Leftover "Leftovers" Of Kaffe Fassett pieces

A few years ago now I was in the states and while there I trimmed a lot of 2.5” strips for use in a quilt kit we had for sale. I had saved all of the little cutoffs from that trimming because it was so very expensive, and so very beautiful and bright!

I sewed all the pieces together and made some “made fabric” from it and then made them into half square triangles (HST). I made this quilt from those pieces and have this quilt pegged for a charity effort here in Poland - where they auction things and give the money for kids for physical therapy.

However, I had some leftover pieces from that effort. I wanted to use it ALL up, so I cut those leftover pieces and cut 2.5” squares from those leftover pieces.

I then put them away. In my recent “finding of interesting things” (in August) I came back across those pieces and reminded myself that I wanted to use them up - to the end.

I had already decided that I needed these tiny little bits to be the star of this quilt top. I wasn’t exactly sure how many squares or what sizes I was going to make from them. But I wanted to do something about a play on color.

In doing this, I found that I had these fabrics - so I started with the darkest of purples to put around those little 2.5” squares. I worked with 1” purple strips. Then, surrounded those with a hot, hot pinky plum. At that point I had to find fabrics that were lighter. as I wanted that look of getting gradually lighter.

I trimmed the blocks after three borders of gradually increasing size and lightening colors down to 8” before actually using them as some of them were a bit wonky. It had to do with the thickness of the actual pieces - the centers and some of the solids. Both of the fabrics on the left shown below are not exactly quilting cottons and have extra thickness at each seamline. They are more like a bottom weight of sewing fabrics - I do think they are cotton, however.

This is the overall plan I had worked up.

 
 

I had struggled with what color to use for sashing. I thought for a while I was going to use white. I kept pushing that aside, however, and obviously kept procrastinating on this project for some time. That meant there was something about it that I didn’t like. It was the white sashing. I tried to think about various lighter sashings and setting triangles, but nothing just made me happy.

I had tried light blue solid, but I didn’t like it at all. It seemed to just make everything ‘off’.

(When I say I tried various things - I mean in my layout in the Electric Quilt program.)

Then, I tried black. I loved it! I had at last found the one that made those squares pop off the quilt top! (This was all in the design stage.) So, I was on my way to finally finishing up these blocks and going to put them in with black sashing/setting triangles. I began to finish up ALL the blocks. I got about half of them completely finished and ran out of the outer fabric. Another delay. What to use?

Then, I was playing around with the blocks I had finished and I had some navy lying on the table, and I tossed the block on top of it, and I was struck by how nice it looked — it was all those analogous colors. The pinks, purples, navy blue. How fun is that? Could that work?

Then I second guessed myself. Maybe black would be better anyway. The contrast would be sharper. It was gorgeous. Part of my brain said, “But black is what you’ve often used - and it shows up every single speck of lint or threads.” The other part of my brain said, “Navy shows up everything as well.”

True, true.

I went with navy anyway.

I am very glad I did. It is so classy.

I finished the last round of all the blocks by simply going to my solids area and looking for less saturated purples or pinks. I didn’t have what I really wanted, but once again, used what I had. I had over half of them with pink, a few with the lavendar and only about 5 with the hotter pink outer border.

I am hoping to turn this one into a Quilt Of Valor for a lady - as it is about 67”x80” or so. No, it’s not red/white/blue but believe it or not, Quilts of Valor don’t have to be. I think some lady will love it. I like it, but it’s really not a style of quilt I would actually use, so I’d like to pass it on to someone who will really enjoy these colors.

 
 

I had varying numbers of blocks so I had to make the placement of the outer colored borders random. I tried, at least.

The finished quilt top is about 67”x80”. It’s on point so it’s not an even number.

After trimming the top, I finally folded it up after photographing it and was struck by the strong graphic lines and bold colors of this, so I snapped this photo of the top sitting on my couch.

I really only have a very small piece of that “made fabric” left. I may just toss it. Of course, I could work it into the backing. :) I’ll show you here. That’s all I have left of those tiny scraps that I know of.

Apparently these are a couple of HST that I had not used with the quilt shown at the top of this blog post. I must have used up all the leftover small pieces cutting those 49 2.5” squares that are used in the center of these blocks. I had needed 50 blocks for this layout, however, so was delighted when I came across these extra HST from that first quilt, so I could make block #50. :)

The end of the leftovers! I may just toss them. For now I stuck them in a certain spot where I won’t lose them. I also may put them into the backing, which I’ve not prepared for this top yet. Depends on my mood.

Thanks again for coming along with me on this journey.

Have a great day wherever you are reading this!

Becky PetersenComment