String Quilt Cat Mat - Easy Street Parking Lot!

Way back in January, I mentioned that I had plans to do a project with the scraps from my Easy Street Quilt, the online 2012 Mystery Quilt over at Quiltville.  However,  I woke up planning to do a machining project, and instead ended up with ALL my patchwork and quilting fabric out of my cupboard.  I had decided to reorganised my fabric stash. Several months down the line, I have revisited my original plans, and this week have produced a lovely new Cat Mat, which I am calling “The Easy Street - the Parking Lot”. 


String Quilt, Easy Street - The Parking Lot

In Bonnie K Hunter's book 'String Fling', she introduces her scrap user system, and a technique of using pages from an old telephone book as the foundation for stitching small scrap fabrics.  This was the technique I wanted to try out, but as my paper alternative, I had put aside the Christmas edition of the Radio Times, which by removing the centre staples has given me a double width of paper to stitch.  It has also highlighted to me how much of the Christmas period I spent on the Easy Street Quilt – I don’t  think I watched any TV!

2012 Christmas Edition Radio Times - String Foundation Piecing

I did do a rough design in my Electric Quilt software, but I haven’t followed it slavishly, and instead have used my usual technique of muddling through trying to get everything the right size.  My colour scheme for Easy Street Quilt was Purple, Red and Green, with a Tan background, and most of my leftover scraps are pretty small, so my paper strips are only 3” wide. 

Easy Street Quilt Scraps

Sewing the strips was easy on the machine, and I managed to get a production line going. I found it was better to remove the paper before tidying up the edges, as once cut, the stitching seam was not as strong to resist the ripping of the paper. 

String Foundation Piecing

As regular Followers will know, most of my work lately has focussed on hand stitching my Nearly Insane Quilt, so it seems like an age since I sat down at the machine (Note To Self: I really do need to set up a Leaders and Enders project, especially if Bonnie rolls out another Mystery Quilt at the end of the year!)  For the quarter square triangles, I tried to use the clever technique I used on my Broken Dishes Cat Mat, but my scrap pieces were too small and I had to cobble most of them together in a more ‘traditional’ method. 
Eventually, the quilt top came together, and was ready for quilting.  I had some scrap polyester wadding to use, and I still had plenty of the Kansas Troubles 'Bound to the Prairie' fabric which I used for the backing on my Irish Chain Quilt, which I have used for the backing. Up close it is a lovely little print, but from a distance it looks like a murky porridge – however, murky porridge is good for hiding any less refined stitching when machine quilting…

Quilt Sandwich being Machine Quilted

My actual Easy Street Quilt has yet to be quilted, and part of this project was to gain some strength experience of machine quilting to tackle this large project.  I was recently inspired by a little quilting video tutorial on the Green Fairy Quilts blog, by Judi Madsen, which although aimed at long arm quilting, highlighted to me the importance of marking your quilt, and planning the design head.  Also, I decided to abandon the worry of getting the tension right for free machine quilting, and stuck with using my straight stitch with the feed dogs up.   I went for a simple channels of stitching in the squares, rotating it by 90 degrees on each quarter. 

Quilt Detail

I think for this little quilt, the quilting has worked well, and enhances the pattern nicely – just as it should be.   This cat mat is only about 20 inches square, but manoeuvring it on my domestic machine was not as easy as you would want it to be, which makes me think – how realistic is it going to be to get the full size Easy Street Quilt under it?  I think I need to sit down and work out a design, and be realistic about how long it is going to take.  One assumes that using a machine means it will be quick, but I think on this occasion, I need to put that assumption to one side.

To finish it off, I pieced together some binding from the scraps, machine stitching it on the back, and hand sewing it on the front. 

Suzi the Cat on the new Cat Mat

I am really pleased with how it has turned out, but think I have enough projects in this colour combination for now.  It did reduce the scraps, but there are still plenty more.

The good news is, the Quality Control Department has already signed it off.

Featuring Feline Friday and Crazy Mom Quilts!

Nearly Insane Quilt - Block 12

Block 12 - Nearly Insane Quilt

Introducing Block 12. I like this one.  I will confess that I have slightly altered this block, by reducing the number of pieces in the edge strips, to make the pattern the same on each side. Like Block 92, it was the symmetry issue.   If anyone is following this Nearly Insane Quilt journey for an 'exact' representation, they need to be aware that I like to make my own mark - and I am finding that the urge is growing! 

Initially, I was struggling with the fabric choice with Block 12 until I made the pattern alterations, and then decided to mix it up a bit by using the different red and white charm squares for the centre of the block - the ones which I pulled out from my fabric stash in my original fabric selection.


Red and White Charm Squares - Nearly Insane Quilt

They are only 1 1/2" squares, and I wasn't sure how I was going to incorporate them when I started the project, but I think Block 12 in the Nearly Insane Quilt is perfect place for them.  They were a neat fit over the bits of paper for the English Paper Piecing, and add a scrappy look to the block.  Against the French General fabric, I think they look really cute. 

3/4 " Red Charm Squares, with French General Fabric, Moda

I have recently been quilting my red and white pinwheel quilt, and although I like the quilt a lot, looking at just the plain red and the plain white has been a touch boring. It has really made me realise that my heart is with scrappy quilts. In fact, as I laid out these squares, which are only 3/4" square, my mind did wander to the idea of doing a whole patchwork quilt in this layout, in a similar vein to my Single Irish Chain Charm Quilt, but with just 3/4" squares.  It would be a simple quilt, but wouldn't it be lovely, especially in the red and white colourway?

NUMBER OF PIECES: 36
DIFFICULTY: 2/10
SMALLEST PIECE: Square, 3/4" (17mm) x 3/4" (17mm)
LARGEST PIECE: Rectangle 1 1/2" (37.5mm) x 1 1/4" (32.5mm)
TECHNIQUE: English Paper Piecing (EPP)
FABRICS: 
Mix - White on Red Charm Squares
White dot on Cream (purchased from The Shuttle)
White Floral on Red (purchased from The Shuttle)
French General Favourites - Pearl  for Moda #13526 14

Joining up with Finish it Up Friday!

Single Irish Chain Charm Quilt

As I am at the beginning of my Nearly Insane Quilt journey, I thought I would share another of my completed hand pieced, hand quilted marathons with you.  This is my Irish Chain Charm Quilt. It is hand pieced, using the English Paper Piecing method, and hand quilted.



Single Irish Chain Quilt

The start of my patchwork and quilting journey started when I inherited a fabric stash from a friend.  Don't get me wrong, there was plenty of fabric and thread in my life, just not the 100% cottons used for patchwork and quilting.  Some of the little gems in the collection were bags of  small charm squares, which were less than 2" square. 

Fabric Charm Squares, 1" - 2" square

I believe they were from the era before the internet and online fabric databases, when mail order shops would send out small samples for customers to select their quilt colours from.  These little pieces intrigued me, and quietly laid down the gauntlet 'find a project to use us in'.  An Irish Chain quilt was the solution.  Also, we were expecting the arrival of a camper van, so I decided to make a quilt for use in the van.



Single Irish Chain Patchwork Quilt

Obviously the size of the charm squares put a limit on the size of my shapes, so each small square was 1" big.  I made up the English paper piecing templates using the Table function in MS Word, where I could set the size of the cells to be 1" x 1", print them off and cut them out.  From the charm packs I selected the deep and warm toned charm squares, which have a jewel like effect, and sought out a light background fabric that would add a subtle texture.  I had already started to cover these little squares with the charm fabrics on the train to work, before I found a suitable background fabric.  In the end I chose a little tan, tone on tone sprig print, "Bound to the Prairie" #9195 by Kansas Troubles for Moda (some of you may be familiar with it - it was the neutral in my 2012 Easy Street Mystery Quilt).  It also matched the woodwork in the camper van perfectly.

Single Irish Chain Quilt - Ideal for a Camper Van!

I remember pouring the squares out onto the shop counter to match up this co-ordinating fabric as the assistant looked at me in disbelief, commenting ,"You do know there is an easier way of doing this, don't you?" Yes, there might have been, but at the time carrying a sewing machine on the train each day was not an option! This portable hand piecing project went with me everywhere, and often or not, a stray square would turn up in the boot of the car, down the side of the sofa - I often wonder how many got left on the train...


Irish Chain Patchwork Quilt

The Single Irish Chain pattern is made up from a 9-patch, alternating the background fabric and the main fabric.  In this case, the 1" squares made up a 9-patch 3" x 3", and that was the same size as the alternating 3" x 3" background fabric square.

Detail of hand pieced 9 patch block, Irish Chain Quilt

The quilt is hand quilted, firstly by quilting around the coloured squares, and then by adding a further cross-hatch pattern in the centre.  The border is also cross-hatched.  On this particular quilt, I think this simple quilting pattern works well with the Irish Chain quilt.


Scrappy Border - Irish Chain Quilt

To add to the scrappy nature of the quilt I decided to make up the binding from further scraps, which are also 3" long.  The background fabric was also part of the Kansas Trouble, 'Back to the Prairie' range.  Up close it is a very pretty print, and although it disguises the quilting stitches on the back nicely, from a distance the colours tend to blend into a muddy colour.  I used a small piece to make a quilt label using my Husqvarna Designer 1 Embroidery Machine, using Isacord embroidery thread.  I didn't use a strong contrasting thread, as I prefer a more subtle label, but it does the trick.


Quilt Label - Single Irish Chain Quilt

This quilt tends to live in the camper van, getting used regularly if we head off on a trip during the winter months.  I love spotting all the different fabrics as I am cosied up in bed!

There are still plenty of these charm squares in my fabric collection, any ideas for the next project?

Joining up with Crazy Mom Quilts.

Statistics
Dimensions: 150cm x 178cm (approx 5ft x 6ft)
Blocks: 3” x 3”
Piecing Method: English Paper Piecing. Hand Pieced
Quilting Method: Hand Quilted
Dates: Autumn 2006(?) – March 2009

Competition Entries:
2009 Traditional Quilts, Quilts UK , Malvern