New Projects Everywhere

Startitis seems to strike on a daily basis these days.  There is no end to leftovers which I try to turn into "real" quilted items!  I showed the start of a small tablerunner the other day, and since the walking foot was still on the machine, decided to get it quilted.  The deep raspberry Dimples fat quarter backing was not quite big enough to make a traditional binding and I decided to make a flanged binding instead.  The scrap drawers produced a suitable length of a green linen string and I got cutting and sewing.  Due to shortage of the raspberry print to allow joining the final seam,  I found a chunk of a close colored print to add.  I got as far as stitching the binding to the back, turning it to the front and affixing binding clips before closing down for the night.

Next morning it was soon finished off by stitching down the flange with green thread.  I was happy with the way it turned out on the front....

...and the back.  The free-motion quilting looks a little like hieroglyphics on this side, haha.  No destination for this one either so it's resting on the bookshelf in the living room for now. 

Another set of those green star point pieces were still left to deal with, so I pulled another leftover small pieced item out of my "small projects" box.  This was a trial for the Dreamweaver quilt, making Disappearing 9 patch blocks as per the original pattern, with larger squares.  I used some pretty fabrics for the mockup so it wouldn't go to waste.  Ultimately I went with plain squares for the Dreamweaver quilt to simplify. 

Fiddling with the green and cream star points pieces, I ended up cutting them down to 3" wide and after sewing them together, sliver trimmed the D9P section to match the length.  The tablemat has not been paired with a backing or binding choice yet but is looking cheerful.

Our next grandson is due in four weeks and although I made him a small playmat a couple of months ago, I wanted to make a regular sized baby quilt and pulled out the Churn Dash blocks from one of Barb's swaps from a few years back; I was in the modern swap of 6" finished blocks of solids with low volume background. Last year I made this quilt for my grand-nephew Elliott from the blue blocks with black/gray and white backgrounds.

Well this is just the top, but shows the secondary pattern formed by the alternate 9 patches; this setting I first saw on Kathy's Quilts blog in traditional fabrics.  Since our nephew Matt and our son Nick were so close growing up, I wanted to make a similar but different modern quilt for Nick's son.  The cousins will be only 8 months apart in age and I hope will be close as well.

Graph paper and pencil are my friends!  I originally had a much grander plan in mind, using Drunkard's Path blocks for the diagonals, but simplified to the the HSTs.  

A suitable low volume print and gray-blue crackle print from stash were cut with Bonnie's Essential Triangle tool from 6.5" strips.  Initially, I laid out the chosen Churn Dash blocks in color groups, and ended up making a couple more blue blocks from stash.  Next morning, though, it seemed too formal and static for a baby's quilt.  After Switcheroo, stitching commenced.

I think it looks much more fun this way.  The colors remind me of sunsets and sea colors, and being the child of two adventurers, our grandson will no doubt see plenty of water and sky as he grows up. Currently, though, he's being bratty by not being turned head down yet...