Disaster Averted

You may remember (but probably not because it's been so long ago) the infamous "Rainbow Disaster" quilt I talked about in this post.  Fairly quickly after starting I had to give up on it. Everything was turning out wonky, and I was getting completely frustrated.  I finally figured out it was because the pre-cut jelly roll strips were cut out sooooooo badly.  See?

I had never bought a kit before.  I got as far as having some of the blocks partially made then decided to replace the planned inserts with eggplant colored strips.   The eggplant was included with the kit and was intended for the binding.   

This is the mess I ended up with.  

Into the UFO pile it all went.  And there it stayed.  Until now. Since one of my goals for this year was to complete some of my UFO's (Hmmmm, I think that's a goal every year!)  I pulled it out and decided to just get it done.  In my own way, of course.  

First, I played with the blocks I'd already made to see what I could come up with.  I tried several variations .....

..... then thought about using that eggplant in the blocks instead of just saving it for the binding.  I'll worry about binding later.  You can't think that far ahead when you decide to just play.  

I decided that half-square-triangle blocks didn't actually look too horrible .....

.....but then again, they didn't look so great laid out together on the design wall. 

What to do, what to do.  Play some more, right?  Grab all those rejected insert pieces .....

..... cut up all those strip sets .....

..... and start really playing.  Now this is fun!

After a few days of moving things around, stepping back to look, thinking and re-thinking, I ended up with a flimsy I'm really happy with.  It has gone a long way from this .....

..... to this!

I had a lot of pieces left which I could have used somehow to make it a little bigger, but honestly I was kind of sick of looking at it.  So I offered all of it to whoever wanted them in my online quilting group, and Alice spoke up first, so they are outta here!

The quilt will be a decent size for a throw, about 55" x 55" so that's not too bad.  Plus, as soon as I decide how to quilt it there will be one less thing on the dreaded UFO list.  I can live with that!

I'm linking up with Confessions of a Fabric Addict for Can I get a Whoop Whoop?
Check out other bloggers there!

T-Shirt Quilt - A Good Start

Finally, it's time to get going on this T-Shirt Quilt. Sometimes it takes me a while to work my way up to it when I'm starting a new project and it's something I haven't done before.  Don't get me wrong.  I'm really excited about making my first (First?  Does that mean more will follow??) T-shirt Quilt.  

The first step was figuring out which of the 33 (!!!!!) shirts Josh wants me to include in his quilt.  Actually, there are 30 T-shirts, 1 sweatshirt, and 2 Hawaiian shirts. 

Because we don't live near each other we went through the shirts by text message.  I sent one photo at a time and he decided whether to "Keep" or "Get Rid Of" it.  It wasn't until we were almost finished going through all those shirts that I realized it would have been easier to just Face Time.  Next time, right?  In order to keep it all straight and not toss out a shirt by mistake, I immediately pinned a "Keep" tag on each of the keepers.  

I put most of the "get rid of" shirts into a bag to take to the thrift store.

Two poor shirts with lots of puff paints on them went straight into the trash.  

I think they were from elementary school, and I was secretly glad he didn't want to use them.  I just wasn't sure about those puff paints!

Surprise, surprise!  The "Keep" pile was a lot bigger than the "Get Rid Of" pile!

I have enough stabilizer to get started, so now I can really get going.  I had to trim one of them just so I could feel like this journey has begun.

Let the fun begin!

I am linking up with Confessions of a Fabric Addict. Check it out!  There a lot of great quilt projects to read about.

Feeling Charitable.....

.....and it feels good!  I love making charity quilts, and I've had several finishes lately.  In February I was working on a purple baby quilt as well as one in teal for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.  You can see some of the process in this post.   Both quilts have been completed, and I'm really happy with how they turned out.  The purple one is really cute with that little pop of orange.

The teal pinwheels are fun.  So fresh and bright!

Another recent finish is this Zig-Zag quilt.  The credit for this one is not entirely mine.  Several quilters made the blocks, then I put them together, quilted, and bound it.

The block itself is super simple.  It starts out with a square and builds from there using strips.  You can probably figure out how to make it just by looking at the back.

A different look is achieved depending on how you lay out the blocks.  It's kind of fun to play with.  Not as much fun making a decision!

I added these three quilts to some I finished earlier this year - the Finding Dory quilt, the Strings Around the Block quilt, the Craving Color quilt, and the Every Day is Valentines Day quilt.

All stacked up and ready to go to Choose Life of Northern Alabama.  They look so fun and colorful.

I added fifteen pillowcases I'd recently made for Women and Children's Hospital here in Huntsville .....

..... stacked them up and threw them into the back seat of the car to deliver them.

What a fun day!

I'm linking up with Kit & Cat Quilts for "Sew Some Love!" 

Also linking up with Confessions of a Fabric Addict - Can I get a Whoop Whoop?