Clemson Tiger Rag Quilt

     Another Project Quilting in the books!! This time I was really glad the theme was something I loved, “Team Colors”.  If you have been around my family anytime, you know that we are a Clemson family.  Win or loose,  Good times or bad, we will cheer them on. 

  This time I really think I overdid it and should have chosen a simpler quilt.  Actually, I should say smaller.  This was actually simple, but the 689 pieces took forever to sew and square up.  But of course that’s not who I am.  I usually don’t take the easy road.

  My father in laws 73rd birthday is next week.  So I knew that this would be the perfect gift.  He’s over 6 foot tall, so it needed to be long.  

     I went into my bin of shirts that I was saving to make my boys a T-shirt quilt.  Instead of pulling out a shirt, I found a few Tiger Rags from games we went to with my father in-law.  My husband chose the rag because of what it said.  Then it was on to picking a design. 

I found a couple of designs off of Pinterest. In my usual fashion, I started to design my own quilt combining the quilts. I started with making 8.5 inch blocks of 7 different fabrics and a white background.  

     Using a quick half square triangle method, each 8.5 inch square set became 8 half square triangles.  I then square them up to 3.75 inches.  This made 3.25 inch finished blocks.  I cut the Tiger Rag to fit the center. 

     Then I went to playing with the design. I liked how these borders laid out, so I went with the repeat in rows.  At the corners I ran out of purple blocks so I compromised. But I love how the quilt turned out. 

To finish it off, I free motion quilted ribbon candy in the long white rows. Then figure eights in the white triangles and meandered in the center. The backing is a tone on tone purple.

I kinda love this quilt!! 

     Project Quilting time again.  The time of year where I get so many quilts finished!! This year, Kim with Persimon Dreams posted a new Scrap Challenge that started a week before.  What she didn’t know was that it fit the first weeks theme!! The block for January for the Challenge is the “Nine patch” and Week ones challenge is “Notably Numeric”.

   
     So I decided to combine them with the block made of “nines” and done number fabric! When the scrap challenge came out,  I pulled out a book I recently bought called “Irish Chain Quilts, Contemporary Twists on a Classic Design” by Melissa Corey.  Then the weekly challenge came out and I knew exactly the quilt I wanted use. “Charm Bracelet”

     It’s a fairly quick quilt with a modern spin. Nine patches are cut at an angle and bordered.

     One of my biggest goals this year is using up my scrap stash! My stash somehow keeps growing as people give me theirs. I somehow can’t throw them away!!  I pulled out my scrap precut squares and my large bucket of scraps.  Then I dug thru my fat quarter bin to find the white number fabric quarter.  My quilt plan was quickly developing!

     The blocks went together quickly.  Cutting scraps into blocks and border pieces took the longest.

     I made 30 blocks total, even though the original pattern called for 16.  I actually followed the directions to the T for the first time. So I guess, increasing the size what how I made it my own! Lol! I just needed it big enough to fit both challenges!

     The backing is actually an old sheet from some linens that were given to me.  Binding is some fabric that I just couldn’t grow to like. Actually, the only yardage put into the entire quilt!

     The quilting is a pattern called Smoky Circles.  It’s part of the designs I am working thru in a free motion quilting class. I decided when I started the class that I would try to work thru each design as an entire piece.  Well, hours later, it’s done!! My quilting sure does improve by the end!

The post that never posted..

 

  Just realized that February of last year was my last post.  Boy did I let life steal my crafting joy and take up my time. I did finish sooo many quilts.  I will try to showcase a few here and then some more later as time allows!!

     Here is a very scrappy snowball block quilt.  The snowballs are made of cut of triangles from blocks or binding.  All of the blocks are cut to 3.5 inches.  I had a bunch of scraps cut to 3.5 inches, so this quilt came together quickly!

     I started a Free motion Quilting class put on by String and Story.  My goal is to work my way thru her designs on a whole quilt.

And here it is over a year later abc I am lost to ever remember who I gave this quilt up too.. somehow I never posted this post or even finished the blog.  But cleaning up and letting it out to record the history.  Done, some time in 2019..