawa, a drill baby drill mentality. Know that this is not the case in all areas of employment; my favourite MLA (provincial government) is Janis Irwin, openly lesbian. My own brother lead a similar double life for many years until the owner of the well-known across-Canada company he worked for somehow opened his mind, and my brother was able to be fully himself at work, along with several other gay employees who now feel totally safe, accepted and equal there. Sadly, not so where Brianne's friend works.

So after her first visit to their house, my 'I don't like quilts' daughter requested a quilted item. I cannot tell you how profoundly it warms my heart, no, my entire being, when my daughters request quilts for their friends, or for themselves. Brianne requested that it have a Pride flag on one side, and dark colours on the other, as those were in their house. Apparently it isn't your typical, magazine-worthy décor gay home. I said I'd ponder things, and get back to her. To be honest, I kind of forgot about it what with working on Arabesque and all that goes with that, not to mention the several bag requests I got and those that sold and needed replacing over the course of the past month or so.

When I finished up Brady's cushion and still had those leftover HSTs, I realized they were perfect darker colours, and wondered, could they work for placemats? I had told Brianne that I felt a pair of placemats would be better used than one mug rug, and she was all for that! These finish at 3 ½", so a five by three layout would make a 17 ½" x 10 ½" placemat, not bad at all.

One done - love!

Some of you are ahead of me, I can tell... each placemat would take 15 HSTs, and I had but 29. Did I have any fabric left? I seemed to recall that the black and light black fat quarters had a bit left, so off to the black scrap box I went, fingers crossed. Score! I knew there were three full fat quarters left because only 17 of the 20 in the pack are used, so it took a second to open the plastic drawer of under-half-yard chunks of white and cream yardage to find one that would work. 30th HST made in no time.

May I just interrupt to say how very much I love spinning seams where four HSTs meet? I learned this years ago from Carrie Nelson's Schnibbles quilt book, and used it extensively on all three of my Postcard From Sweden quilts.

Two done and quilted. Ditch-stitched and a little dot to dot, both done on my Bernina, both with flannel batting. Love it for small quilted items.

The 'goes with the décor' side

Ready to ship. But first a glam shot. LOVE!

Remember she'd said she wanted the Pride flag on one side? Well, there was no way I was going to attempt to make the new one with the inserted triangle of stripes, but... would the six original colours of the Pride flag work evenly across the back? They'd certainly give the intended sentiment. A little math and OMG: six stripes, 1 ¾" wide each equals 10 ½". Cue the choir! With the Pride flag up on my computer for reference, I dug into my solids stash, and pulled the six shades needed. The green is a little off, but I think they'll forgive me as my green solids are minimal.

Let's be ourselves and celebrate our damn fine selves already, Queen!

This makes me a tad emotional thinking that the only place her friend can be truly and safely himself in all his humanity, is in his home, yet it also makes me emotional with joy thinking that he and his husband will love these so much. What a superb idea Brianne had.

For the binding I used an old Concord Fabrics blue with black and gold. Gotta bring a little bling into their world methinks!😉😜 

They, along with the cushion cover, are on their way to Alberta, in Brianne's Christmas parcel, as I type. Cannot wait until Brianne opens it and sees them in person. She yelled, "YASSS!!" when I showed her them on FaceTime last week.

Mission accomplished!

Next mission: play. Lots of choices.

I've decided to use some Christmas fabrics that have sat far too long, bought for a specific project that I now no longer recall, nor can find any record or photo in my phone as to what I had planned. So, I've long wanted to make an improv trees quilt, ever since I did my improv trees mug rugs in... gulp, 2017.

The tutorial for these is here. I based these on a quilt in Amanda Murphy's Christmas book. When I linked up Happy Christmas! at From Bolt to Beauty, I saw Michelle's trees quilt, and that sparked a possible use for this fabric. Her trees quilt is made with Amy Smart's tutorial. So on Sunday I started one with this bundle that I love, Chalkboard Snowman, by Jennifer Brinley, popping them up on the design wall as I make them. I bought six fat quarters plus a yard of red. I kind of think it was to make a large cushion? Maybe a table topper? Anyhow, I can easily get 20 tree blocks, and use the yardage of red as a border. They should make an adorable baby quilt, or maybe I'll keep it for a take to yoga quilt or boomer blankie in the car for on my lap. It has a Scandinavian flair to it, doesn't it? I love that it is wintry, not really Christmassy after all. Don't worry, I still have several chunks and self-made little bundles of Christmas fabric, and a couple of cushion patterns pulled up on my laptop. I may just get another trees quilt made; I even bought the perfect backing for the second one which was the first one in actuality! Ha!