Valerean

Back in May while I was having a bad arthritis flare-up I went to the scraps bin to dig out something I could sew on the machine, and settled on a bundle of green scraps and a charm pack in what I think are Kaffe Fassett prints (where I got those is anyone's guess). I had enough charm squares to make a decent size table topper, and I knew I could sew it all together on my machine in one night. As I was piecing the top my angst over my hands being too crippled to hand sew eased a bit. It's hard making this transition, but necessary. Eventually I won't be able to do anything but machine work. I pieced the backing, too. Using scraps to make things on the machine is fun, and I don't mind if I mess up (which I did.) The final topper came out okay. I definitely need more practice on the machine, but it was nice to get a project like this done in a night versus two weeks doing it by hand. I used the last four charm blocks and green scraps to make a m...

Back in March I put together blocks for a small baby quilt for National Quilting Day; here's how it looked after I sewed the blocks together the next day. Since I had some fabric strips leftover I decided to use them to make the binding for the quilt. Here it is batted, backed and pinned. I decided to go with a cream-colored thread for the hand quilting. After I did the hand quilting, I made the scrap binding and sewed that on by machine. Here's the finished quilt. The backing is really pretty, too. Very happy with how this one trned out.

From my Goodwill bundle and my gifted UFOs fabric bin I pulled these scraps and FQs to make a quilt this summer. I used the Susan Winget chicken floral print on the far right there to make the other color choices, going with a farmstyle theme. My plan this time is to piece and quilt it on the sewing machine, as in a few years that's probably the only way I'll be able to make quilts. I've already figured out how to bind a quilt entirely on the machine, and I've made a couple of quilts by machine. I thought I should start practicing more now to build my confidence and skills, which is why I've been collecting all this thrifted fabric. I looked for a free quilt pattern online that would allow me to use the most of the scraps and FQs, and found this one at rileyblakedesigns.com that will probably work best. The chicken wire gray and white print is also a Riley Blake design, so that was a fun coincidence.

With the way my hands are now I thought it would be a good idea to start teaching myself machine quilting, so I invested in another estate sale lot of patchwork to use as practice pieces. This is a lap size scrappy top from that lot. I had to turn this picture on its side to figure out that these blocks are bunnies. There's enough here to probably make a little crib quilt out of the material. These star blocks remind me so much of the seventies. I sewed the same kind of calico when I was a kid. I'll start small with the machine quilting, probably making some little blocks like these into coasters for my desk, and then work my way up to the lap quilt.