Out of my Crayola box!

   

When I first saw this weeks Project Quilting theme, I was blank.  I didn’t know what to do.  As I scanned my sewing cabinet I realized I didn’t have very much bold fabric. I found an ombré Batik and pulled it out.  But it just wasn’t giving me the feeling that it was right.  Suddenly I remembered another Ombré fabric I bought last year.  Due to the way it was folded, you could tell what it was! Bingo!! Hard to believe the entire quilt is made of just 2 different fabrics. .

     I then pulled a 2 yard piece of black material out.  I wasn’t sure if a plan yet, but had a few ideas. I cut the fabric into 8.5 inch blocks.  Then I used the 4 at a time HST method.  Squared them up into 5.5 inch blocks.

As usual I googled several social media platforms for inspirations and found this stick on tile idea.  I separated the colors into yellow, green, aqua, blue and purple. There were some in between pieces that worked well for the middles.   I changed the star up in the centers bit and worked my way around from yellow to purple!

     I then quilted it using black thread.  You can barely see the swirls, but I finallly feel I perfected the pointy swirls with this quilt.  I didn’t like the plain colors so I tried to do just a bump in each.  I totally don’t like it, but it was a learning experience.

Bound it in the leftover black and my last challenge is done!! Measuring out at 50x60z. All of my Project Quilting quilts this season are full size!

    This weeks challenge is right up my alley.  People always ask me what I do with all my quilts.  They look funny when I say, “I give them all away”.  I do, I rarely keep anything, when I decide to keep something, someone usually says something that leads me to give it to them.

     This challenge of “Give It Away”, is the meaning behind the name of my blog.  Quilts and handmade blankets have always made me feel better.  I spent a bit of my life in Foster Care and It makes me feel good to make something and give it away.  The mix of the 2 developed the name Fostering Others.  I keep myself out of depression and honestly destress by crafting! So this theme fits my crafting life!

     My coworkers wife had a major cardiac event about 2 weeks ago.  She needs something to pick up her spirts.  So I went in my sewing room and knew what fabric would be perfect.  I know she loves her dogs!! A few months ago I bought some sale batik fabric from one of my favorite fabric stores with dogs and paw prints imprinted all over the fabric.

     I knew I wouldn’t have much sewing time this week, so I decided to do a big block quilt.  Just 2 colors of fabric to make a dramatic impact.   I made 12 churn dash blocks that were 18 inches each.  I originally planned 16 and decided that the quilt may be to big for hospital use.


   

Papas Overalls

 

We all have the special person in our life that makes the difference.  The one you can always depend on, who is always there and leads you in the right direction. For my husband and my boys, it was their Grandaddy Robert Lee Humbert, AKA “little papa”.  He passed away a few years.  My husbands cousin asked me to make a quilt from his clothes. So we went and collected a bunch.

     Fast forward a few years and I made her quilt and just sat on the rest.  Last year,  as I was cleaning out my craft room, I decided to make a jean quilt with his overalls and jeans. I am oddly one of those that goes with my heart and mind. I rarely use a pattern and invent my own.

     I cut a bunch of his jeans up into strips.  The largest square that could be cut to was 12.5 inches. So I cut out enough pieces of all sizes.  I then decided to add random pieces of fabric and shirts until each made a 12.5 inch square. All of the fabric used was fabric that also looked like shirting material.

     I decided to lay the quilt out corner to corner from the smallest original square to the largest. To kinda appear like it grew or a sunrise.

     For the backing I used a handkerchief replicating fabric.  Granddaddy always had one in his pocket.  When I saw it, I knew it was perfect!

I put it together last year and pinned it.  I just couldn’t decide how to quilt it. So I let it sit for about 6 months.  Frankie started talking about his Grandaddy everyday around the anniversary of his death.  I picked it up and knew just what to do.  I used a 12.5 inch quilting ruler to start randomly quilting each block with straight lines a little different.

     The binding is a jean material.

The photos are taken at lake Moultrie.  You can barely see the power plant in the background.  He worked at another up the road a bit.  His grandsons followed and 2 work at that plant and now his great grandson is also working in the power industry.

   

Birds of The Box

    Just over a week ago, I was given a box of material. As I was pulling out the big pieces of material, pieces of a flock of embroidered birds started to come out.  What ended up in total 38 state bird embroidered blocks.

The blocks were honestly amazing.  Each carefully embroidered with the states bird, the states name and initials and the painted with some type of fabric paint. They were all stained and crumbled up.  Sadly, I knew these blocks took a lot of someone else’s time. A few days later the challenge was announced of”Birds in The Air”.  I was thinking of all kinds of flying geese designs, but my mind kept going to these blocks.  I decided they might forever live in a box if I don’t do something with them now. 

I went home and soaked a block overnight in Oxiclean.  There was no running of colors and the block came out pretty clean! So I decided to do them all. So on Tuesday morning, I took them out and start the process of drying and ironing.  Sadly, due to the birds of different sizes and the holes and disfigured fabric, I had to cut the squares down smaller then I wanted to 7.5inches. 

I decided to set the quilt on point, since most of the birds were already on an angle. If I did 6 across and 6 down, it left 2 extra blocks. But I couldn’t leave any out.  Instead, I added 4 additional white on white blocks.  Laid these across the center.  Now I wish I would’ve have put them in the corners, but of course that’s an after thought. 

Because the blocks were stretched when embroidered, they were not the easiest to sew up straight.  But otherwise, they pieced together awesome!  I haven’t done a quilt on point in a long time, much less come up with the measurements for the side/corner pieces.  I found several blogs with graphs that made each, cut and calculation easy. Which made the layout and piecing Cake work. 

I started and just about finished the quilt layout at home, then took it to a retreat to finish. The red fabric I put in it was from my stash. I wanted the birds to pop.  The red tone on tone  matched the red birds.  Just simple. The backing was another fabric from the box, a yellow floral. 

I did not have my newer nice industrial Juki to quilt it.  Instead I had to borrow back my old Juki at the retreat. My quilting plan was not completely ideal when I started to quilt it, but I am one of those, once I start it, it’s gonna finish that way people. I used a type of embellished continuous curves in the red, then some basic meandering in the bird blocks. I recommend the blocks to be smaller for the continuous curves with Free motion quilting. The binding is a plain old red. 

I finished this quilt at the lake at my sewing groups first quilt retreat. These ladies saw the blocks before I cleaned them and squared them.  I soon learned that there is a bird lover in the crowd! Someone who may receive these blocks as a quilt! 

Pictures are all taken at Somerset Point at the Lake.  The cabins are where we stayed for our mini retreat! 

It’s Full of Hearts!!!

   The time during Project Quilting Season is my most productive time of year.  I feel like under a deadline I finish so much more! Might be a lot of the reason I like participating every year!! This weeks challenge is to put a heart in it.

     Of course with it being my work weekend when the challenge starts, I have plenty of time to think of what I might do.  Immediately after the naming of the challenge, I thought of a layer cake I had at home.  I thought there might be hearts in it.  I really wanted to use it. Some person I bout it from in a group took the wrap off  to ship it, so it just didn’t fit in my cabinet well.  

     From there I googled heart pattern quilts.  I just didn’t want any plain one.  I finally came across one from Missouri star that just had subtle hearts in it!  Using the layer cake and would work out just right!! The name is Happy Hearts.  It uses 25 of the 42 squares in the pack.  Trying to mostly use all of the darker to medium fabric.

      The blocks went together quickly,  spread out in 5 days along with working over 50 hours.  Laying them out was a little more difficult,  but I think turned out awesome! There are definitely 4 hearts hidden into the design.

     I made the white border a little wider then what the pattern called for.  I then used the leftover squares to piece together an outer border by cutting them in half.  This quilt finishes at 75x75. Yep, huge.  My goal is usually very functional!!

     The backing ended up not being the one I wanted, but the best option in a hurry.  I ironed it and sandwiched the quilt at midnight.  To get up early to FMQ.

     I put the last set of hearts in the white of the FMQ, with all the white sections having a grouping of echo hearts!

     The binding I used an old pink/red fabric out of my stash to go with the heart theme!  This quilt will likely go to a friend who is battling cancer that I am yet to give one too!

     Yep, I took my photos laying on the dirt on my dirt road.  A place I love.  The place that helped build me!! All in the name of the month of love!

   

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!