FLOWERS & TUMBLERS (or scraps are taking over my world) part 3

FLOWERS & TUMBLERS (or scraps are taking over my world) part 3

FLOWERS & TUMBLERS (or scraps are taking over my world) part 3

Background of Flowers & Tumblers quilt:
FLOWERS & TUMBLERS (or scraps are taking over my world) part 3 – I have been trying to use only scraps to make quilts this year. I am making a dent in the scrap bins – finally.

For FLOWERS & TUMBLERS (or scraps are taking over my world) part 3 I was inspired by a row quilt that I hand quilted for a customer this past summer. I thought that some sort of row or section quilt would be fun. See previous posts:

Part 1

Part 2

Once the sections of tumblers and flowers were complete, I added 2.5″ strips of lightweight denim sashing around the sections. Now to come up with a border.

What to do about a final border? I decided on Flying Geese. So maybe I should change the name of the quilt from Flowers & Tumblers….No, I like the name…. I wanted big geese so started with 9″ squares that I will mark down the center diagonally and then sew the foot width from each side of the line.  Those will be cut apart on the pencil line, turned and sewn together as geese.  The advantage of this method is that there is no stretchy side to deal with and they can be made any size.

I sewed 20 big geese blocks, but I wasn’t thinking about how each goose is 2 blocks so after sewing the geese together, I realized they were way too big (um….ever heard of measure twice and cut once?) so I just went thru the scrap bin again and pulled out scraps to cut 5″ squares that sewn together as geese will make 9.5″ geese (the correct width for this project).

How to make the flying geese for the border

I cut 5″ squares of white or cream muslin and cut 5″ squares of various scraps. Just FYI – making geese this way allows you to make the geese any size you want for any project.

Stack of muslin square and stack of scrap squares.
5″ squares

I drew a line from corner to corner on the light-colored squares with a pencil. This line will allow me to sew a straight line beside it and use the marked line as the cutting line for a half square triangle (HST).

My sewing foot is just a little bit wider than a quarter inch and I use it consistently for all my block sewing. Whether you use a quarter inch seam, or something a scant bigger or smaller – be consistent.

FLOWERS & TUMBLERS (or scraps are taking over my world) part 3
Sewing along beside the pencil mark in previous photo.

Below are the sewn blocks all ready to be cut apart and be ironed. I assembly line sew the geese all one way along the drawn line, and then sew them the other way. Here is the long line of blocks all sewn on both sides of the line.

FLOWERS & TUMBLERS (or scraps are taking over my world) part 3

Once I have sewn on both sides of the drawn line, then I cut the geese apart, so they look like below. Now they are ready to be cut on the drawn line and ironed.

Half square triangles before being cut apart.

See below that the blocks are ironed and stacked by twos so I can match them and complete the “geese”.

Ironed half square triangles.

Here are two sewn geese. They are ironed and ready to go into a row.

FLOWERS & TUMBLERS (or scraps are taking over my world) part 3
The 2 matching HST sewn together and ironed. Now to sew all the geese into rows.

I sewed the geese together in pairs of 2, then those into pairs of 4, etc until I had the border the length I wanted.

Pile of "geese" ready to sew together into a row of "geese"

And that is how I make HST geese. It is time consumptive, and I have no doubt others have methods that work just as well for them, but this is what works for me.

I came up a few geese short, so I added white fabric to the borders to take up that space. I just wanted to be done with this quilt and move on to another one. Who says that the geese actually have to go all the way around the quilt border anyway?

Here is the PDF pattern for the exact size tumbler and hexagon I used:

I did some of this quilt while on a quilt retreat in northern Maine, see here for post about that.

What about the other Flying Geese blocks that were too big?

As for the blocks that are now complete but too big for this project, they are in the shoe box with the left-over tumblers from this quilt.  Maybe the next scrap quilt is already started.  I am visualizing a whole bunch of section quilts to use up the scraps.

I am already planning……

What happens once the scraps are under control? At that point, I get to make a planned quilt.  I have an idea for one that will be Christmas themed. On hand, I have a black and white Paris themed fabric and if I combine it with red and green Christmas prints, I can make a quilt dedicated to my trip to Paris at Christmas in 1985.  My mind is already wandering to other possibilities……..

Those scraps…

FLOWERS & TUMBLERS (or scraps are taking over my world) part 3 has been an enjoyable project. Please have fun with your scraps. They are not a bother, or a waste, but a wonderful resource for trying new quilt projects. Enjoy the process.

Choose Joy
Source: Bing clip art

PLEASE NOTE: 
ALL PHOTOS AND WRITTEN CONTENT ARE MY OWN UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED.



2 thoughts on “FLOWERS & TUMBLERS (or scraps are taking over my world) part 3

  1. I stumbled upon this blog and I’ve found it positively useful and it has aided me loads with my quilting. Good job.

    You are so encouraging and make quilting look so easy. Thanks so much for sharing your expertise.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Follow by Email
https://www.facebook.com/groups/3364321106927836/
https://www.pinterest.com/morrfamily0476/
Verified by MonsterInsights