From beginning to end

After nearly 4 months the stained glass scrap quilt it finally finished and hanging in the stairwell. I must say it was a long journey. It's a journey that I'm glad is over.  The photos below will give you some idea of how long and complicated it was.


















Sewing strips....lots of strips. It felt like thousands of strips. 1 3/4 inch strips.

One of the fabrics created from the first sewing of strips.

Cutting these fabrics up again into strips at a 45 degree angle and sewing them back together again.

Cutting these fabrics into diamonds.

Arranging the diamonds and adding  3/4 inch sashing.

Adding borders and quilting and blocking.

Binding and adding sleeves and hanging. Hard getting a good photo in the stairwell.

A finished quilt....never again!!!!!!

Stained glass quilt that still needs a title! 70 inches wide.

Now to figure out a title. I don't know if I am just worn out, but getting a title for this one has proven to be harder than normal.

I have been searching song lyrics trying to find some ideas....

• Daylight or sunlight through a stained glass window.
• On a bright May morning.
• Morning has broken.
• Colorful lights
• Queen of Diamonds
• Diamonds are not a girl’s best friend

Any thoughts???

Thanks for reading. Linking to Nina-Marie.
Chris

It’s blocking

The stained glass scrap quilt is finally blocking on the floor of our utility room. It was a lot of work quilting it due to its size. The quilting is spaced 3/4 inch.  I'm glad that is done. It is still off of square by 3/4 inch which is a 0.73 % error. I'm just going to have to live with that. I refuse to do much more stooping to measure and try to figure out where it is off and pull the quilt to get it to be perfect.  I'm blaming it on too much stretching during the piecing as well as the quilting. It is what it is. No contest entries for this one.  I will just enjoy it's beauty as it hangs in my stairwell. I never should have measured the diagonals to begin with. 

Now to figure out a title. My husband suggested "I hate circles!" He heard me swearing at various points during the making of this quilt. I think I said I hated this quilt several times over the last 4 months! 

I thought about "Learn to be still" from an Eagles song. I thought that might be appropriate for making it during the pandemic and having to stay at home and modify our behavior.

At any rate thanks for reading.

Linking to Nina-Marie. http://ninamariesayre.blogspot.com/

Chris

Pinning has begun

I've been really careful trying to make sure the sashing looks straight. I eyeball it, use a long ruler, and the laser level I got for Christmas. The sashing really stands out so I'm trying to make sure it is as straight as possible.

I decided to pin in the sashings first and then add pins to the diamonds. I figured once I got the sashing more or less straight I would want to keep it that way. That's why I have begun anchoring the quilt there. I think if I just pinned in the blocks the sashing should shift a bit while quilting and destroy all my hard work. I will quilt in the ditch next to the sashing first. I think I will quilt in purple thread since it goes with most of the fabrics.

Thanks for reading.

Stay safe. I don't know about you, but my hair is out of control!

Chris

Thank goodness.....

The top is finally sewn for this scrap quilt. It has been nearly a 3 month journey. I will never make a diamond quilt again. Things are not as square as I am used to. Borders do not lay as flat as I would like them to. And yes I measured the center of the quilt and cut the borders that length. Hopefully after quilting and blocking I will be happier. I don't want to make a geometric quilt for a long time!

I’ve been soaking my backing fabric for days and the dyes are still coming out. I made the mistake of buying a batik at Joann’s fabrics. I called them and they basically told me there was nothing they could do about it. So now I have 7 yards of backing fabric that bleeds.

Thanks for reading.

Chris
Linking to Nina-Marie. http://ninamariesayre.blogspot.com/

What happened this week

I managed to get the interior of my stained glass scrap quilt completely pieced. Now I just have to cut off the diamonds at the edges to make it square. That's always a lot of fun! Meanwhile I heard back from Cherrywood fabrics and they are sending me a piece of fabric that matches the sashing in the quilt. It should arrive today. I've been soaking the backing fabric and will have to do that with the Cherrywood fabric as well.

This week I took a live online gelli printing class on Zoom which worked out really well.

Here are my prints. Click on the photos to enlarge them.

The class continues for 2 more weeks and then I will take a second class on creating a journal from the prints.

I keep forgetting to mention the baby ducklings we rescued on Penn State's campus about 2 weeks ago. It's a long story with my husband and some other guy doing the rescue. The mother had nested in a safe spot, but the ducklings couldn't get out of it.

Here are some photos of the ducklings in a box and after they were reunited with their mother in a pond. There were 12 of them!

Linking to Nina-Marie.

https://ninamariesayre.blogspot.com

Thanks for reading.

Chris

Nearly there and then a problem

I'm almost done sewing the top together. I have 2 more sashing strips to do. I went to soak the last 2 yards of the Cherrywood sashing and border fabric and found that it does not match the first 2 yards. The piece I've been using is darker. Their website says that they dye in 2 yard pieces, but if you order more than 2 yards they will come from the same dye lot. They are not even close. You can see the difference in the photos below.

I called them and I had to send a strip of what I've been using to see if they can match it better. I sure hope so. I have enough of the darker one to finish the sashing, but not enough for the borders. I could kick myself for not looking at the fabrics closely when they arrived. I just assumed that they matched. Should be interesting to see if they are able to resolve this and how long it takes.

The piece I've been using is on the bottom

Sashing strip on top of the lighter fabric

Thanks for reading.

Linking to Nina-Marie.

Chris

Sewing the diamonds together

I'm finally sewing the sashing to the diamonds. Making sure the diagonals line up is a little tricky, but I think I've finally found a way that works for me. Here it is taken from an angle on my floor. It's too hard to hang back up on my design wall. Plus I'm worried about stretching it too much with handling.

Thanks for reading.
Linking to Nina-Marie. http://ninamariesayre.blogspot.com/

Chris

Click on the photo to get an enlarged view

Well the diamonds are cut and arranged.....all 93 of them

This has been a project! It’s been a good way to keep my mind off of things.

I drew in the sashing in an app on my iPad to see what this would look like with the dark black blue sashing. 

Now all I have to do is sew it together! It’s 60 inches wide. What do you think? My daughter’s comments were, “Wow, stunning. Looks like actual stained glass and I love the colors.”

Thanks for reading.

Chris

Bias, bias, and more bias

Well I have finally cut the diamonds for my scrap stained glass quilt. I am short by 10 diamonds so I have to make another piece of fabric. I am soaking some darker blue greens to get them ready for cutting. I think this quilt has made a serious dent in my fabric stash!

Here's some diamonds on my design wall. I'm still trying to work out what color of fabric to use for the sashing.

Today is my birthday.  My husband got me an antique child's sewing machine. It even works. It's so tiny and cute!

Linking to Nina-Marie.

http://ninamariesayre.blogspot.com

Thanks for reading.

Chris

Still working on scrap stained glass quilt

I guess it's a good time to have a project that will probably take 3 months from beginning to end.

 Here are my fabrics so far.

I am waiting for a diamond template to come from Missouri Star Quilts and thought it might be a good idea to make more fabrics while I wait.  I decided these fabrics have a lot of lights in them I needed some darks.

I found a photo of a nebula (gas cloud in space where new stars are born) that I altered years ago. This photo has a lot of my colors in it. I did however lack the dark blue purple that's in the photo. I wish I had seen this photo at the beginning of the project and used it for inspiration at the start.

So I am going to make a dark blue purple set. Here are my fabrics ready to be cut.I am thinking I might need a small set of that dark green as well. I guess I want to have lots to choose from when I lay out the quilt. The final quilt will be 60 inches wide so I will need a lot of fabric to cut into diamonds.

What are you doing during this pandemic to keep you busy? I have made 13 masks to send to family at this point.

Linking to Nina-Marie.

Thanks for reading.

Chris

Still making fabric....

I did take a break to make some masks to send to my daughter, but managed to get my green "fabric" sewn. I think it really looks great. Here it is next to my dark blue "fabric." What do you think? I love those sparks of yellow green!

I got out my masks from dyeing fabric for my husband and I to wear. Turns out they are N95 masks. I'm sure they are expired, but better than nothing. 

I hope you all are staying safe and well.

Here's a question for you....why are all the dried beans and flour sold out? Are people that have never cooked dried beans and never baked buying them? I usually buy beans from Rancho Gordo and you can't get any until May or June.  I guess those are the same people hoarding toilet paper. I wonder if there was run on fabric!!

Linking to Nina-Marie.

http://ninamariesayre.blogspot.com

Thanks for reading.

Chris

Second sewing of dark blue strips

First "fabric" created by piecing strips

I cut up the dark blue fabric into strips at a 45 degree angle. Then I sewed those strips end to end and then sewed the strips together again to make another fabric.

Second "fabric" created by piecing strips again

Here is the second fabric. Now I just have to do that re-piecing with the rest of the fabrics I created and then cut diamonds. I am trying to decided what size and shape to cut the diamonds for the quilt. I want to get the most diamond shapes out of my fabrics. I know diamonds are traditionally 60 degree diamonds, but I've seen plenty of quilts where they are not 60 degree diamonds. I guess they are parallelograms then!

This is absolutely crazy!!!!!!!

Thanks for reading.
Chris

Social distancing quilt

I have been working on my scrap stained glass quilt for a class on Academy of Quilting with Elizabeth. It's a lot of sewing. You cut strips from scraps, you sew them end to end, you fold that in half and sew those strips together, you keep folding it in half until you have a large piece of "fabric" then you cut up the "fabric" you made, sew that back together to make fabric again, and then eventually cut blocks.

Here are my fuchsia strips being positioned to be sewn together. The long strip stretches out the door and down the hallway. The basket is there to keep the 2 halves of the strips separated and tangle free.

Blue fabric. Still has to be cut into strips again.

Dark blue fabric after first sewing.

Green fabric strips sewn together. Still waiting to be cut up again!





















Hope you are keeping safe and virus free. We walked in downtown State College yesterday and on Penn State's campus. It was a ghost town. I have never seen it like that. Really scary.

Liking to Nina-Marie. Thanks for reading.
Chris

Last print

I finished my reduction print class yesterday. This is the best of the prints I made. Some of the others I did not get lined up very well. At any rate I think I like collagraph printing better.

Lots of cancellations due to the corona virus.

• Bus trip to Lancaster quilt show
• At least the first of the 4 sessions of my upcoming art quilt class
• The NYC St. Patrick's parade
• Other Olli classes that I am taking

I am so glad we did not plan any trips yet this year.

So it will be a good time to stay inside and work on a quilt.

My scraps are ready to cut into strips for my scrap stained glass class. We could vary the width of the strips, but I don't want to cut them until I know how we are going to sew them together. I find that out this week.

Thanks for reading. Linking to Nina-Marie.
Chris