Sunday, June 21, 2015

New Beginnings and Closing In on a Finish

Cutting up fabrics into little triangles and squares makes me happy! This has been a great week! We've had a few rainy days lately, so after finally completing the machine quilting on Campfire Memories last weekend, the work/cutting/quilting table was pulled out of its corner behind the Janome and into the middle of the room, and the fabric totes came out of the closet.  Several hours of cutting later, this lovely batch of triangles, squares and rectangles are now (sort of) neatly stacked in their respective containers awaiting their turn under the machine
to become more of these:
Yes, I'm finally starting the basket quilt I'd planned as a NewFO project a couple years ago, but that had been on my quilt basket bucket list for more years than I can remember.  There are enough pieces cut to make more than one scrappy quilt, so I'll stitch up blocks until I run out of background and/or basket pieces, then start playing with putting them together.

The first quilt will be at least loosely based on this quilt from the Fons and Porter Fat Quarter Friendly book published in 2000.  Theirs is called French Country Strippy, and I loved the quilt since I first laid eyes on it.
I plan to change it up somewhat, possibly adding another strip of baskets to make it better fit our queen size bed, but will decide on that option after I have enough strips sewn together to lay out on the bed.  The basket blocks will be scrappier than the pattern, using a greater variety of fabrics from my stash rather than the yardage I had picked up a few years ago, that now looks way too bland with too little variation in value for what I had in mind for this quilt.   It feels so good to be working on a new project again!

On the slow-stitching side, I'm closing in on finishing up Campfire Memories, hand stitching the binding down on the final side, then just a few stray quilting threads to tie off and bury.  Hopefully the finish will coincide with a non-rainy day so I can get some photos to post later this week.  Still plugging along with the hand quilting on the Blockade quilt, trying to put in at least a few stitches every day.  Looking forward to getting down to the borders on this one, where I think the quilting will progress a bit more quickly.

We're heading out to the city later this morning to one of the daughter's where we'll celebrate Father's Day with some of the kids and grandkids.  Wishing you all a wonderful family-fun-filled weekend!

7 comments:

Mary said...

You look so organized! I'm always relieved when I get to the point that the cutting is finished.

Ruth said...

What a fun project! And it's good to be finishing up something too. I wish we would get some rain here. I don't know when it rained last - not since we returned from our trip out east on the 9th. Thank goodness for A/C and a sprinkler system!

Barbara said...

Your basket quilt is going to be lovely. Looking forward to seeing your near-finish.

Janet O. said...

That is a unique basket block. I like the fun fabrics. Will be interesting to see how you switch up your project from the original pattern.

Kyle said...

There's something satisfying about cutting scraps into useable pieces, all organized and ready to sew. Fantastic start.

Connie Kresin Campbell said...

Isn't it fun to just spend time cutting up fabric! Love that pattern and your baskets will be beautiful!

audrey said...

What a great pattern! Love your baskets. Definitely can't go wrong with baskets in my eyes.:)