Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Kona snow Bowties and Batik bonanza

In addition to making the Cheddar Bow Tie quilt ala' Bonnie Hunter, I decided to also make a more traditional one with Kona Snow. I dug into my "charm" collection to begin this quilt. One 5" square is more than enough to make a Bow Tie unit with a nice rectangle left over. I will use the leftovers as a Piano Key border. WhoooHOOO!

 We swapped out all our old hollow wood doors inside the house to white 6 panel solid doors. What a difference it makes. Anyway...I had to move a large stack of plastic containers to allow DH to get to hinges. I came across 4 huge bags of Batik scraps. All wrinkled and smushed and unusable.
 I started pressing and sorting by size yesterday. The above is just the beginning. I soon had to switch to a larger plastic container to hold all the scraps. The teeny ones are in the small container for string piecing.
 Here is the end result. All pressed and sorted...but not sorted by color yet. But all pressed.
 I am in Batik heaven...what to make ...what to make...
 Batik envy anyone???
 I wore out my poor old ironing board cover. Sigh! I am so hard on irons and covers.
 I bet this weighs 20#'s...all deliciously clean and straight and all the same fabrics together. I am thinking of taking them all out and do a color sort while I am in the obsessive mood. There are times that being OCD is a blessing. This is one of those times......
Any suggestions? I have an urge to just make some Peaky and  Spike units and some 4-patches and some HST and some Pinwheels and some Ohio Stars....
Am I going crazy????
BTW...I am almost done with the repair of the Butteryfly quilt. Just a tiny bit of hand quilting. I am so very proud of getting it actually repaired when I had been dreading even starting the fix.

I am going to a Kaye England lecture this Friday. She is such an awesome speaker. Some of the LQS's are doing a Shop Hop that involves NO driving. All 20 shops will be under one roof. We can just go to booth to booth. I have been saving some money...It will be all gone before the end of the hop.
I am taking my old/new friend Victoria to meet Kaye. She is a tailor who has been bitten by the quilting bug via me!!!!!!!!! We have been apart for 30 years. We cannot remember why we stopped seeing each other. I guess life got in our way. We are tight again. I do love her so very much. It is like looking in a mirror sometimes. We are both Pisces...we are both the same age...we both played violin in school...we both crochet...we both sew clothes...we both love Laurel Burch designs...we both love cats.
There is a whole lot more of what we both have...but what we both have right now is each other!
I love you Victoria! 

10 comments:

Janet O. said...

You literally found buried treasure!! Lovely box of batiks--wish it lived at my house.
Enjoy the lecture with your friend. Sounds like fun!

pcflamingo said...

What a great idea to have a 20-shop Shop Hop all under one roof. Someone is a genius. That's one reason I don't do shop hops anymore - too much driving and too much $$ for gas. I am in total envy of your "new" batik scrap stash. Sigh.

Smiley Quilter said...

So great to find a new/old friend, have fun. I also spent today alternating between sorting and folding fabrics and cutting scraps Bonnie Hunter style and sewing on bindings. Tonite when I should have been finishing bindings I was sewing 2" twosies to make four patches. You think I need help concentrating on a project LOL.

scraphappy said...

Such cute bowties. I like the idea using a charm square and having little rectangle leftover for the border. Have fun with ALL those batiks. Looks like enough for something fun.

Linda said...

What a pot of gold!!!

Laura said...

I love, love, love batiks and would have been in heaven to find a surprise bag of treasures like you did. I definitely have batik envy lol.

And how great to have reconnected with an old friend. Good for you!

gail.designs said...

Love found fabric. What a great surprise. My ears perked up when you said your DH was swapping out old doors for paneled ones. Ive wanted to do this for years and my DH has always talked me out of it. How difficult is it to hang new doors? I am very handy, so it would be me do ing most of the work with DH helping. He's a pastor and not very handy but is really a good assistant.

suemac said...

You must be the subee from the yahoo group. Glad I found your blog. I love all of your batiks. We have our unwashed batik swap this month and I am getting ready to cut all my strips.

quiltmom anna said...

Subee,
You and I love many of the same things. I have a couple of bins of batiks just waiting to be used in a few quilts- I do love them- How the colors move and change..
I also love Laurel Burch- I recently purchased some of her fabrics from Hancocks of Paducah. They were mostly Christmas ones but they do not look very Christmasy.I loved her designs - especially her cats. So sad that they she lost her life at such a young age.
Have fun playing with the batiks- i am sure you will come up with something beautiful. I also sure that the Kaye England lecture will be fun.
Regards from Western Canada,
Anna

julieQ said...

I just love your batiks!! I found the perfect pattern for a batik quilt...soon in my future!!