Welcome to the new website!

Well, you can see I finally chose my new blog and domain name!  Welcome to Cascade Quilts!

553 hexagons

Here is an updated pic of my hexie flower progress!  There are 79 flowers together so far!  That's 553 hexagons!  Maybe 1/4 of the way there I'm thinking :)

quilty memories....

Yesterday was a quilty day with my mom......
A semi-local quilt museum was doing an exhibit at a local retirement center, so mom and I decided to go.  It was amazing to see all the antique quilts and hear their stories!  We saw quilts of all types, even one that was fairly new from a local male quilter!  (There was not one man at the exhibit though, LOL).

After the exhibit, I went to her house to baste my kaleidoscope quilt:

then, noticed her Grandmother's Flower Garden quilt that I think she started as a teenager and finished just a few years ago.  I had forgotten that I had given her scraps from several quilts I had made.  The flower print in the star centers from this one:

and the main flower print in this one (which resides on my bed below the comforter ALL the time):

and also another print from a mauve/blue log cabin quilt I made early 1991.  For some reason, I don't have a pic of that quilt.  My younger son uses it on his bed under his ''money quilt'' though :)

It was really fun to see those scraps used in my mom's wonderful hexagon quilt though!  I'll have to get a pic of her quilts next time I think of it when I go there.  She has an amazing DWR that she hand-pieced and hand quilted too.  It's just amazing!

Anyhow, I came home practically meeting the UPS man at the front door.  He had a box with this little stack of beauties for me!

I am going to quilt the kaleidoscope quilt today, then my focus will be on this stack of lovliness!  EEEEEE!

postage stamp quilt finish.....

Finally finished my postage stamp quilt.  I quilted diagonally with a variegated thread.  My Pfaff has dual feed, which I LOOOOVE.  No need for a special walking foot for quilting :)  I love how the diagonal quilting makes it look like on-point piecing :)

 You gotta LOVE Moda fabrics too (I used 'Pampered Pooch here, alternating with Kona white).  I used 3 ''color catchers'' when I washed this quilt since there was red and black in several prints - and there was next to no color released!  And NO bleeding!  YAAA for Moda fabrics!

 

 As much as I love this quilt, it is now in my Etsy shop.  I'll be sad to see it go when it sells!

a few more hexies.....

Still plugging away at my hexagon quilt top!

Kaleidoscope quilt top.........

I finally got hubby to hold my kaleidoscope quilt top so I could take a half decent pic of it!  I finished this quilt top on New Years Day :)  My first semi-finish of the New Year :)

On Monday, I got my postage stamp quilt basted.  I'm ready to finally quilt it!  I think I'm going with diagonal straight lines though the white blocks with variegated pastel thread :)

Swooning.........scrappy block #1

Well, finally finished my first Swoon block.  Wow, they are labor intensive!  Glad there is only 9 of them, LOL.  I think it's going to be awesome though!  Every single piece of printed fabric came from my scrap bin.  I am very pleased about that!  What is WEIRD though - is my bin doesn't seem to have gotten any 'skinnier' because of it!  What's up with that?!  It actually seems like it's bursting even MORE.  OYE.  I see either another scrap quilt in my future, or a GIVEAWAY, hehe.
So, here she is, in all her scrappy glory:

Swooning.........scrappily

Here are all the 'parts' sewn/cut for my scrappy Swoon quilt :)

 I wasn't going to piece any of the small parts of the quilt, but I made too much sewing the scraps together into fabric, I had just enough to make the square corners from the pieced scraps too.  So, I'm going with that.  I am also changing the pattern just a tad - I'm not doing any flying geese (making them 2 HST's instead), and the rectangle that is supposed to be one printed material, I'm making into two HST's too.  This is definitely going to be my scrappiest quilt ever.  I am happy to say that I got this all from my scrap bin (minus the Kona Ash for the background).

Only y'all would understand......

The hubs thinks I'm nuts.  But, that's a moot point.
My scrap box is busting at the seams.  I'm not normally a scrap keeper, but for some odd reason, I can't seem to throw anything away anymore (I draw the line at anything under 1'' strip, LOL).

So, yesterday, I took out the smaller pieces (minus anything that had pink), and have been sewing them together making new ''fabric''.  I am going to be cutting my centers for my scrappy Swoon quilt for the Swoonalong from this 'fabric'.  The bigger pieces of scraps in my bin I will save for the rest of the quilt.

I love that these small pieces will be of use.  I thought (briefly!) about making the whole quilt (except the background) from pieced 'fabric', but I'm not THAT crazy, LOL.  Or am I?.........  NO! hehe.  I am going to make this one entirely from the scrap bin though - except the background.  I haven't decided what I'm going to use for that yet.  I'm thinking about a newspaper print (which I'd have to order).  I have some white on white random dots in yardage, but I don't think I have quite enough :(  Anything I choose, I will have to buy unfortunately....

3 posts in one day?

Ya, I probably should have waited until later in the day and combined the 3 posts, but oh well!LOL

I have an embroidery machine - and I have LOTS of rayon embroidery thread.  I had 4 spools sitting on the shelf that didn't fit in my thread rack, and I keep walking by these threads and they catch my eye every time!

wouldn't these colors be lovely in a quilt?  Ahhhh.  Maybe even all solids.  Mmmmmm.

OK, I need to get back to work so I have time to quilt sometime this week!!

wedding quilt.......

wedding quilt start........

I am going to be making a simple equilateral triangle quilt for a wedding gift.......  I am waiting on 4 shades of gray (ash, charcoal, med.gray, and pepper) and a couple more gray/black/white prints to add to these.  I did add some black triangles in there too.  I cut the triangles at 4 1/2'' to utilize every scrap of the 1/4 yard cuts I had of most of these prints.

These pieces are the only bits left after cutting the triangles from the 4 1/2'' strips - they will be utilized in the backing!  Nothing wasted or adding to my scrap bin (which is now almost impossible to close the lid on because it's overflowing!)  Me thinks I need to make a scrap quilt for my next project........ 

wordless Wednesday.....

36 hexie flowers in the garden and Blogger frustration

Is anybody else having problems uploading pics to Blogger?  It's really frustrating!  I click on the pics I want to add, and it ACTS like it's going to add them, but just gets 'stuck' :P  I finally got these posted after 5 attempts!

I've been working on these in the evenings again and now have 36 flowers together.  I was going to try to do it in 'blocks', but quickly realized that there would be too much figuring to make sure I got them all aligned the same so that the blocks would fit together in the end.  It's really nice to be able to take out so many papers though (only the papers in the perimeter remain).  It's gonna take me the rest of the year to complete I think, but it will be worth it!

I did also finish the English Flower garden kaleidoscope quilt top, but need a clear day and a 'helper' to take pics :)  It's bee SO dreary and windy and rainy here in the Pacific NorthWest!