I’ve been working for over a year on preparing for an eventual move to a retirement community, and that involves lightening the load of culch most of us accumulate. (Culch/cultch, the Maine word for the pile of stuff that accumulates on any non-rolling household. Learned from Louise Dickinson Rich’s books when we first moved to Maine.)

I inherited big piles of household linens, both commercial and handmade, mostly from my grandmother.

My grandmother, wedding photo from 1907

Here is some of her needlework:

One end of a dresser scarf. She made a number of dresser scarves.

This is the cover for a large pincushion, intended for hat pins. It matched the bedspread in the next picture.

This is the center medallion on the matching bedspread.

Another dresser scarf

I’ve had these linens for years without doing anything with them, and they aren’t my style. Finally I found a solution! I sent them all to a friend who loves vintage linens and knows a lot about them. It’s a win-win. The items have found an appreciative home and I don’t have to worry about them any more!

I had a few fat quarters of Lotta Jansdotter fabric left from many years ago and thought I would make a “Turning Twenty Again” quilt from them. Although that pattern almost always produces something nice, the proportion of the various prints didn’t work out well this time. The quilt looks like it has measles.

On the theory of “if it doesn’t work, cut it up” I did cut it up and added some bright green. I like this a lot better.

The binding will be bright green to hold all the craziness in, and I trust some kid at Ronald McDonald House will enjoy it.

Do you cut up things that aren’t working? Or give them a time out? Or give them away?

My friend Michele finished her tiny village:

And I made a couple of tops for myself.

Both these were made from quilting cotton. The one with all the letters (they say nothing, so don’t try too hard) was from the sale shelf and I made this boxy top to try out a pattern. The border print was a bolt end that I found while browsing (when I probably should have stayed home, but oh well).

So it was a fun, low-stress week! Do you make clothes? If so, what patterns do you like?

When I finish a quilt I cut any scraps into strips of standard width and store them in little drawers by size. So when I came across this pattern from an old issue of Modern Quilts Unlimited, I was ready to go.

This quilt was designed by Elaine Schmidt, whose website is here.

These blocks finish 20″ square, so this was quick to make despite the multiple little trapezoids in the centers. In fact it was so much fun (and I have so many scraps) that I may make it again.

Meanwhile it’s going to the friend who quilts our donations for Flying Horse Farms. Here’s a picture of the last load of quilts she delivered from our group–I love the stack of colors!

Any fun scrap quilts at your house?

Remember my single EPP flower?

I put it together with 4 other orphan blocks and made a little quilt, and a friend quilted it.

The 4 other blocks were made from this pattern:

This pattern is Bubbles by Aylin Ozturk. It is available through PayHip, here.

Although beautiful, these log cabin dot blocks were tedious in the extreme so I quit at 4.

This little table runner is for the “boutique” one of my guilds will have at their quilt show.

Runner from the book Tabletastic!2 by Doug Leko.

I’m working on some other little quilts for Ronald McDonald House as well, so stay tuned…

I have gotten behind on binding quilts, but finally here is one that was a lot of fun to make.

The pattern is “Diagonal Scrap Quilt” by Maryline Collioud-Robert, available here. The author lives in Switzerland, but her patterns are available in PDF format through Etsy.

Making this quilt was quite an adventure! Here’s a picture of one 7.5″ finished block.

The process was fun, and was a good thing to do at a retreat last fall because it was repetitive and I could talk and listen at the same time. Plus, who would know if I made a mistake!

I did send this to a professional longarmer because of all those seams, but it is the correct size for Flying Horse Farms, and will go there or to another children’s’ charity.

Quilt Stats

Name: Many Scraps

Pattern: Diagonal Scrap Quilt by Maryline Collioud-Robert

Finished size: 61″ x 72″

Pieced by: me

Quilted by: Linda Nichols

One of the workshops I took at Mid-Atlantic Quilt Festival (MAQF) this year was called “Interleave”. It was taught by Heather Kojan, though she generously credits Lorrie Cranor with teaching her the technique. Here’s my project from the class, not yet bound.

Now I know how some of those amazing quilts I see on Pinterest are done! And it wasn’t even difficult, though it did require some mental gymnastics to figure out how to set it up.

Heather was a good teacher and I enjoyed learning this. Here are a couple of examples of her work. Please note my photos are wonky, not her quilts!

I’m not sure I’ll ever make another of these, but that’s not the point–I just like trying new things!

While at Mid-Atlantic Quiltfest (MAQF), I took a class with Meryl Ann Butler, who was teaching “Innovative Techniques for Wearables and Art Quilts”. You can see some of her work here–scroll down past the workshop (which has already started) to see some of her creations.

And here is a photo I took of her winning entry in the wearable category at MAQF. My picture doesn’t do it justice, but you get the idea.

For detail, here are some pieces shown in her workshop. She has many beautiful techniques for embellishment.

Meryl Ann makes good use of unique panels; here are a couple of examples. I believe the second one is a student creation, but I’m sorry to say I lost track.

Of course I haven’t made anything as fantastic (yet), but I did come home and add  a decorative collar to a shirt I had just made.

I recommend Meryl Ann’s workshops if you have any interest. She was patient and thorough, and has many, many beautiful ideas for embellishing clothing. Of course, these ideas would look great on quilts, too.