Some of you are bewildered at my current obsession with cutting kits. That’s understandable. A lot of people hate the cutting stage. I probably enjoy the planning, cutting and organizing the most. The sewing part is the relaxing, meditative part and quilting is the get-it-done stage. I don’t like to cut out a project while I’m sewing. It’s too messy for me……unless it’s a symmetry quilt. I want to start another symmetry quilt soon and that requires a long term messy takeover of the sewing room.
For now, I’m happy cutting veterans quilt kits. On Monday, I started by cutting 2 more chandelier quilts. One patriotic, one not. The patriotic one is scrappy, cut from some leftover chunks.
While I was cutting the chandelier pieces, I cut 30 odd sized chunks.
I paired them with some backing scraps for a quilt like this. I’ve made 2 or 3 of these and they look great quilted in stars and ribbons in a bold thread color. This quilt idea came from Cynthia’s blog. She is one of my favorite sources for charity and scrap quilt ideas. She coordinates tons of charity quilts and this particular block was from a block drive a couple of years ago.
That got me into the patriotic scrap bin to sort and cut everything in there. I even allowed myself to toss things out. I cut a bunch of 2.5″ squares, moved hand dyed pieces to the hand dyed scrap bin, put aside strings for another string quilt and cut one more kit.
This idea came from the queen of QOV quilts, Alycia. She has lots of inspiration and free patterns perfect for charity and patriotic quilts. The binding for this one has been cut too, just like with the other quilts.
At the bottom of the patriotic scrap bin are a lot of 2.5 strips, binding for 2 quilts and the bare bones of an idea for 2 quilts. I put it aside because I wasn’t totally sold on the idea. I’ll figure something out and kit it up properly.
Next up was the hand dyed scrap bin and the plan was to cut another “Alycia” quilt.
I dug out this burgundy for the zig zag and proceeded to cut them all the wrong size!
That’s so typical. I was annoyed with myself for a minute, took a snack break and went back to the computer. I headed to Wanda’s blog, another great source of inspiration for scrappy quilts with pizzazz.
She just recently finished another quilt kind of like this. She makes hers with strips but my scraps are best suited for individually cut pieces that happen to be the exact size I mistakenly cut.
I’ll pair them as I go. I got this far before I got a little back spasm and had to quit. Only 29 more pairs to cut.
I still have a good bit of the batik patriotic fabric left to cut but I’m going to work on the hand dyed scraps for a while.
Today and tomorrow I’ll be sewing with my quilt club so I’ll get to open one of the kits and take a break from cutting.
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