10 Donation Quilts!

Posted on June 8, 2014 by zippyquilts

Ronald McDonald Quilts

I have a little group of quilty friends that I retreat with at least twice a year. We all make quilts for Ronald McDonald House of Cincinnati. This last time, just 3 of us finished a total of 10 quilts! Here are some of them.

R McD House of Cincinnati wants all quilts 40″ x 40″ so, as I’ve mentioned before, these are a good opportunity for a lot of experimentation:

Try new designs to see if you like them
Make orphan blocks into quilts
Try new color schemes
Donation Quilt, 40″ x 40″
Use up fabric left from other projects
Use your scraps to make an improvised quilt top
Use up charm packs (yes, we’ve all bought a few extra!)
Make a simple quilt as a rest from challenging projects
Quilt the tops yourself for practice
Try out binding entirely by machine–makes the quilt more durable
Anyway, enjoy this little quilt show! And check with your local Ronald McDonald House if you’re interested in donating quilts to them.
Quilt with teddy bears

Pieced back

Charm Squares

Leftovers

Girlie Colors

More Charm Squares–this one more of an I Spy design

More leftovers–can you tell some group members have grandsons?

Boy Scout theme–there were 2 of these–and look at the quilting, 1/2″ apart!

My improv 9 patch

Orphan blocks with improv sashing

Your Inner Designer 3: New Blocks From Old

Posted on June 1, 2014 by zippyquilts

There is almost never anything new in design; indeed, the best designs probably are made with a sense of history. So far we’ve modified overall quilt designs to make new ones; this time we’re going to modify blocks. So here we go: 1. Stretch it:

: Block 1

: Block 2

: Block 3

: Block 4

Quilt made with Block 3

Quilt made with Block 4

2. Tilt it, or stretch and tilt it:

: Block 5

: Block 6

This quilt is made from Block 1, tilted, with half the blocks tilted the other way

3. Cut it and shuffle the pieces; rotate them if you like:

: Cut

: Shuffle

: Shuffle & Rotate–Block 7

This quilt is made from block 7, with the blocks rotated various ways to make the pattern

4. Cut it and insert something. This will distort the block and you’ll have to trim to make it even:

: Block 8

: Block 9

: Block 10

Quilt made from Block 10 and a plain block with strips inserted the same way

All of this fooling around might be a good use for some of those orphan blocks–what have you got to lose? And If you find some modifications you really like, try them out in a quilt: Please make some designs and send them to me–I’d love to see what you come up with!

Fairyland to Vermont

Posted on February 16, 2014 by zippyquilts

I’ve just submitted my improvisational quilt “In Fairyland” to the Vermont Quilt Festival, and of course I’m hoping it gets in!

In Fairyland

I made the blocks at the top just for fun when I got an EQ add-on called “Town & Country Patchwork” by Cori Derksen & Myra Harder (who have generously agreed to my use of their designs in this quilt for the show). The blocks are paper pieced and I made them in fantasy colors because those were the scraps I had on the day I decided to make them. Then the blocks sat around for quite a while 😉 Sound familiar?

Eventually I decided I needed to use up some of my MANY scraps. At least the scraps are cut into strips of standard widths, so when I get a notion to use them, they’re ready to go. So I just made rows of scraps, putting the sky-type ones at the top. Below the houses, I arranged the thinner rows in the “distance”. Finally, I found one of the flower fairies and put her in near the bottom.

My friend Joyce quilted the whole thing on her long arm, using a pattern of leaves at my request.

I’m happy to say I’ll be going to the Vermont Quilt Festival this year–something I’ve wanted to do for a long time. I’m hopeful that “In Fairyland” will be included so I can view my own quilt there! Anybody else going?

Orphan Blocks and Scraps

Posted on November 17, 2013 by zippyquilts

You can make a great quilt from nothing but leftovers–orphan blocks and scraps! Of course there are a lot of ways to do this, but here’s an easy one to get you started on both using scraps and trying out improvisational quilting.

Orphan blocks: Go through your collection and pick enough, or almost enough, blocks to go along one edge of the quilt. Pick some with colors that go together and set the color range for your quilt based on these blocks.

These are all in the same color range, and of course all the same design–a good start for an orphan block quilt!

The blocks can be a “header” for the quilt, or an insert somewhere inside the quilt, or they can go down one side. Or across the top and down one side. Or…well, you get the idea! There are lots of ways to use them. But if you’re new to improvising your own designs, consider making a row of orphan blocks across the top.

Here’s a design I’ve already made, but I can’t show the actual quilt because I’m entering it in a show

The blocks do not all need to be the same size. Just add strips to them to make them all the same. A lot of times you’ll have something like two 7″ blocks and three 8″ blocks. You COULD add 1″ strips to the smaller ones on two sides, but that’s a little tedious. Better to add 2″ strips on 2 sides of the 8″ blocks and 3″ strips on 2 sides of the 7″ blocks.

Quilt block with larger border added on 2 sides

quilt block with small border added on 2 sides

See, they’re modern blocks already–asymmetry! Because of adding larger strips, you didn’t have to fool around with tiny pieces, and you get a full row with fewer blocks. Win-win!

In the quilt above it was easy to add grass and sky to adjust the size of the blocks.

After getting the blocks arranged on your design board, go to your scrap bins. Pick out all the scraps in colors that go with your orphan blocks. Since I save my scraps as strips, I make a stack of each strip size in the colors I’ve chosen, and I’m ready to go. If you don’t save your scraps as strips, you really should–it’s so handy! However, you can also cut strips to get you started.

Yes, it’s perfectly acceptable (and fun!) to make an improv quilt from scraps of any size and shape, but it’s easier with strips. So if this is your first time, cut strips!

Now join those strips into rows, and the rows into sections, and keep going until you have the size quilt you want. You’ll probably want to square it up after you get the top pieced; a top made of pieces of different sizes rarely comes out even on all sides.

Here’s another idea, assuming I had several leftover leaf blocks:

Leaves and scraps, assuming I had 5 leftover leaf blocks

Now, go for it!

Orphan Block Table Runner

Posted on November 10, 2013 by zippyquilts

When I looked at my (er, large!) collection of orphan blocks, I found not only single blocks, but groups of blocks all from the same quilt, and several strips of blocks that looked like they had been almost included in a quilt. The first such strip I came to was from an improvised batik quilt made with Bold Over Batiks and assorted others. It was almost 24 inches long and 4 inches wide.

I cut the strip into a length of 12 inches and one of a few inches less, then added fabric to the shorter one so both were 12 inches. I then joined them lengthwise with a black strip down the center:

Table runner made from a strip of leftovers

I made a backing by piecing together scraps from my current quilt, which happens to be batiks also. I just put them together semi-randomly. (You can see the current quilt at the end of this post.)

The back was pieced from the scraps that happened to be on the top of the scrap bin!

I quilted the whole thing in the ditch and bound it in black. I think I like the back almost as well as the front!

Of course, if you have individual orphan blocks instead of a strip, you can make a table runner by joining them, either with or without sashing. I find that sashing is a good idea because it allows for the use of blocks of different sizes just by varying the size of the sashing. (I made the mistake once of putting together a “group quilt” and it DEFINITELY required sashing individualized to each block, since apparently everybody in the group had a different idea of the size of a 9″ block.) Sashing can save your bacon (or table runner) in a case like that. So here’s a quilt design with blocks of 4 different sizes. The blocks at the ends had extra sashing added.

Finally, here’s a peek at the current quilt-in-progress. It’s made from the FQs that jumped on me at Quiltfest in July and were shown at the end of an earlier post here. The quilt is up on my sticky wall with a label on each piece so I don’t get confused as I sew it together! Scraps from this were on top of the scrap pile, so I used them for the back of the table runner shown above.

This pattern is Bermuda Sunrise

Hope everyone has a good week!

A Quilty Shirt

Posted on November 3, 2013 by zippyquilts

Orphan blocks make great decoration for denim or chambray shirts. They might work on

A decorated chambray work shirt

T shirts, too, but it’s easier to put them on a woven shirt than a knit one, so I vote for “workshirts”.

Here’s an example, modeled by my friend Anna.

These blocks had been around a while 😉 You know how that goes! Then I got a good deal on some chambray shirts and bought them in all the sizes my sisters-in-law wear. They made good holiday gifts!

I suggest you turn under a 1/4″ hem on all sides of the block and then applique it to the shirt by hand or machine. Very easy. I don’t suggest quilting the block first, because even thin batting can feel uncomfortably lumpy attached to a shirt.

Here’s another orphan block on a shirt

Here’s another one attached to the back of a shirt. I just sewed around these blocks with a straight stitch, but if you like hand applique, go for it! If you don’t know sizes and don’t want to guess, you can buy L or XL for most people; if it’s too big just explain it’s meant to be worn as an overshirt 😉

Next week: turn your orphan blocks into table runners!

Make An Orphan Block Pillow

Posted on October 27, 2013 by zippyquilts

Start by deciding what size and shape pillow you want; or start with the block you want to use and decide what size/shape pillow form to buy.

: Many orphan blocks to choose from!

: Measure the pillow form before starting

: improvised log cabin block

Once you have that pillow form home, measure from seam to seam to be sure it’s the size you think it is. Add 1/2 inch to each dimension for seam allowances and you have the size to cut (or assemble) the front and back pieces. For example: Pillow form here is 16 x 16, so I’ll make the (unfinished) front and back pieces 16-1/2 x 16-1/2 inches.

I stated with an improvisationally pieced log cabin block and added logs to 2 sides to make it big enough. While I was at it, I added pieces wider than I needed to allow for shrinkage during quilting and squaring up the final top.

I spray-basted and quilted the top with a thin batting and muslin backing. However, a block will make a perfectly good pillow top without being quilted, like these:

To make the pillow cover easy to remove, I make an overlapping closure in the back. It’s also fine to add a zipper to one of the edge seams IF you’ve got a zipper, and of course if you know how to put one in. I do that sometimes, but there are lots of places on the web that show you how to put in a zipper, so I’m not doing it here.

To make the overlapping back: Divide back width by 2 (16-1/2 divided by 2 = 8-1/4 in my case) and then add enough to each piece for overlap and hem. “Enough” should be proportional to the size of the pillow, but in this case I added (8-1/4″ for back and one seam allowance + 1-1/4″ for hem + 2″ for overlap = 11-1/2″, which I rounded up to 12″). So I cut two back pieces 12″ x 16-1/2″, then finished one of the long sides on each piece with a hem of 1/4″ first turn + 1″ second turn.

Next, I layed out the backing pieces with hemmed edges overlapping to make a square 16-1/2″ x 16-1/2″, and basted the overlapped edges together. Put the front and back pieces right sides together, sew all around the edges with 1/4″ seam, turn right side out and insert the pillow. Voila!

Orphan Block Tote Bag

Posted on October 20, 2013 by zippyquilts

There are a TON of bag patterns out there, and a lot of them are very good. However, they aren’t really a FAST way to use up orphan blocks!

: plain canvas bag

: Many orphan blocks to choose from!

: Measure the pillow form before starting

In contrast, there are several sources of good, sturdy, plain fabric bags that can be decorated with orphan blocks in very little time to make an attractive and useful bag. If you haven’t run across them, try craft stores. You can also Google “blank canvas totes” to find lots of options. I like buying them in dark colors so they won’t show dirt with use!

NOTE: Even if you didn’t prewash the fabrics for your orphan block, you should prewash the canvas tote. Otherwise it may ruin your work by shrinking or bleeding color when it’s washed later.

Choose your block and, if you want, quilt it with your choice of batting and a thin backing. It’s also fine to leave it unquilted.

I quilted and bound my block, but it isn’t necessary

Once your block is ready to attach, either bind it or frame it with fabric. Alternatively, it works fine to just turn under 1/4″ on each edge. REALLY, you could just zig-zag stitch it to the bag without any edge finish.

The only trick is that you need to make full use of the free arm feature of your machine, and squnch the bag a bit, to sew around the block. These bags aren’t very big, so it’s entirely do-able.

DONE! This is a nice quick-and-easy project and a useful gift. But don’t use up all your orphan blocks—there are more projects to come!

5 Great Uses for Orphan Blocks

Posted on October 13, 2013 by zippyquilts

: Yin-Yang blocks from a class

: Scrappy blocks, don’t know from where…

: A variety of leftovers from several years

Orphan blocks (i.e., those not intended for a particular quilt “home”) JUST INCREASE ON THEIR OWN in the dark places where you store your quilt bits…I learned that I have SEVERAL HUNDRED when I started taking pix for this post.

They come from lots of places:

*The sample blocks you made to try out a new pattern before cutting the fabric for the quilt

*The extra blocks you made so you’d have design choices in a quilt top

*The “found” blocks that just JUMPED ON YOU at a garage sale or thrift shop

*The single blocks you made at quilt classes but didn’t like well enough to duplicate for a whole quilt

*And the ones that JUST SHOWED UP and you have NO IDEA what they’re doing there

You get the idea—there are many sources of orphan blocks and many of us have quite a collection.

Therefore, I’m starting a little series of posts about what to do with them. Here’s my list; I’ll write a separate “how-to” post on each use. I know I’ll learn things along the way; hopefully my readers will, too! So here we GO…

#5: Decorate a tote bag. You don’t even have to make the tote bag yourself! These make great gifts.

#4: Make a throw pillow. Quilt it or not. Use to spruce up your couch or as a housewarming gift.

#3: Decorate a “work shirt”. Great gift for quilty friends.

#2: Make a table runner. Keep on hand for hostess gifts, etc. And a good build-up to my favorite:

#1: Make a scrap quilt with an orphan-block focal point—MANY options with this one!

As you can see from the pix at the top and below, I have lots of orphan blocks to use! I hope you’ll try out some of these ideas as I post instructions for them.