Saturday 2 January 2010

Leaders - Enders

I've been using leaders/enders for a few years which I learned from Bonnie Hunter's fun site. I started with the quilt which she made under her instructions on her website for leaders/enders and made a blue and white quilt using scraps collected from years and years of sewing. Here is a picture of the first quilt I made:

I loved these units for leaders/enders so kept on cutting using beige and green scraps this time. Here is my trusty Singer 15-88 treadle with lots of beige and green 2" squares for the 4 patch units:


I organized my disaster in the plastic tub where I keep this project and pressed all the 4 patches and half square triangles that I had completed.



I have 44 blocks completed (the blue and white quilt used 100). By the time I have all the subunits put together I'll probably have at least 50 blocks, so I'm halfway:


This strip is leftover from my curved log cabin quilt's piano key border and the star is made from the cut offs from a 12" block I made for a guild project years ago :-). I've kept both these items in the bucket and hope to incorporate them somewhere in the finished quilt..kind of a cool, unexpected surprise somewhere. It'll be sometime before I get to laying this quilt out :-).

Found another picture on my computer of some of the green and beige squares up on my design wall. I forgot I had this picture :-). This is the same layout as the blue and white quilt, but I think I'm going to do something different with the layout for the green and cream/brown quilt.



7 comments:

pwl said...

Wow - very pretty! I'm SO impressed. For the beige & green squares - am I seeing things or are there some other colours in there too?

Andra Gayle said...

I love Bonnie Hunter but I hadn't paid attention to leaders and enders before. What a great idea. I have a treadle machine but still need to find a belt for it. I look forward to quilting on it...

The Cozy Quilter said...

Your leaders/enders quilt is beautiful! I aspire to make one of these too now!

Jacqui's Quilts said...

Yes, there are some other colours in there, but as long as the overall of the fabric reads green or brown, it goes in. Of course, when you cut a 2" square, which finished 1 1/2", you'll sometimes get a gold star or a small red flower sneaking in there :-).

Andra: belts should be available at your local sewing repair shop or online. I used to use scrap fabric for leaders enders, but when I saw Bonnie's idea I started doing that..what fun. Takes awhile to get a quilt together, but you're actually making another quilt in between. Bonnie also has ideas on starting 'strip bins'. I have drawers. I should do a blog post about that also :-).

Lynda said...

I think I need to hop on over to Bonnie Hunter's site and check this all out. I really like the blue and white quilt you did and think the green and beige will be beautiful as well. I need to learn about leaders and enders too!

Judy D in WA said...

I noticed you little scissorss or the bed of your machine--are those Fiskcar school scissors? I have those in all of my knitting and stitching bags and bins. I can't believe how sharp they are! Leader/ender projects are the best! Yours is coming along nicely.

Deb said...

I love that square (s). I've been looking at Bonnie's site for over a year now but haven't done anything about it. Must make that my belated New Year's resolution....tackle and subdue the stash leftovers!