My Latest project (Mad City Mama goes Rural)

I am so inspired by Bonnie Hunter and her taming of the scraps.  I have accumulated end trimmings from quilt edges and pieces parts from other projects for years.  They need to be brought under control.  Well right off the bat I know that is not going to happen, so just utilizing some of the scraps into a project is a project in itself.

I try to explain my method of approaching a project in the blog posts most times and I will explain my inspiration for this latest quilt.

Bonnie has a wonderful series of books I use for inspiration.  I have focused on a pattern called Mad City Mama in her book Adventures with Leaders & Enders.  It is a wild riot of color strip blocks and 25 patch units.  I am making the 25 patch units from 1 1/2” strips of fabric.  I felt the easiest way to achieve a good mix of colors with unnoticeable repeats was to make all my strip sets for the 100 blocks I need for my quilt before I cut them into units to sew together into the blocks.  I have a tub of 1 ½” strips of fabric that just keeps getting fuller. 

My sister tried to tame this tub years ago and found they never go away.  She made a lot of quilts before she threw her hands in the air and said enough!  She even resorted to taking bags of one color and sewing the entire bag of strips into long strings and giving the sewn strips to our friend, Linda, to weave purses with.  Still there are bags of strips.  Linda would report back and tell us how many dollars of stock she had created.  Good for her.  It got rid of the really awful stuff like PINK.

finished sets of 9" strips sets

pressed and waiting for subcutting

Back to the project at hand.  Today I completed the 100 strip sets and will cut them into 1 ½” units consisting of 5 blocks.  

I don't cut one set at a time!

trimmed

trimmed

trimmed and into tub for sorting into sets of five

These will get sorted into sets of five units to sew into little 5” blocks which have 25 1” squares. 

sets of 5 waiting to be sewn

lovely little 5" blocks of 25 patches!

I will change the way my quilt looks by not using strips to make the squares that set the 25 patch units together because the riot of color Bonnie used is just too much for me. I will tame it with Kaffe Fassett’s red shot cotton fabric I bought recently at a local quilt shop.  The star points will be made from a brilliant blue fabric.  

The planning part is always the most fun.

Pictures will try to tell the story.