Crumbs project update - "All Crumbled Up" - upcycled blues top #12 finished
"All Crumbled Up"
"Wait," you say...but you haven't shown us numbers 10 and 11 yet.
Well, that may be the case, but this is number 12 from my upcycled blues. I really wanted to finish this blues #12 this weekend- which I'm calling "All Crumbled Up".
In order to get this finished - I first had to add about 80" of small pieces to my 4" adding machine tape strips.
I needed almost 400" of this and as of last week I had about 320". Rather than push and finish those last 80 inches last weekend, I decided to just let it go and finish the whole top this weekend. This is the total I needed to go around the quilt top - as border number 2.
The side cropped a bit closer so you can see what I did.
After I finished sewing the 80" of scraps to the tape, it was easy to sew the tape to the center of the top.
I was able to get the top finished on Saturday evening.
All I needed to do was sew on the adding machine tape to it to the top as shown last week.
Then I added the outer navy blue border.
I had already cut up the navy border - had even pieced it together, so literally, all I had to do was place it in position and sew it on, and then do a final press. I am using almost 4" wide tape here - not the stuff that is almost 2" wide. I'm not sure where you can find it. I found mine at a very old 5 and 10 store in downtown Newton, KS.
In making that adding machine tape, I sewed all kinds of odd shaped pieces on - including parts of blocks that I had cut off to create the setting triangles from Starring Monkey Wrenches and Granny's Checkerboard - two tops I finished earlier in my upcycled blues series.
And with that, this top is finished!
Here's a visual of where I am in this project
From left: 1. Starring Monkey Wrenches, 2. Periscope, 3. Premium Labels, 4. Peek-A-Boo, 5. Granny's Checkerboard, 6. Scrappy Rail Fence, 7. Triple Irish Delight, 8. Make Ya Look - at Blues, 9. Frisky Boxes, 10. TBA (to be announced), 11. TBA, 12. All Crumbled Up, 13. TBA.
2017 in Review with Regards to my Strings/Crumbs
My effort to use up my crumbs/strings this year resulted in 4 tops with one of those being a finished quilt - let's review.
My first was this one - a strings top. It is now a finished quilt. I took this picture June 9, so it took me a while to actually finish this first one (I started in early May.)
My second was another strings top - It looks like this: I took this picture August 21. We had spent almost a month in the states in July.
My third was a crumbs top - it looks like this: By making the border like this, I loved how many crumbs I was able to use up! I was able to say this one was finally finished about November 18. Once again, we had spent almost the whole month of September in the states.
This is my fourth top made this year as a result of my modest "work on it only on the weekends" mindset with at least one good sewing session (I was thinking 2 hours when I wrote that) if at all possible. Most weekends I did spend more than a 2 hour stretch on this - but there was a couple of weekends where I got very little done. And that's okay too.
If "life happens" and I can't get to it, then that's fine too - no guilt producing goal - it was simply something I wrote down to give me something to aim for.
So, in the end, while I've not done a LOT with my strings/crumbs - I still seem to have plenty - probably for 50 tops - ?? (grin - they never seem to run low! Seriously. I use and use them and it seems like I have the same amount as I had before I started!) - I'm 4 closer to using up my strings/crumbs than I was at the beginning of the year.
One thing you will notice with all of these is that there is a constant color. In the first two it is white or off/white. The third one uses gray/black and the last one - cream/navy. I really love how all of these have come out - and that is said from someone who doesn't particularly like crumb block quilts or string quilts. I'm forcing myself to make these as I can't stand the thought of this much fabric going to waste!
And that's what's happening from my part of the world with regards to quilting! I trust you have a wonderful, fantastic New Year!
And don't forget to check out what my sis has for you over in the store!