What I’m Working On…

If you didn’t see Saturday’s blog post, I am hosting an auction for the community quilt fund.  You can find it HERE.  Monies raised help support the community quilt project.

I was busy quilting this week.  I actually accomplished a lot but it’s one of those weeks that makes it look like I didn’t accomplish much at all.

My Two-Step made a little bit of progress…

The quilt is in this book. You can find the book HERE on Amazon.

I have all of the units made.  Now I all I need to do is start sewing them together.

Bitcoin made some progress.  I got a backing made for it and I loaded it onto the quilting frame.  The lighting totally washes the color out.  It’s much prettier in person.

That is a Bonnie Hunter pattern…and is this next one, Garlic Knots.

This project made some progress too.  I have all of the blocks sewn that I cut out.  I have 104 plus the ones in the basket that need to be ironed.  This is a UFO and I don’t know what I originally had planned for it.  Right now I have more blocks than it calls for so I’m guessing my intention was to make it bigger.  I need to do a little more investigation and math on this once the blocks are all pressed to see if I need more, or if I’m good.

Last week I had 36 blocks made and this week, I have over 100.  I was happy with that progress.  My goal is always to make some type of progress every week on the projects that I am working on.

This week I was working on four different projects.  The next project is what got most of my attention.  It is my…
Scrap Vortex project.

If you aren’t familiar with the quilt, it was a quilt along hosted by Crazy Mom Quilts.  She doesn’t blog anymore but she has kept her site operating so old items can still be found.  More info on the quilt HERE.

I went through and relooked at the directions.  The original quilt was small and of course, I want to make a bigger quilt.  Goodness knows I have PLENTY of scraps and as long as the mess is out, why not make it bigger?

I printed off the directions and then I drew on the paper to see how I would make it larger.  What you see above is what I came up with.

I am making my blocks in 6 1/2, 12 1/2, and 18 1/2″ widths.  I worked super hard and got all of the 18 1/2″ blocks done.  I have 13 of the 12 1/2″.  Last week I only have one 12 1/2″ block done and some pieces so I’m really happy with my progress.

When I made these I’ve been using up lots of leftover units from over other quilts.  Here you can see some 2″ units that were previously sewn together.

These pieces are great starter pieces for making the scrap vortex quilt.  In the photo below I have some 1 1/2″ units from a previous project under the needle and I have units from the Christmas quilt that will soon be coming out in American Patchwork and Quilting.  Again, these make great starter pieces for this quilt.  I love that I am getting to use them up…I’m a little to waste girl!!

When first looking at them they do look a little Christmasy but once other pieces are added, they don’t look Christmasy anymore.  In the piece I created below you can see the 1 1/2″ units and the unit from the Christmas quilt.  I smile the whole time I sew these as this is going to be a quilt from nothing.  Many would throw these pieces away…not me, I work and more or less, get a free quilt from the leftovers that most would throw away.

When blog readers send mail and I get a bag of bitty pieces like this I often save them for myself.  Charity quilters don’t want to mess with little bits like this.

The last thing I accomplished quilting-wise this week was to get my batik charm quilt photographed and a blog post written for it.  Did you see it?

You can read all about it HERE.

I got so much great feedback on this.  Here are a few things that were said:
1-WOW, great quilt
2-I was never attracted to batiks before.
3-That would do great to offer on a benefit.
4-What a larger collection of batiks.
5-Great quilt with a simple design.

I also got a notice from someone who wanted to make one and let me know that they had found some batik charm packs on Amazon.

Here is one…find it HERE.  Many of these prints I recognize as being in my quilt.

HERE is another.

There are many different packs and you can see them all HERE.  If you have a limited amount of batiks, these would be great to add to what you have to give you a good variety of prints.

My quilt was in a 19 x 19 setting.  I used 361 5″ squares which made an 85 1/2″ x 85 1/2″ quilt.  My quilt started with some batik charms from blog reader Donna.  I really appreciated having the squares from her and that gave me a really good variety of scraps.

I had so much fun making the quilt that I’m super tempted to make another.  There is something really relaxing about sewing a simple square quilt.

With that, I’m off.  I have four projects that all need to move one step forward before I visit with you all next week in the next edition of “what I’m working on”.