strip piecing

24 new blocks.................. from Exuberant Color

It was an uneventful day yesterday, mid 60s outside, a few windows open.

I stuck with the current project and finished the last 24 sixteen patch blocks. It was too late to press them when I finished. I don't know if I'll do a layout of the blocks today or wait until the weekend.

I finished knitting the 2 tone denim color dishcloth. I used all of the lighter color and have a little left of the darker. It will get paired with some other colors eventually.

The rose color cactus bud is finally at full bloom. I ...

added by Exuberantcolor/Wanda S Hanson 2 days, 3 hours ago. under knitting , nature , strip piecing

Quilt back home............. from Exuberant Color

My Kaffe Blue Pinwheels is quilted and back home from the longarmer. I'll be looking for binding today.

I sewed the last 10 stratas for Tilda 16 patches last night. These are duplicates of ones already made into blocks. There are will be 4 blocks alike of each combination.

It got up over 60 degrees yesterday so I did grocery shopping at 2 stores. Friday is maybe going to be over 70. I hope this doesn't mean a warm March and a cold April.

added by Exuberantcolor/Wanda S Hanson 3 days, 3 hours ago. under quilts made with triangles , strip piecing

Progress, gifted quilts, and a thief......................... from Exuberant Color

A little progress was made on the Tilda 16 patch blocks, but the most time yesterday was spent cutting batting and piecing backs for two quilts. I need to cut more batting today while the table is cleaned off.

In case you are wondering, the friend who came over yesterday to choose 2 baby quilts chose these two. My son's friends are becoming grandparents for the first time so I give them one for the baby's house and one for the grandparents' house.

"Who, me? No, you must be mistaken. I did not knock down the feeder, unscrew ...

added by Exuberantcolor/Wanda S Hanson 4 days, 3 hours ago. under baby quilts , nature , strip piecing

Not much................. from Exuberant Color

I had so many plans but only got 4 stratas sewn for more 16 patch blocks and the 14 already made were pressed. I just couldn't get motivated to do anything and I'll blame it on the time change.

l put all of the finished blocks on the design wall to encourage me to get the rest of the stratas sewn.

It got up to 66 yesterday. I went out to the backyard and picked up small branches that have fallen in the last month. Today will be 20 degrees colder which is more like the average temperature ...

added by Exuberantcolor/Wanda S Hanson 4 days, 6 hours ago. under strip piecing

Sunday's doings............................ from Exuberant Color

I started out the day yesterday pressing a big pile of batik strips, usually end cuts from other project cutting. I will be cutting these into pieces for my colorwash quilts.

Then I was in the basement looking for backings for several table topper pieces. Photos later. While down there I saw this book and decided I should donate it to the thrift shop on my next trip.

Look at that date! 50 years ago! This was one of the few patchwork books available in that time period. 1975 was the beginning of my teaching career, first teaching speed tips ...

added by Exuberantcolor/Wanda S Hanson 6 days, 3 hours ago. under batik , nature , nostalgia , strip piecing

New fabric................... from Exuberant Color

I usually preorder some of the new Kaffe collective fabrics in February and August. There weren't many that I wanted but I thought this group would cut up nicely. You can see here how they would look in a 2.5" strip.

I like Brandon's "gingham" which had some new colors offered. I ordered 2 colors of one more print but there was a mistake on my order and one of them wasn't included. It will be coming next week and then I'll show both of them.

I put the strip of Tilda's ladies on ...

added by Exuberantcolor/Wanda S Hanson 6 days, 20 hours ago. under kaffe fabric , stash , strip piecing

Top sewn, not pressed.................. from Exuberant Color

The Tilda Whimsy top was finished last night and I'll press it today and take its photo. There were only 5 seams in both directions but they were long ones so it took a few hours.

I got the next batch of strips ready to sew for 16 patches. That project will probably be my evening sewing for several days.

I didn't have any dishcloths on the needles so I started one last night to use up the lighter blue and I'll finish it with the darker blue. The lighter color is called Stonewash and the darker ...

added by Exuberantcolor/Wanda S Hanson 1 week, 2 days ago. under knitting , stash , strip piecing

Layout........... from Exuberant Color

There are 16 fabrics in the mock up of the Whimsy quilt and I used about 28 fabrics. I'm not sure that was a good idea. There are only 9 spots for each block (because there are 4 different blocks) so I was extremely limited in where I could place them. I think this might be the best layout I can achieve and I'll decide that when I look at it this morning.

There were some cute selvages on some of the prints.

Last night I cut the 16 patch block pieces out of the stratas I pieced ...

added by Exuberantcolor/Wanda S Hanson 1 week, 3 days ago. under stash , strip piecing

How many strips are left?........... from Exuberant Color

My goal was to use up a lot of 2.5" and 1.5" full length (45") strips in the Kaffe Strippy quilt last month. The 1.5" strips are in the box on the left and 2.5" on the right. I removed all of the partial length strips from the boxes and will store them separately now. I have used a lot of 2.5" strips in several quilts in the last year. That box used to be packed full.

I'm going to keep both groups in one box now which frees up a storage box for ...

added by Exuberantcolor/Wanda S Hanson 1 week, 6 days ago. under kaffe fabric , knitting , nature , strip piecing

Rows sewn, not pressed............... from Exuberant Color

All of the rows are sewn but I haven't finished trimming the right side. I need to take it down to the basement to my big table for that. After I press it, it will become clearer how the trimming needs to be done.

My other project is trying to find a binding fabric for this quilt. Here you can see the backing fabric which has little shots of green in addition to the red and yellow.

I have a lot of pieces of batik that are between 1/4 and 1/2 yard so some of them are ...

added by Exuberantcolor/Wanda S Hanson 2 weeks, 3 days ago. under batiks , kaffe fabric , strip piecing

Progress as I look at it........................ from Exuberant Color

The color is way off in this photo, but it is showing the progress from yesterday.

The top 8 rows are all sewn together, trimmed at the left edge but not on the right side.

Below that is 2 more rows sewn together. The next row is at the sewing machine, and the bottom 4 rows are waiting to be sewn. I decided to just lay the bottom row on the floor instead of pinning it to the design wall. I think this one will end up around 47" x 67" and I'm thinking about putting flannel on the ...

added by Exuberantcolor/Wanda S Hanson 2 weeks, 4 days ago. under kaffe fabric , strip piecing , triangles

Playing with the design wall..................... from Exuberant Color

This is the view from my sewing chair while I'm watching TV last night. I should have started this up a little higher because I have one more row to add on top or bottom. I'll try to add one more row at the top today. I actually have enough pieces left to add 2 rows so the other one would have to be pinned onto the wall at the bottom.

The largest sections are approximately 5" x 12" now. The half sections are 5" x 6". I can unpick the excess at the beginnings and endings of ...

added by Exuberantcolor/Wanda S Hanson 2 weeks, 5 days ago. under kaffe fabric , strip piecing

Trial layout............ from Exuberant Color

Finally I got the strip pieced blocks cut into 5" strips, 2 each from most of the blocks, just one from a few of them. I pressed all of my seams open so I didn't want to have to match seams. By offsetting the strips with the narrow strip meeting the wider strip of the ones above and below it, I shouldn't have any problem sewing it together. I did just enough of a trial layout to see if it is going to work and now I'll plan the layout of the colors.

I had 4 Amaryllis ...

added by Exuberantcolor/Wanda S Hanson 3 weeks ago. under kaffe fabric , strip piecing

2 quilts back home.............. from Exuberant Color

I got 2 quilts back from my longarm quilter friend so I'll be looking for binding fabric soon.

While she was here she helped me slide the bag off my new 30 yard roll of batting and get it up on the tables. Now I can cut batting for a few more quilts.

I spent a couple hours choosing and grouping Tilda fabrics for her Whimsey quilt pattern. Then I made notes for each group with what I need to cut for that quilt plus 2 others. There has to be a 16 patch quilt made from these fabrics ...

added by Exuberantcolor/Wanda S Hanson 3 weeks, 4 days ago. under kaffe fabric , stash , strip piecing

More no brainer sewing.......... from Exuberant Color

I had so much making these strip sets Saturday night that I chose some more pairs and kept sewing. There was one more under the needle when I took this photo so 9 strip sets last night and 14 sets on Saturday night.

I decided I'm going to cut them into 5" sections so I made some half sets for more variety, and also to use some shorter pieces in the boxes of strips.

Here are the next 13 paired sets ready to sew tonight.

I got my large Crooked Cobblestone top 3/4 basted yesterday. I should be ...

added by Exuberantcolor/Wanda S Hanson 3 weeks, 6 days ago. under kaffe fabric , strip piecing

No brainer sewing............. from Exuberant Color

It was either turn on the iron and press fabrics for the next project OR just do some no brainer sewing last night. I chose the second.

This is all of the combinations I sewed while watching TV.

On the right is a whole block and 2 folded blocks, trying to decide whether to cut them into 2 strips or 3 strips. I am using 2.5" and 1.5" strips of Kaffe collective fabrics that have been cut over the last 10 years. I would like to get them all used up and cut new strips as I need ...

added by Exuberantcolor/Wanda S Hanson 4 weeks ago. under kaffe fabric , strip piecing

Past quilt from parts department............ from Exuberant Color

To expand on my "parts department" post yesterday, this is a quilt I made in 2016. I had a lot of batik 2" finished triangles that I had previously cut from scraps. I made the star blocks as my mindless evening sewing for a few months. Then the blocks got placed on a shelf. One day I came across them and on the next shelf were leftover red 16 patch blocks from another quilt. As I moved them and placed one pile on top of the other, I saw that the both sets of blocks were the same size and ...

added by Exuberantcolor/Wanda S Hanson 2 months ago. under basting , colorwash , flannel quilts , kaffe fabric , star quilts , strip piecing

A December finish.............. from Exuberant Color

This is the second of three neutral batik 16 patch quilts made from blocks pieced in 2018. I finished the first quilt and pieced the top of this one in September this year. The third top, waiting to be quilted, was pieced in April.

This one is now finished and is 71" x 93", the largest of the three.

I had enough yards of this backing fabric, also a batik, for this quilt. The binding fabric was also in my stash.

Here is better view of the backing and binding fabrics. It has Warm and Natural batting and was quilted ...

added by Exuberantcolor/Wanda S Hanson 2 months, 3 weeks ago. under batik , strip piecing

Looks better sewn together...................... from Exuberant Color

A quilt top always looks so much better than just blocks on the design wall. I love the rich colors in this one. I think it would look great thrown over a leather chair in a wood paneled library.

It would have looked a little better with one more row in length for a better rectangular shape, but I was done working on it. It is 64" x 72", a nice throw quilt size.

How did I choose the fabrics for this quilt? I was looking for some no-brainer sewing so I opened 2 boxes full of 2.5" strips ...

added by Exuberantcolor/Wanda S Hanson 4 months, 3 weeks ago. under batiks , strip piecing

First layout................ from Exuberant Color

All 32 blocks are sewn and pressed now. This last group of 4 will add more color to the group.

Last night's layout. There is one block I want to exchange with another but I haven't made the decision which one yet. I thought I would wait until this morning to look at it again.

These are definitely the colors of the outside in my town. Still lots of green but more colorful trees every day.

added by Exuberantcolor/Wanda S Hanson 4 months, 4 weeks ago. under batiks , strip piecing

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