National Quilting Day has come and gone on Saturday, but I did celebrate it by pulling out some green calicoes for the Barbara Brackman Stars in a Time Warp sew along. If you haven't yet discovered her delightful and educational blog, the link is here.
Civil War greens are as precious as a good chrome yellow, so if you see them buy them when you can!
Some of my collected greens were carefully hoarded from the last wonderful FQ Sale in January at The Golden Gese Quilt Shop at 22 Liberty Street, in Concord, New Hampshire.
In the block above, the cornerstones are a shirting that I boiled in stale coffee for an aged look and I'm so pleased with the result!
If you should like to try this for yourself, pre-wet the fabrics in a solution of about half a cup of Arm & Hammer Washing Soda (buy it in the laundry aisle of any stupidmarket) for at least a twenty minute soak before it enters the dye bath. I add enough hot water to the leftover coffee to be sure that it covers the cloth and let it simmer on low heat for twenty minutes, stirring occasionally. Rinse.
The stars really popped when I added a chrome yellow! The weather is still a frightful 10° with gale force winds blowing over the snowpack, but I'm dreaming of when my daffy's will bloom. This block makes me think of them.
In spite of Barbara Brackman's urging to design blocks with scrappy star points for an authentic 19th century look, I have resisted that challenge. They just look wrong to me. Sigh.
But I did use an orange madder center square from Wendy's scrap box gift to me from The Constant Quilter. Thanks again, Wendy!
Love the way the star pops out at you when you sew that final seam!
In that same box of scrappy riches, Wendy had included a big pile of odd sizes and shapes of all Civil War fabrics. I took a handful of them to my cutting table and pulled out my 2½" tall miniature tumbler ruler for a cutting session.
This is my "go-to" tool for saving that last bit of goodness of scraps and you can buy one from the Missouri Star Quilt Company.
What fun to play with scraps! I do also sometimes get a 2" square, too, but you can see my waste slivers off to the lower right in the above photograph. That's all that gets thrown away. The mini tumbler blocks will be hoarded, er, I mean, saved, for another day.
I did also put together some more pinwheels and I love matching them up!
I hope you are warm and cozy and having lots of fun with your scraps, too! If not, at least chew on a tennis ball for a while, that's what Miss Emma Lynne recommends, LOL!
Happy sewing!
Civil War greens are as precious as a good chrome yellow, so if you see them buy them when you can!
Some of my collected greens were carefully hoarded from the last wonderful FQ Sale in January at The Golden Gese Quilt Shop at 22 Liberty Street, in Concord, New Hampshire.
In the block above, the cornerstones are a shirting that I boiled in stale coffee for an aged look and I'm so pleased with the result!
If you should like to try this for yourself, pre-wet the fabrics in a solution of about half a cup of Arm & Hammer Washing Soda (buy it in the laundry aisle of any stupidmarket) for at least a twenty minute soak before it enters the dye bath. I add enough hot water to the leftover coffee to be sure that it covers the cloth and let it simmer on low heat for twenty minutes, stirring occasionally. Rinse.
The stars really popped when I added a chrome yellow! The weather is still a frightful 10° with gale force winds blowing over the snowpack, but I'm dreaming of when my daffy's will bloom. This block makes me think of them.
In spite of Barbara Brackman's urging to design blocks with scrappy star points for an authentic 19th century look, I have resisted that challenge. They just look wrong to me. Sigh.
But I did use an orange madder center square from Wendy's scrap box gift to me from The Constant Quilter. Thanks again, Wendy!
Love the way the star pops out at you when you sew that final seam!
In that same box of scrappy riches, Wendy had included a big pile of odd sizes and shapes of all Civil War fabrics. I took a handful of them to my cutting table and pulled out my 2½" tall miniature tumbler ruler for a cutting session.
This is my "go-to" tool for saving that last bit of goodness of scraps and you can buy one from the Missouri Star Quilt Company.
What fun to play with scraps! I do also sometimes get a 2" square, too, but you can see my waste slivers off to the lower right in the above photograph. That's all that gets thrown away. The mini tumbler blocks will be hoarded, er, I mean, saved, for another day.
I did also put together some more pinwheels and I love matching them up!
I hope you are warm and cozy and having lots of fun with your scraps, too! If not, at least chew on a tennis ball for a while, that's what Miss Emma Lynne recommends, LOL!
Happy sewing!
5 comments:
Love your "green" stars! And I am so happy to see that some of my scraps went to good use. I knew they would! Love the tumblers!
Will have to remember about the Civil War greens.
My scraps also become tumbles
The dog sure seems to be enjoying the quilts
You are so right--I am always low on CW greens. You have some great ones there.
You have some great looking stars. I would have a hard time mixing up the star points, too. What does that say about us? *LOL* I probably don't want to know.
You do have fun with your scraps. I have that tumbler template, but have yet to use it. Maybe this will inspire me.
wow, lots of pretty progress....love the greens AND the stars, the scrappy tumblers are adorable and the pinwheels just plain pretty....you are putting me to shame...can't wait until i'm sewing again
Love the greens and the chromes. Spring is certainly taking its sweet time coming!
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