A Bunch of Little Quilts

I've been sewing up a small storm of small quilt projects.  First I used up all the leftover fabric from the St. Patrick's Day placemats project that I showed in my last post.  Then I used up some random pastel squares and triangles I had from other projects with some old Easter egg fabric to make a couple Easter themed placemats. 

The completed green mini quilts:

Random scraps.

Tiny one inch squares.

Some leftover two inch squares.

More random leftover pieces.

This Easter egg fabric I've had for several years. I made a quilt square as a table centerpiece with it several years ago and I look at it now and wonder what was I thinking.  It's so bright!

I used fabric colors that matched the bright colors in the print and they really really stand out. When I decided to do something more with this fabric I choose matching pastel fabric and less of the Easter egg print to tone down the overall effect and these Easter placemats are much calmer. 

There are leftover pieces from at least seven different projects in this block.

But the backs of these quilts are bold. 

Besides doing holiday themed placemats, I also put together a quick one that my son would like from this neat matrix like fabric. No patchwork here, just neat prints. 

Thanks for reading.

Aileen Biser

Green Spring Quilts

I ended up making several projects from the St. Paddy's Stonehenge 2 fabric I mentioned in a previous post. I began with eleven fat quarters which amounts to 2 and 3/4 yards of fabric.

My initial goal was four St. Patrick's Day themed placemats. 

One.

Two. 

Three. 

Four. 

Five. 

I ended up with five 14" x 20" quilted placemats.

But I still had leftover fabric and several odd size scraps of fabric. 

So I decided to see what else I could get out of the remaining fabric.

I ended up with four more scrappy patchwork pieces.

But I still have a pile of tiny scraps, and I have an idea for how to use them, 

but that will include some watercolor paper, paint, random stencils and maybe some collage papers. Not sure at all what this will turn out to be.

I wonder how many projects I can squeeze out of this one bundle of fat quarters?

Thanks for Reading.

Aileen

Faux Rock Painting

Two weeks ago I started a project to paint a basement wall. It's basically a 6' by 6' space that will be used as a desk alcove. One wall will be covered with panelling and the concrete block walls are to be painted. I've had this idea to paint rocks on a wall but never had a wall to test my idea. Idea meet perfect opportunity.

The basement alcove.

The faux rock wall painting steps.

The floor painting steps.

The Before and After photos.

A little GIF of the project can be seen here https://youtu.be/MCBza48n0nk.

Thanks for Reading.

Aileen

St. Patrick's Day Placemats

The St. Paddy's Stonehenge 2 fabric placemats are coming along nicely. I drew up several design options but initially settled on a couple clover patchwork designs. I searched my design encyclopedias and found nothing that looked like a clover so I sketched out an idea for a very simple to construct clover block.

After making several of the smaller clover blocks I found some heart patchwork patterns and realized they could be adapted to a clover layout and made this simple but larger clover block. 

After making several of the smaller clover blocks I began sketching different layout options and I decided on this simple plan for a 14" x 20" placemat. 

The larger clover block is also set in a 14" x 20" layout with side checkerboard blocks. 

I have two more placemats to piece and at this point I think I may try to scale the larger clover block pattern down in size and make a third clover block pattern. I also have some ideas for Celtic ribbon patterns that I am may piece last. These are a little trickier to piece and look best with a directional fabric.

Thanks for reading. 

Aileen 

Cat Tested Heart Patchwork Placemats

I finished the Valentine's Day placements yesterday and they are currently undergoing intense cat testing for sleepworthyness. I'd say they were doing a good job. Too bad that bright light is an issue for the kitty. 

The completed quilts before washing:

And after washing:

I love the crinkled softness of the quilted pieces after they are washed.  

My next project: St. Patrick's day placemats with this awesome St. Paddy's Stonehenge 2 fabric. I'm thinking of some sort of celtic knot design but haven't graphed it yet.

Thanks for reading.  

Aileen

Patchwork Hearts and Cookies

Well, Valentine's Day is over and I didn't do much for it but I did make heart shaped cookies. 

And I continued working on the heart patchwork project. As usual, these new placemats won't be done on time for this year but I'll have them for next year. I have two more of these heart patchworks to piece, then some quick machine quilting and the binding. That's actually still several hours of work spread over a few more days. That's a lot more satisfying than spending several weeks or months on a project. 

Problem is I have more than enough cut pieces to make four placemats. Do I put the leftovers back into storage for some future project or just sew them all together in some random way an see what happens? Around my house every surface has some size quilt thing on it. I change them out throughout the year and have some made specifically for holidays. I suppose a couple more pink table quilts could be used someplace. But I suspect I'll be itching to move on to something else by the time I finish the heart placemats.

And I finished the bead project I was working on. I ended up choosing pyrite, amazonite, serpentine, turquoise, a copper penny token, and a bone arrowhead for the charms. I added in some jade, goldstone, marble, rhodonite and agate, as well as for interest and more good energy.

This has been a good week. Thanks for reading. 

Aileen

Faux Rocks and Valentines

I haven't had much energy or motivation this past week. The only explanation is it's February. But I did play around with a few things. 

I dabble in polymer clay from time to time. I am by no means any more than a beginner in this medium. I've learned enough to do a few little fun things. One of those fun things is making faux rocks and little hearts. The rocks I'm using as makeshift wall hooks for jewelry and small decorations. The hearts I just like to make and keep in a jar. 

Faux rocks. 

Jar of hearts. 

Valentine's Day will be here and gone probably before I do something for it. But something about holidays makes me think "Oh, Valentine's is coming, I should do something." But what? Maybe heart shape cookies?, a heart shape cake? some sort of decoration, or new placemats? I don't know. It's just a distraction. So I dug through my fabric stash and leftover cut fabric pieces and came up with a pile of pink pieces. Problem is some if this fabric is from the 'pinkish/mauvish' decorating period (1980's) and is just not appealing to me anymore. So I think this is a perfect opportunity for me to try out some fabric paint I have to see if I can 'fix' some of these colors. 

Odds and ends of fabrics in pink shades. Some of these are decades old. Does that make them 'vintage'? I realized looking through this fabric that some of it is very close in color to the 2015 color of the year, Marsala. Maybe that's why I don't like this year's color. Been there, done that.

Red and yellow fabric paint. 

But I got bored with that fabric painting process pretty quick and the painted fabric didn't look that much different than the unpainted fabric. Plus there were too many pieces to do. Instead I decided to cut some new brighter pink squares to mix in with the old colors to even out the overall effect once they are all sewn together. At least that's what I hope will happen. And I organized my stacks while pondering design options. I'll start with a simple heart placemat pattern. 

Neat stacks of squares and triangles, because I don't feel like sewing yet, and a simple square and triangle patchwork pattern.

I also have been washing some scrap of old wool fabric to see how well they full (felt). Again, with Valentine's in my head I'm pondering ideas using the felted wool in something. But I just keep cutting hearts trying to decide what to use them for. 

Red plaid, greys and black washed wool. 

Felted wool hearts.

There is a lot of indecision happening right now and not much crafting. So I decided to finish something I started in December and did complete another earth power bead strand. I just have to decide what gemstone charms to add on the end rings. Decisions, decisions. 

My options for charms - pyrite point, bone arrowhead, amazonite, serpentine, turquoise, Rhodonite, and assorted bone beads and copper charms. 

Thanks for reading. 

Aileen