Great HST Caper - out of HSTs

I found an alternate layout I like better for the blocks of my Great HST Caper.  This happened entirely by accident when I was putting some four patch units up on the design wall this morning and got some components turned around.  I continued with the alternate layout until I had four blocks on the wall to look at.

Then I put four blocks up of the pattern I was originally going to make, for comparison.

After looking at them both for a while, I find I prefer the new layout.  And since I took the rather wise path of twirling my seams, the layout will not be a problem because of seam butting.  I'm eager to get the blocks put together.  My excitement, however, was tempered by a problem.  I've hit a minor road block in my piecing...

I chose the name Distracted Quilter for my blog but could easily have used Oblivious Quilter or Forgetful Quilter and have it describe me very well.  In preparing to sew the last 60-something flying geese units for my Great HST Caper quilt, I discovered something horrifying... the bottom of the HST box is filled with 2" HSTs - not the 2.5" HSTs I've been using.  A little voice in my mind said "See, I told you so!  You should have stored these two sizes in separate boxes."  I hate that voice.  It always seems to deliver common sense logic with a rather patronizing or amused twist.  And, of course, now I remember that there were, indeed, two sizes in that box.  As I recall, I did it to reduce the number of boxes so it would fit on my closet shelf.... this was back when my entire stash fit in a few boxes that could be tucked away on a closet shelf.

So I have enough centres and corner units to make 30 blocks, but only enough flying geese units to make 15.  I almost cried.  But it's Remembrance Day and I've been listening to radio interviews with some of our brave veterans - in particular one young soldier who lost both legs in an IED blast in Afghanistan.  As I listened to him quietly describe his love of freedom and country, of doing what needs to be done.... well... somehow my miscalculating the number of half-square triangles for a quilt project no longer ranks up there with major disasters.  And I found myself wiping away tears for a more important reason.  My sense of the true importance of things re-established, I was better prepared to deal with the minor glitch that has my HST Caper off track.

So..... (deep steadying breath) I need another 62 flying geese units, which translates into 248 HSTs.  I can't believe I'm going to have to make more of them.  And I need them to be ultra scrappy to fit in with the rest of the components.  I pulled out a box that contains the scrap fabrics most of my HSTs were made with and started pulling 2.5" x 6" bricks and 2.5" x 4.5" bricks.  You really should stop buying fabric, my inner voice said.  "You could make another two quilt tops with just this box alone."  "Shut-up!" sez I, startling Lucas from a sound sleep.

I pulled out over 80 dark bricks, and as many light ones as I could find in the box, relieved to recognize most of them as fabrics used in the other 800-plus HSTs  of my block components.

I can use my Easy Angle ruler to cut them.  With this ruler, I can get a 2.5" HSTs from a 2.5" fabric strip.

I can get three 2.5" HSTs from two 2.5" x 6" bricks and two HSTs from the 2.5" x 4.5" bricks.  The cutting on the first 60 HSTs is done.

I just need to cut this many another three times, then sew, press, square....  And, of course, the left over small triangles are going to be thrown into the crumb box.  I briefly considered piecing them into 1.5" HSTs then dismissed that as an act of insanity.  This project already has me talking to myself.

Great HST Caper - update

I am making speedy progress on my HST project since yesterday.  Today I chain pieced all the 30 block centres and the 120 four patches for the corners.  I have half the 120 flying geese units pieced.  They are piled up on my ironing board for pressing.

I'm almost finished trimming the first pile of ironed scraps.  Last night I ironed up another big pile for my daily scrap trimming, and bagged all the remaining poly-cottons for flinging.  They filled a plastic grocery bag - about 10 yards worth.  The good news is that I won't have to trim them, although it hurts my heart to get rid of some of the fabrics.  There are some really pretty ones in the mix, but it seems that the prettier they are, the more they stink under a hot iron.  That must be a quilter's law or something.

My scrap bin is looking remarkably empty.  There are still six solidly filled plastic bags full of scraps at the bottom of the bin, but they are so compressed and flattened, the bin almost looks empty.

A lot of wasted time happens in the kitchen just standing and waiting - for coffee to brew, water to boil, baking to finish, etc.  After I moved a cutting mat to the kitchen counter, finding 15 minutes for daily trimming was no longer a problem.  Where do you waste the most time waiting?

Big Scrap Bin...trimming update

Since posting about my big scrap bin on wheels on Oct.17, I have been dutifully trimming my scraps with a daily discipline that can only be described as rather unusual for someone as distracted as me.  It's not that hard really.  I do it first thing in the morning while waiting with a half-functioning brain for coffee.  It takes 15 minutes for my coffee machine to dribble out a pot of fresh coffee (I never figured out how to set the timer on the darn thing), and my cutting mat is set up on my kitchen counter (it's the perfect height).

The first pile of ironed scraps looked like this three weeks ago....

It's been reduced by at least half....

The cutting on small bits is a little slow and tedious as I often have to turn the scrap and line up my ruler four times to get a useful brick or square from it.  And the finished piles were really slow to build in the first week.  But in the last couple of days, I've hit the motherlode of this pile - I've gotten to some rather large chunks.  I wouldn't describe them as scraps, even though they did come from another quilter's discards.  My own definition of scrap doesn't include 6" strips the entire width of 45" wide fabrics. Or squares the size of a fat eighth. These get the rough edges trimmed off and folded into corresponding colours in my yardage stash.  So the trimming is going really quickly these days.

And the amassed strips, squares and bricks has really piled up, enough that I've begun to worry that if  Lucas jumps up on them to investigate, I'll be restacking for hours.  So, these are getting tucked away in the strip bins today.

I'll cut strips as narrow as 1.5" (because I will use them), but if I can't get at least a 2" square or 2" x 3.5" brick from a small scrap, it gets chucked into the crumb bin.

I'm not quite sure what to do with quilt blocks or partial blocks... (presumably these were left-overs of numerous quilter's projects) I've been tossing these into the orphan block box for future consideration.  If nothing else, they would make an eclectic pieced backing fabric strip.

Scraps tend to be under-estimated.  A plastic grocery bag full of wrinkled jumbled scraps seems insubstantial - but it could weigh 2 - 3 lbs and that translates into 8 - 12 yards worth of fabric.  I just won't use them if I have to dig through a rumpled mass of irregular sized wrinkled bits of fabric.  I used to say I don't have much purple in my stash, but I have trimmed enough purples now to make an entire quilt.

I estimate that I have been gifted with 200 yards worth of scraps and discards over the last five years by quilters who couldn't face dealing with their scrap baskets.  It didn't seem like that much at the time, a small baggie here, another baggie there.  But in reviewing the strip bins (since my reorganization in August), I could probably make 4 queen size quilts (front and back) from the 2.5" strip bin alone!

15 minutes a day is going to eventually go through that big scrap bin, one coffee pot at a time.

The Fruits of my shameless begging

I got a squishy envelope in the mail today.  Well, it must have been yesterday, but I didn't check the mailbox until today.  Want to see?  What a silly question.  Of course you do!

Doesn't it look like I went out and scooped up a cup of sunshine?  They certainly made my eyes shine brighter.  These fantastic scraps are a gift from the talented Barbara of Cat Patches Blog.  Click over to see the quilt these fabrics made, a beauty she has titled Sunshine on my shoulders, using a pattern by Judy Laquidara at Patchwork Times - Judy's original pattern is titled Peaches & Dreams and you can find it under Patterns for Free at her website.

I told Barbara that if I knew where she lived, I'd be knocking on her door begging for scraps.... (absolutely shameless, I know, but I couldn't help myself) and she sent me some!  I'm hugging myself with delight at her generosity (and that my audacity should yield such fruit).  The weigh scale was still out from weighing my Shady Lanes quilt top, and out of curiosity I plopped them in the bowl and discovered they weighed .25 lb - a whole yard's worth of luscious diverse sunny scraps.  Thank you, Barbara!

There's some great graphic design in most of the fabrics - such fun!

I'm going to use them in my Modern Monday block-of-the-week Sampler which desperately needed more oranges.  The little 6.5" quilt blocks being designed by Jenifer Dick at Forty-Two Quilts Blog use small wonky pieces to work up and these scraps will be absolutely perfect with my Hallowe'en coloured fabrics.  And what doesn't get used in the sampler, will eventually be used in some scrappy blocks, and the teeniest bits in crumb blocks.  I told Barbara that I would use even the smallest bits, down to 1" and I mean to do it.

Scrappy Saturday - more border fabric auditions

I was going to sew this afternoon, but I ran into a roadblock - a furry one.  So decided to do an early blog posting instead.

Guess who is fast asleep (and snoring) in the sunny puddle under my sewing chair?  He's been sickly for the last week, favouring his arthritic legs, and uncharacteristically morose.  And, feeling sorry for him, I decided to do something else until he wakes up and moves on his own.  That should be fairly soon.  If he doesn't wake on his own, I'll start cooking something and that will get him to move fairly quickly into the kitchen.

Remember the big pile of ironed scraps from my huge scrap bin on wheels?

This is what it looks like now.

I found some more scraps today that will work in my Modern Monday sampler.  Hooray.

I also found a wide strip of the little floral I'm using in my Traditional Tuesday Sampler.  I don't know whose scrap bin it came from originally, but they have great taste.

Here's a pic of the scraps I've piled up with just 15 minutes a day of scrap trimming so far.  When I come across a chunk the size of a fat quarter I just fold that into the yardage stash.  A couple of days ago, I came across a stack of strips 4" wide of all the same Thimbleberries golden neutral (at least a yard's worth) - those went into the stash bin with brown and tan yardage without being cut further.  So far, the biggest pile is 1.5" strips, followed by 2.5" x 4.5" bricks and 2.5" squares.  All in all, it's a very respectable showing for the trimming to date.  There's some bigger chunks of fabric at the top of my pile now, so I may be able to get some larger squares in the next few days.

I starched my foundation fabric for six more string blocks (if I can get to my machine).  This is all I have left in the smaller than 1.5" strings.

The bag of strings smaller than 1" that I separated out for my experiment with fabric knitting or crocheting... I tucked this bag away in the UFO bin for that future day when I'm bored with everything I have going and just feel like experimenting.  I have some serious doubts about the attempt.  Let me put it this way, I'm not saving this size string in my scrap trimming under the mistaken delusion that I'm going to take up crocheting fabric rag rugs.

Pulled out the 1.5" strip box for today's string piecing session...  Lucas is still asleep.  If it wasn't for the snoring, I'd have to check to see if he's breathing.

I discovered that the dark blue I used in my sashing and laid out as the final border of my Shady Lanes quilt is down to the last half yard - not enough to border a queen size quilt.  I used to have so much yardage of that fabric (I loved it so).  So I pulled out some other fabrics to audition.  Absolutely hated all the browns I tried.  Looked for more blues to audition.  This bright blue floral with the red and yellow wasn't bad in person but I don't like it in the pic below.  There's quite a bit of red and yellow in the scrap patches.  Yeah - I'm trying to hard to make it work.

Rejected the blue/green/silver paisley, yet again.  I've got enough yardage to back two quilts with this fabric.  It's really pretty but doesn't seem to play nicely with anything else.

This large floral on black wasn't bad.  The red still worked with it.  There is some black in the blue half square triangles.  Definitely worth considering...

But this vintage floral on cream was just waaaaay too light.

I'm thinking the floral on black and the dark red zinger may be the winner.

Lucas is still sleeping... think I'll make myself something to eat.

Or maybe I'll indulge in a nap myself.

Quilter's Tool for Bulky Seams

They're cheap and you can find them in numerous stores.  Every quilter needs one and it works like a charm on the bulkiest seams...  I recommend placing a piece of garbage fabric over top of what you are going to whack because it can actually leave black metal staining...

Okay, I didn't actually use my hammer today though, believe me,  I was sorely tempted.  And I have been known to pull it out when making pillow cases.  (I'm not kidding about using a piece of garbage fabric over what you are hitting.)

I started joining my Shady Lane blocks today.  I put a lot of thought into how to place my four patches to avoid bulky seams, and all that brain effort worked out beautifully.  But it didn't occur to me to think about the seams in the sashing strips.  I should have ironed towards the neutral on half the sashing strips.  There's six layers of fabric at the corners where the two brown angles meet.  I'm hoping that ironing the joins flat will help.  Now I know I have to make this pattern again, if only to put everything I've learned about this one into effect.

I finished joining the blocks to make six rows.  I even took the extra time to pin all the seam joinings before sewing.  Normally I just sew and tug as I go, but the extra time in pinning was definitely worth it.  It ensured that everything butted up nicely.  I decided to put off joining the rows until tomorrow.  I can feel my energy sagging right now and that suggests the potential for making mistakes is growing.  I want to make sure I don't sew two same fabrics together as I join the rows. And I want to take the time to pin all the seams as I go.

I've enjoyed the everything goes scrappy approach to making the 4-patches and 16-patches for this project.  There is something very liberating about not caring what colours or fabrics line up with each other.  The 2" strip bin is still full to overflowing though.  Deanna of Wedding Dress Blue Blog (a sister Stashbuster) has a tutorial for a 100-patch quilt block that I'm considering as a future everything goes scrappy project.

Speaking of scraps... I put in about 20 minutes of scrap trimming today.  The pile of ironed scraps doesn't look any smaller yet.

Scrappy Saturday

Six more string blocks today, bringing my block count up to 24.  Another six blocks and I will move on to making sashings and nine patches.  The pickings in my string box are getting really blah - down to mostly neutrals and greens.  I had to supplement with fabrics from my 1.5" strip box, further solidifying in my mind that 1.5" should be my minimum string size.  These blocks were far more pleasurable to piece than the ones in which I used all those really skinny strings. 

I sliced up enough sashing strips and squares for another six Shady Lanes blocks.  Also did my daily 15 minutes of scrap taming.  So far, the results are less than dramatic.  But I've learned from past experience, that when trimming for 15 minutes on a daily basis, it's a good idea not to analyze how much is getting done versus how much is left to do - especially not in the first few days.

There's some really fun fabrics in the scrap pile.  Here's a pic of a sweet little lady bug fabric.  Let's see, how many bugs do we consider cute enough to like them on fabric?  Lady bugs, butterflies, dragonflies... yup, that's about it.  So far, I've found all three of those on fabrics in the scrap bin.  Haven't come across any creepy spiders on Hallowe'en fabrics yet and knowing the ladies who gave me these scraps, I don't think I'm likely to find any.

The best find today was this strip of googly eyes on black.  Isn't it a hoot?  Wish I had known I had this when I was making my fat cat in the stash crumb block (pic below).

I am definitely going to have to make another cat block and use some of those eyes in it. Just thinking about it is making me giggle.

I pulled out a red and cream quilt that needs to be trimmed, labeled, and bound - the last of the quilts that far along in my unfinished pile.  I want to make a striped bias binding for it - I think that will be really effective on my two colour quilt.   To trim the quilt and make bias binding requires some room to work and that necessitated a clean-up of the cutting area, which is set up on my kitchen counter.  I just can't seem to maintain the habit of tidying up at the end of each sewing session.  My sewing table and my kitchen table are piled high again.

Weekly Sampler Blocks

Modern Monday and Traditional Tuesday blocks have been posted at Jenifer Dick's blog and this week we're making sawtooth stars,  one of my favourite block patterns.

I am really having a lot of fun with the modern sampler blocks - the block designs and piecing methods are so revolutionary for me.  I feel like a rebel.  More interesting, modern methods and colours are really growing on me as I visit blogs of modern quilters and admire their work.  The other day I actually caught myself browsing through solid grey fabrics at some of my favourite online stores.  Oh no!  Say it ain't so!  I know I've gone on the record before as actually saying yuck with regards to grey, but I'm coming around - I can't believe how many different shades of grey are available.  I don't think I will ever be the same lil ol' traditionalist again.

As for the traditional sampler, I started with yardage of three fabrics - brown, pink and background, but decided in Week 2 (that was when we made log cabin blocks) to include a wider range of browns and pinks, so began fishing through my strip bins for brown and pink strips to add to the mix.  I have a lot (and I mean dozens of each) to choose from in those two colours, so that should keep the blocks interesting for me and use up some strip stash.

I have a much more limited selection of oranges and blacks, not enough to make all the sampler blocks without finding (or buying more),or including more colours.  I've already added green to the mix, and a bit of red.  Considering how much fabric I already have, I'd like to try keeping this an all stash project and so was pleased to come across a few scraps in my untamed scrap bin that seem perfectly suited.  These were from a bag of gift scraps from one of my quilting friends.

Having made the decision to tackle the big scrap bin in 15 minute cutting sessions, I dragged the ironing board into the living room last night and started ironing scraps so I'd have something to trim while I wait for the morning coffee to brew.  That daily 15 minutes of trimming polished off 1200 HSTs in less than 40 days, so I know it can move a mountain of scraps seemingly without effort.  My intention was to iron a small pile, but I got carried away, as evidenced by this pic.  There's enough in this pile to keep my daily trimming assignments fueled for a month (at least).  I hope I find more orange, red and black as I go along.

Some of the gift scraps were dumped out of friends' scrap bins and I discovered many old poly-cottons in the mix as I ironed.  I didn't even need to put them under the hot iron to figure it out by smell.  Just the feel of them under my left thumb as I pulled from the scrap bin was unmistakable.  I'm not sure when I developed this new sense (and in my left thumb of all places), but I found the discovery that I now had this new super-power rather diverting.  I'm putting those directly into my fling-it bag.

The Big Scrap Bin on Wheels

I started assembling my Shady Lane blocks today.  I just have the final strips to add to each block, then I can press and trim them up tomorrow.  I'm looking forward to being able to put the blocks up on the design wall and see them all together.  That never ceases to feel magical to me.

I've been thinking a lot about my big scrap bin lately.  It's a foot high, a foot wide, and almost two feet long and it currently holds about 25 pounds of scraps.

Not just my scraps but generous donations from quilty friends and some of their friends.  Some of the scraps are in bags.  But most of the fabrics are just laid in the bin in beautiful colourful sedimentary layers of lush fabrics.  Fabrics that aren't in my stash.  When I poke around in here, I see beautiful greens the colour of celery or newly sprouted spring ferns, and bright blues, and cheery fruit colours....

When I finished reorganizing my stash and projects in early September, this is the one thing I just couldn't face.  25 pounds of fabric is roughly 100 yards of fabric.  The idea of ironing and trimming 100 yards of fabrics felt like too much work - something that would leave me with a sore shoulder and aching feet.

Recently I finished trimming a box of 1200 half-square triangles and blogged about that here.  It seemed like a huge nasty task, but I did it by trimming up 30 every morning while waiting for the coffee machine to finish dripping my morning brew.  The funny thing is, I got into the habit of reaching for the rotary cutter after hitting the brew button.  Every morning now, I shuffle half asleep through my morning routine - feed the cat, make the coffe, automatically reach for the rotary cutter, then stare at it blankly for a few seconds while my sleep-fogged brain clears and I finally remember that the HSTs are all trimmed.

So, I thought I'd attack the scrap bin the same way.  I'll start tomorrow, iron a little stack and put it next to my cutting mat.  We'll see how that goes.  One day at a time.  Here's a little children's video with a catchy tune that explains it better than I just did.

Anyone else avoiding some work that can be painlessly done in bits of time here and there?

The Great HST Caper

Twelve hundred (give or take a handful) 2.5" half-square triangles trimmed.  I'm finally done.  DONE.  DONE.  Can anyone say jubilant?  I started trimming on Aug.28/11 after blogging about them in this post.  My daily minimum trimming quota was 30, although I frequently did twice that number.  And, in anticipation of my trip out of town tomorrow, I put the last of them through in a final spurt of determined desperation today.  I took a pic of the last two to commemorate the end of that monumental task.  Maybe I should frame them...

And here's the pic of the box full.

I still haven't quite decided on what to do with them all.  I know that sounds kind of silly.  Some quilters pick a pattern and start cutting and sewing components for it.  Generally, this also gives a person an idea when to stop cutting or sewing same said components.  I always seem to do these things the long way around.  Here I am with a box of 1200 HSTs and no specific pattern in mind.  These are really scrappy, maybe a little heavy on the green, containing a couple hundred different fabrics.  These were made the longest most tedious way possible.... pairing up 3" scrappy blocks, and drawing lines on the back of one of the pair.  (Never again!)  My mother always accused me of doing things the longest and most complicated way possible when I was a kid.  Guess I haven't changed.

I've been keeping an eye out for patterns I like that use a lot of scrappy HSTs.  There are some real beauties out there, but most of the ones I liked required cutting more fabrics and using my HSTs as a frame or border around the block.  Always a possibility, but that would have used barely a third of what's in my box.  I've narrowed my selection down to three block patterns.

Option 1 - Depression Block (free pattern here at Quilt Blocks Galore).  Using 2.5" HSTs, my blocks will be 8.5" unfinished.

Option 2 - Don't know if this one has a name of it's own (it must).  I added in a few extra HSTs to my Depression Block to make it 12.5" unfinished.

Option 3 - a Scrappy Sawtooth Star.  I do love stars.  This pattern will make 8.5" unfinished blocks.

I did consider this star pattern, which I have been making with bonus 1.5" HSTs.  (originally blogged about in this post)  It could be done, there are many duplicates of the fabrics in the 1200 HSTs.  But I have to admit, the thought of sitting down and digging through the box to match up fabrics in a stack of 1200 is making me nervous.  Did I say nervous?  I meant nauseous.

So I'm leaning heavily towards option # 2, with the sawtooth star (option #3) making it hard to finalize my decision.

But there's no real hurry to decide.  I'm headed out of town tomorrow.  And when I get back, I still have ten current projects to work on.  The final choice can wait a while.  Maybe I'll see something else that uses up masses of half-square triangles that I can't resist.