I haven't accomplished much over the last 2 days except for these 2 new lap quilt tops. The red in the photo is actually more of a fuschia pink. But the overriding vibrancy is the same. I sure hope some child likes these! I need to make 2 more in this color palette and then I can move on to some blues. These bring my total to 8 (of an estimated 28). 

I also spent too many hours getting and setting up my new phone. I have to re-download all of my audiobooks but everything else transferred over. There's just a lot of checking  and changing settings. I don't know about you but buying a phone is about as exciting as buying a microwave. It's mostly annoying. Hopefully I can keep from dropping this one and it will last more than 3 years.

There hasn't been anymore quilting on Mom's quilt but I sort of have a plan for finishing it. I decided that I want to do some sort of floral motifs in the green areas but I don't have any experience with freehand florals. Then I received a notification for a new online quilting class by Bethanne Nemesh called Blooming Botanicals. Perfect! I took her feathers class a couple of years ago and it was one of the best classes I have ever taken. For this one I can use some of the lap quilts for practice and then finish off on Mom's quilt. So I'll finish the stars on Mom's quilt and then take it off for a few weeks. I should be able to squeeze in a couple of veterans quilts before I start practicing on the lap quilt. 

I'm not sure how much will get done this weekend. We are going to visit a friend in Charlottesville Sunday to watch my Eagles play so I'll only have Saturday to get some things done. But I have the rest of this week and no more phones to set up.

I didn't have to leave the house all weekend except to go outside and stack some wood. That is a pretty good sign of a nice weekend. One of my accomplishments was getting 2 more rows of stars quilted on Mom's quilt. If not for 4 football games (Fly Eagles Fly) I probably would have finished the last 2 rows of stars but I'll have then done by Wednesday. 
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I also made some progress on my small lap quilts. The next set was for this backing fabric. I have enough of it for 2 quilts.
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I'm really pleased with these 2 plaid-looking quilt tops. I'll make some more in this style for sure. I think they could use these for either lap quilts for kids or wheelchair quilts for adults. 
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The next set of quilts will be for this wild, bright back. I've had this fabric for a number of years. I remember buying it at a quilt show. The vendor had a bunch of these 4-yard pieces for a real bargain. I used one of them and this one has been languishing in my stash for a long time. I think it's perfect for some bright lap quilts for children. I've got the strips ready for the first quilt.
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In between I got all of my batting scraps  out and started cutting them down and piecing bits into the lap quilt sizes.
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So far I've got about a dozen batts ready for the little quilts and plenty of batting to still work through.

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I did all of my quilting and sewing this weekend wearing my new hiking boots. It seemed a little ridiculous but I wanted to wear them and make sure they didn't cause any rub spots and I wanted to keep them clean in case I needed to return them. After two days of wear, they seem like they are going to work out perfectly. They are really comfortable. If anyone cares they are Merrell MOAB 3. It's the first pair of Merrell shoes that have ever fit me.  Next up will be a long walk in the neighborhood and then off to a local 3 mile hiking trail. that should get them ready for our next hiking adventures.

This week will be more little lap quilts, more quilting on Mom's quilt and some crochet. I also hope to pick up my new phone on Friday.

Yesterday was mostly an errand day is it worked out like most errand days. I need a new phone and made my second trip to Best Buy to get one. Picked one out and now I get to go back next week to get it because they didn't have it in stock. . Then I went to DSW to get some new sneakers. I came home with new hiking boots but no sneakers. Then I went to Kroger to use a gift card and proceeded to use my debit card at checkout instead!  It was a typical errand day with varying rates of success. I am pretty excited about the hiking boots though. I've been shopping for them since September. I can't wait to go try them out.

Before and after shopping I actually got some sewing and quilting done.'
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The little lap quilts are going to come together so fast! Between Wednesday evening and yesterday morning I finished 3 more tops. These 4 will be for the butterfly print fabric as backing. I can already tell that I'm just going to power through these tops. Who knows when they will get quilted but they are way too much fun to piece. I'll probably try to gather some of my batting options this weekend and pair up some batting with each set of quilt top/backs.
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After running errands I got to spend some time in the basement washing out fabrics and quilting 8 more stars. I think I'm 1/3 done with the star motifs and borders. I'm going to have to get cracking coming up with my plan for quilting the green areas.

These 2 projects are basically my plans for the weekend after I meet up with some friends this evening. I hope you have a fun weekend doing whatever you love doing.

First, a little backstory.

Last week, a friend and I delivered a bunch of things to From The Heart. That's the local organization that is a huge clearinghouse for handmade donated items. It's where I donate everything except the veterans quilts. We got to spend some time touring the place and talking to the volunteers about what things they need. I'm mostly interested in the things that they always need. I'm not good at making things for deadlines, like the white and red baby hats that are due by the end of the month. I want to make what I like to make and I'm willing to make it in  the sizes that they need. For me, that means big blankets, small blankets, hats, drain bags, seatbelt port pillows and shawls. One thing they mentioned that then always need is small blankets sized 27" x 36". They use them for a children's cancer camp, children's hospitals and wheelchair blankets. With so many destinations it means that the colors/pattern themes can be just about anything. I muddled over that for a few days and had an idea...
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This bin of fabric has been around since about 2010.
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Here's the proof of how long it's been since I even dusted the bins on the top shelf. I probably need to climb up there with the Swiffer at some point. Ick.
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Here's the story on this fabric. 
In my early days of dyeing (around 2010) I decided to do a test to see what the shelf life was of each of the pure colors of dye. I made a bottle of every dye and I dyed a piece of fabric each week to see how long it would be before the dye started losing strength. Once I knew that I could make dye recipes and guarantee that my colors would be consistent. The result of that experiment is this table. It was an invaluable exercise for me but it was kind of stupid to do it on full fat quarters. Because many of the dyes last 9 week, I have a LOT of fat quarters. I also have some fat quarters from some other tests that I did and they have all been hanging out in this bin waiting for a new purpose in life. 

They have that purpose now....a collection of small lap quilts.

​I removed all of the date tags and sorted the fabrics in color groups.
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Over the weekend I started soaking them. Another reason I hadn't used them was because I knew they needed soaking. I dyed these way before I developed the soaking process to remove excess dye. They really needed the soaking time!
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While they were soaking I also found this set of fat quarters that Anne and I dyed the very first time we dyed fabric, probably in 2007 or 2008. I'll add them to the group too.
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Here are all of the fabrics washed and ironed. Most of the colors have 8 or 9 fat quarters.

There are a total of 112 fat quarters or 28 yards! I've decided that I will make quilts based on a 3" grid and will try to stick to squares and rectangles to keep the piecing easy and fast. I will only need the equivalent of 4 fat quarters for each quilt.

In my stash I have lots of fabric yardage that I can use for backing and binding so that should get rid of another 28 yards. I'll use scrap batting from my projects (not from the veterans quilts) and I have some bags of poly batting that I can also finally use up.
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Here's how I'm going to work. I'll pick a fabric for the back (and binding) and design tops to go with that backing. I have 4 yards of this butterfly print so I'll make 4 tops. I could do turquoise and orange, blue and gold, pink and turquoise.....

My first quilt is pink and purple and came together in just a couple of hours.

I expect I'll work on it in fits and starts but it will be a great project for times (like now) when I'm not motivated to start a new big quilt yet. Some of them will be more kid centric and some will be more sedate (blues and grays) for the adult.

The funny thing is that once it's all done this is all the space that I will have cleared.

That's not quite true. I will use some yardage from a drawer in the basement and I'll clear out some batting piles, but, otherwise, my space will still not look very different!

​Going forward I'll call it The Lap Quilt Project