The Bonnie and Camille Quilt Bee: Month 2

 Good Evening! Thank you to everyone that emailed me pictures of their fabric pulls and month 1 blocks for this Quilt Along. It is great to have so many people joining me in making this quilt. 

This month we need to make a total of 4 blocks, however, only 3 different ones, as the last block we are going to make 2 instead of 1. 

The first block is the Bloom Block on page 84. This is a nice large block, and with a bunch of flip and stitch corners. The block itself is fairly straightforward to assemble, just watch where D and F are placed on each piece, and be sure to place them in the right corners on I, J and K. 

If you are struggling to have your flip and stitch corners come out the right size it may help to move your needle over one tick and stitch right on the outside of your drawn line rather than directly on top of the line. 

Next we move onto the Butterfly Block on page 87. I found this block pretty quick to make. The cutting is simple, and you can chain piece the components. I pressed my seams on the flip and stitch corners to the background fabric rather than open, and to the "stem of the butterfly" also instead of open. 

The Celebrate Block on page 88 is the final block for this month and we need to make 2. 

I did my hourglass units a little different than the pattern. I try to avoid working with triangles if I can, and I was able to quite easily with this block. 

For A, E and F  I cut my squares at 3 1/2 for a little extra trimming room. 

I than made Half Square Triangles in the following combinations AE, AE, AF and AF. 

To do this I followed the steps for the BD units. 

Rather than trim the units down I took my Half Square Triangles and took the AE and AF units for one block and put them right sides together, making sure the the seams nested in the center and the prints were right sides together with the background fabric. Than I drew a line corner to corner going across my seam line and again sewed on each side of the line. 

When I cut it apart I ended up with the correct Hour Glass units. I pressed them and than trimmed to the correct size using my 4 in 1 Half Square Triangle Ruler. 

Hopefully the photos help explain what I did. (In my block I used Black in place of Navy and Yellow in place of Green)

To assemble follow the photos in the book, watching the orientation of the hourglass units and half square triangles. 

And don't forget that you need to make 2 of these blocks. 

Have fun sewing up this month's blocks and please share your photos with me I love to see them!

Kayla

Tips to Organize and Use your Scraps/Stash

 Hello again friends. Earlier this week I went over some tips on how to help you get your unfinished projects organized and sorted and a few ways to help get some finished. Today I want to talk about your stash. 

There are a couple ways to organize your stash and your scraps. 

First is by size, you can fold all the larger pieces neatly and stack them nicely in a cupboard or on a shelf. The small pieces I would suggest cutting into sizes you would normally use, a really good way is into 5" Squares, 3" squares, and 2.5" strips. Or whatever size you really like to use, but these sizes mentioned are good ones to work off of, and than storing them in little totes that are labelled with the size. 

Another way is by color, again fold the larger pieces but then stack them up in colors, and rather than cutting up all the small pieces just put them in a tote or basket with other colors in the same family, reds, pinks, yellows, greens, aqua, navy etc.

You could sort through your scraps every time you finish a project or have a little basket that you sort through when ever it is filled. 

There may be fabrics that you really don't love anymore and it is totally fine to sell or donate these. 

My quilt room is nonexistent right now, all my organized totes are in closets around the house wherever they fit (my four boys have quilting supplies in their bedroom closets at the moment)  and I am sewing at the kitchen table until our renovations are finished, so I have no photos to share of how I organize my space, but when my new sewing room is finished I will share photos of it here. 

My favorite way to use up scraps and my stash is to join a quilt along and try not buy any fabrics for it. A quilt along is a great way because usually other people are joining in as well and it helps keep you accountable to working on and finishing the project. 

I did the Gypsy Wife Quilt along here a couple years ago and several people me included made their quilt completely from their stash and they looked so fun! (I'll admit mine was a very planned "scrappy" quilt, and although I used 10 collections of fabric they are from the same designer.)

 

Another way to use them up is to shop from your own cupboard first when you pick a new project. You can add new pieces in if needed. 

Or make some quilts and donate them to a charity or someone in need. 

A couple other great stash buster patterns are Log Cabin Quilts, Pineapple Quilts, String Quilts and simple square patchwork quilts. Creative Grids has rules in various sizes for the Log Cabin Quilts and Pineapple Quilts so you can get really nice accurate blocks. 

I have plans for another scrap buster quilt along so stay tuned for the details on that. If I can get the details sorted this weekend I will post about it Monday. 

I don't have a very large stash and that is for a couple reasons, I have the quilt shop at hand and I don't enjoy making scrappy quilts, I like to use one collection or one designer (I can mix Art Gallery collections and designers, but I cannot add in any other manufacturer to that). I also try to do a scrap buster quilt every year to stay in control. 

I have seen a lot of beautiful scrappy quilts, I just would rather work with a full collection by a fabric designer. 

If you also don't really enjoy making scrappy quilts and would rather work with a full collection from a designer, don't feel bad donating your fabrics to a guild or charity organization or selling it on a buy and sell group. Just like other items in your home it is ok to get rid of things including fabrics that don't work for you or don't make you happy. 

Have a great weekend, we have some yard work to do after the big wind storm yesterday, hopefully the warm weather will stick around for that. 

Kayla

Finishing older projects

2020 has arrived, and with it I am sure many of you have made some resolutions. The most common ones I usually hear from quilters is that they would like to finish a number of old projects before starting anything new or making it a goal to use up some of the stash before buying new fabric. While these are great plans it easy to get stuck in a rut and avoid any quilting with set in stone plans like this, so I have a few tips to hopefully help you keep your goals but have fun doing it.
Carrie's plan for the year is to pick just one older unfinished project each month and finish it. When it is finished she can move onto whatever new quilts or bags she has found. This is a great way to finish up 12 older projects in one year without getting bogged down and overwhelmed.
Tam
my was telling me today that she plans to finish 10 projects before she starts anything new. This is a good way to clear out space and make room for some new fresh fabric and kits. And the motivation of starting a new project will keep her on her track to finish them.
I have a few different go to methods when I feel the need to bust the stash or finish old projects.
The first method is to take a week and only work on projects that are more than 1 year old. I pull out one work on it until it is finished or the week is up, I have finished multiple in the span of a week because sometimes they just need something simple like a binding sew on, borders cut and added or the blocks are all pieced they just need to be sewn together. At the end of the week I go back to my new current projects.
Another method that works really well for me is to buy a new fabric collection or kit that I absolutely fell in love, put it in my sewing space in my line of vision, and tell myself I cannot open it until I finish 3 other projects. I used this method multiple times last year and it worked really well.
The final method deals with stash busting. I like to either run a quilt along through my blog, or find one that is about to start on Social Media and use just scraps for the quilt. This goes a long ways to using up some older fabric. My aunt follows along with many of my quilt alongs, and almost always makes 2 quilts, one from her scraps, that she uses as her practice block and another from a new collection of fabric that she loved. This way she busts through old scraps but gets to use new fabric at the same time.
If you thrive on lists and crossing things off as you finish them, write down which projects you have on the go, what each needs to be completed and an order that you would like them done in, than start quil
ting and crossing things off.
I hope one of these methods will help you this year. As with all resolutions, it is best to start small and manageable than to go cold turkey. It is really important to choose numbers and set goals for yourself that will work for you and are achievable, and also to have rewards for work well done.
And if a project is really not working for you, maybe the colors are really not your style, the pattern is hard to understand or the techniques used are a little to intense, do not be afraid to call it quits. Maybe use the fabric for something else, donate the project to someone who would like it or even throw it in the trash, which to be honest sometimes feels like a weight lifted off the shoulders.
I have a few more little quilt alongs planned for the year to bust some more scraps and hope to share some organizing tips with you yet this month.
Also even though life is busy, I find that blogging once a week is not enough to share everything I want to share, so I will be going back to twice a week posts, cut switching to Monday and Thursday instead of my usual Tuesdays.
 I want to share more tips, tools and techniques with you, do some tutorials, start a few new series, show off new fabrics and share more of what we are working on behind the scenes at Chicken Feed Quilts. So I
Have a great week, and check back Thursday.
Kayla