Scrappy Fun

Created for Project Quilting Season 8 Brighter the Better challenge.

I've been making things from shreds for a long time.  Shreds are the smallest strips of fabric, often left at the end of a piece or when squaring up a piece of fabric. Selvages and anything narrower than 1 inch is a shred.

For this project, I used squares of black fabric as foundations. I simply laid down shreds and top stitched them in place, then put all the squares on another piece of fabric and top stitched around the edges of each square.  I decided it needed a little more fun, so I cut out circles and either rotated or switched them and top stitched the whole thing onto another piece of fabric.

Finally, I layered it with batting and backing and quilted it together with a few lines of stitching, then put it in the washer and dryer to make the edges fuzz up a bit.

Created by Diane Lapacek near Poynette, WI.
17" x 30"

Dancing Fire

Created for the Project Quilting Season 8 Tune in to Texture challenge.

What a fun challenge!  So many possibilities!  I found tons of inspiration in just a few minutes without leaving my basement.

The challenge was to pick something that I could get done this week.  I decided to go with one piece of hand-dyed fabric and overlay the texture I found on the bottom of a flat that bedding plants came in.

I found some ready made 1/4" black bias tape that was left over from the days when I taught a stained glass quilt class many years ago.  I started fusing it in place and figured I'd make some wider bias for the heavier lines in the inspiration flat.  My bias tape makers were visiting my daughter-in-law, Kim, so I asked Frank to bring them home.  Before he arrived I decided that I liked the look without the wider pieces added.  About that time, I was also really starting to feel like crap, so I decided enough is enough.

Created by Diane Lapacek near Poynette, WI.
28" x 32"

Kaleidoscope

Created for the Project Quilting Season 8 Eight is Great challenge.

My first idea for this challenge was to make 8 evergreen trees and and make them into a wall quilt.  It seemed like a good enough idea and would go together quick and easy and I've been obsessed with these neat little evergreens.  

I decided to sleep on it before beginning and a Kaleidoscope using the technique from Ricky Tims found its way into my brain. Seemed like an idea that was more than just good enough, so I went with it.  It's the beauty of Project Quilting.  It takes you out of your rut and inspires you to make something that wasn't on your radar.

Created by Diane Lapacek near Poynette, WI.

28" x 28"

Focus Through the Prism - the Series

My Project Quilting Focus Through the Prism Challenge series is complete.  I hung them as a group over my dining table and they make me very happy.  I'm not very happy with the pictures.  There are windows on both sides to confuse things and the quilts all look like they aren't exactly straight.  Good thing I'm a quilter and not a photographer.

Cirque de Zinnias

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Created for the Project Quilting Focus Through the Prism snowball challenge.

Since red was the only Focus color I had not used yet, I started by making a background using lots of different reds.  I incorporated free form snowball blocks to  the conform to the snowball challenge requirements, then proceeded to layer and quilt the whole thing.

On to the fun part.  I've had zinnia's on my mind ever since making shredded flowers last moth for Cirque de Shreds.  So I cut some strips of fabric, folded them lengthwise and snipped the edges, and formed them into circles for rows of petals.  A button in the middle finished the flower.

 

Then I got to thinking.  I could make a snowball to go in the center of the zinnia.  A little fabric folding later and I was good to go.

Created by Diane Lapacek near Poynette, WI.

Cirque de Shreds

Cirque de Shreds was created for the Project Quilting Focus Through the Prism nine patch challenge.

I need to confess that the inspiration for this piece had nothing to do with nine patches.  I've made several quilts with 3-D flowers in the past and had a mad urge to make them again.  It's apple season here at Lapacek"s Orchard, and quilting time is scarce, so I needed to make my urge fit this challenge.  I started with a background of free form 9 patches using lots of scraps of greens.  Challenge requirements were now satisfied.  I sandwiched it and quilted it and started on the fun.

First, I added shredded flowers.  Shreds are those small pieces of fabric that you cut away whenever you square up a piece of fabric.  Any sane person would just throw them away, but I had an idea I could find a use for them.  So I created shredded flowers.

For Cirque de Shreds, I made lots of flowers and formed them into a circular wreath shape.  This was what was in my vision, but I thought it needed a bit more.  Maybe a bow?  Hmmmm.  Previewed a few things, but this was one of those times when I needed to go to my secret drawer of future quilting embellishments.

AHAAA!!!!!.  Mesh bags.  Probably from oranges or onions or a ham or whatever.  Then a few yoyos and a fabric flower on top.  Done.

Created by Diane Lapacek near Poynette, WI.

Circle of Friends

This is my entry for the Project Quilting Focus Through the Prism challenge for June.  The inspiration was the Friendship Star block and I chose violet for my color this month.

I liked the circular design I made for the first challenge, so I folded up a square and set about designing a friendship star version.  I soon discovered I really didn't like the way the friendship star worked when drafted the same way.  

Time for Plan B. Start with a background of "made" fabric using assorted violet fabrics including the Cherrywood violet.  Add just a few bits of yellow for some sparkle. Quilt it, then add the friendship stars on the top for a 3D wreath effect.

I sewed scraps of pastels together to make fabric for the stars, then drew some friendship star shapes in assorted sizes and cut a few of each size from freezer paper.  My first thought was to face and turn each star.  Bad idea.  Those little points are a pain to turn.  I decided raw edges would look better anyway.  I simply ironed the freezer paper to the right side of the fabrics, added a piece of heavy interfacing in back and stitched just off the edge of the freezer paper.  I removed the freezer paper and cut out each star, then layered them on the background.  A button in the center of each star in the top layer completes the look.

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Created by Diane Lapacek in Poynette, WI.

Monkeys Go Round

The inspiration for the first Project Quilting Focus Through the Prism challenge was the monkey wrench block.  I chose to use the color blue.  The finished project was required to be 20" square and "read" the chosen color.

I woke up dreaming about monkey wrenches in a circle, so I started by making a 20" square out of paper then folded it into 16ths to create sections.  I didn't want the circle to extend all the way to the edge, so I picked a distance that looked good and drew a line parallel to the edge in one of the sections.  (It doesn't look straight here, but trust me it is.)  Then I added 2 more parallel lines, each 1 inch apart.  Why 1 inch?  Because it's a nice round number.  Then I divided the space along each line in thirds and used this grid to draft the rest of the Monkey Wrench block.

Now for the tricky part.  We moved last fall and I threw away my printer.  I didn't replace it.  Lapacek's Orchard is only 2 minutes away and my son and family including Kim of Persimon Dreams  (yes, the one who owns Project Quilting) live there, so if I need to print something, I go there.  But I didn't want to go there at 6 am.  So I stacked up 10 or so papers and put the pattern on top.  I sewed along all the lines with no thread in my sewing machine.  It worked like a charm.  After the first few stitches all the layers stayed neatly together.  I repeated with one more stack.  This gave me a few extra, but, hey, if you don't make extras, you're going to screw up at least one.  Before separating the layers of each stack, I cut them out around the outer edge and on each row to create 3 separate pieces for each monkey wrench.

From there it was just paper piecing and sewing the rows together.  Then I sewed them into a circle and added fabric made from pieces of scraps to form the background.  I added one regular monkey wrench in the center and quilted and bound it.

And I have 2 days to spare before challenge 2 comes out.  Wonder what I can make in 2 days?

Finished size is 20 inches square.

Created in Poynette, WI.

Spontaneous Patriotism

It was the 2nd of April and I was sitting with a friend at the American Legion bar while our husbands were downstairs having their monthly meeting.  Discussion turned to the Armed Forces Day event the Legion is sponsoring at Lakeside Bar on May 16th.  My friend was helping to secure donations for the raffle and I asked what kind of things they were looking for.  She said they really could use a red, white and blue wallhanging.  She had thought about asking her aunt, but she's 90.  OK.  I'm in.

The Project Quilting off season challenge for April had just come out, so I took it as a sign.  The challenge was Spontaneous.  I figured I already had spontaneous covered by the way the inspiration happened, but I still wanted to create the quilt in a spontaneous manner.  No pattern.  No sketches.  Just start sewing.  (I have to confess, this falls in with the way I prefer to quilt, but that's another story.)

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Red, white and blue says stars and stripes to me.  So I dug into my half square triangles.  Most of these are cut offs that I always save.  I took them how they were.  No squaring up all to one size.  I dug some "squares" out of my square drawer.  Yes, I have a square drawer and it includes not only leftover squares, but also rectangular pieces left at the end of a strip that are too small to go in with my regular scraps.

I put the squares and half square triangles together to form friendship stars.

Next step.  Dig into my strips and strings.  I put reds and white together in alternating strips.  I also added one blue strip to each side of my star blocks.  Put it all together in vertical rows. Done.

Finished size is 25" x 34".
Created by Diane Lapacek near Poynette, WI.