Weekend Work

Three day weekends are wonderful and productive!  Yard work was on my agenda for Memorial Day--Mother Nature had rain on her agenda, I adjusted my plans and finally finished the piecing of the HST (Half square triangle)  patriotic red, white and blue quilt.  With this finish, my mojo was charged and this weekend, I added the borders to the quilt.  Let's not talk about the length of time I have had the border fabric in my stash.   With this accomplishment and to get the flimsy ready for the long arm quilter, I sewed the backing fabric together.  This week she's off to the long arm quilter.

Feeling good about my progress and having time on a Saturday afternoon--I put the petal to the metal on the old sewing machine and the tumbler pieces of this wall hanging also became a flimsy.  This was my first time using the tumbler tool and it is a hit!  (Let's not talk about the length of time these pieces have sitting on my quilt board.

While I was dashing through my fabric stash looking for backing fabric for the flag wall hanging, I found another PhD (project half done).  This is the French Braid quilt using the binding tool.  July Fourth is on Friday this year--another three day weekend and a great time to get this flimsy stitched.

Dying to Stitch will soon be shipping kit #3 of The Colonial Gathering Club.  (Drop by Paulette's blog at Plum Street Samplers for a glimpse).  I had hoped to have Harry Tyler's Lion stitched before it arrived but. . . 

Mojo  I love you!  Please hang around for a long, long time!

I've got the HST Blues

 Seven hundred sixty eight one and three quarters inch half square triangles--I think my eyes are crossing!

I started this quilt in June 2013.  It began innocently as a wall hanging.  One of my goals is to reduce my fabric stash and since there was lots of red white and blue fabric I kept stitching half square triangles and the quilt kept growing.  

Work on the quilt stopped when weeds in Next Year needed to be pulled, or my schedule did not include quilting time or I just grew weary of making half square triangles!

On Memorial Day I had planned to work outside in Next Year--Mother Nature had other plans aka rain.  With the red white and blue half square triangle flimsy approaching its one year birthday, it seemed like perfect quilting time.  

Now just need to add the borders and off to the long arm quilter she goes.

The Little Quilt that Grew

Remember this little quilt, my patriotic red, white and blue quilt? 144 HST (half square triangles)

It now looks like this and it is still growing!  360 HST (half square triangles)

One of my on-going goals is to utilize and reduce the amount of fabric in my stash.  As I was stitching the "little quilt" I realized there were more red, white and blue fabrics in my stash along with several more sheets of 1 3/4" HST sheets and I just kept sewing.  If I am doing the calculations correctly, there should be an additional 144 HST's.  504 1 3/4" HST's.  AppleJack thinks I might be loosing it.  He might be right!

  

These are the fabrics for the borders.  The gold and red fabrics are from Primitive Gathering, the blue stars is a mystery fabric.  

When I am not sewing on the "little quilt" on steroids, I have been weeding.  Here are my rewards:

About those HST's

It all started with this pile of left over HST's (half square triangles) from a Jo Morton LWC (Little Women Club) quilt called Pottery Shards.  Seemed silly at the time to have HST's available and not use them.



Then, I found this HST quilt on Pinterest and fell in love with the borders and thought it would be a good way to use up my left overs.

I can hear Grandmother Bessie's words resonating in my ears:  "now that you are up to your hiney in alligators, do you remember your goal was to drain the swamp?"  "remember your goal was to utilize the HST's."

So, three hundred and twenty four one inch and three quarter HST's later for the body of the quilt, progress was being made.  For the record, I did not have that number of left over HST from making the Pottery
Shard quilt.

Ahh, then I reached my favorite part of the quilt:  the first border also made of HST.  It would have been in my best interest to have paid better attention in quilt and math class. 

And since I had made and used so many HST's for the quilt, why not add a few more for the corner blocks of the quilt?  Yes, thirty six more HST's.  Since I was at the snack table when the quilt teacher was teaching the segment about adding corner blocks, I had to find instructions on adding corner blocks. 

Weeks later, I present my HST quilt.  Yes!  Another finish, more stash utilization.  36" x 36."  When I asked AppleJack about my latest accomplishment, he smiled and said, "it's beautiful, such a lot of work, wonder how long it would have taken you to make a full size quilt."

HST on Pinterest

  Before one quilt is completed I begin thinking about the next quilt.  Working with the HST paper was such a positive experience, I have decided to make another quilt using the paper.  Pinterest is a wonderful source of ideas.  The borders on this quilt are particularly interesting.

  This HST quilt is by Lisa Bongean (Primitive Gatherings).  An excellent way to utilize some of my stash fabric.

  HST set on point. 

Beginning a new project is always exciting.  Have already begun digging through my fabric stash.