Love of Scraps

It has been a while since I enjoyed a rummage (a repechage round if you are watching the olympics!) around in the scraps, but this weekend I will have some time to do that. I was inspired by signing up for the Conquer Your Fabric Scraps Summit which will begin August 18th. The timing will be good for me since I will be in olympic withdrawal by then and will welcome something else to dive into 🏊🏊(see how I made that olympic reference right there!)

I sewed two more potato chip blocks this week using the Rainbow Scrap Challenge colour, which is Orange for the month of August.  These blocks used 12 orange rectangles and 52 other assorted rectangles. That's a lot of little bits and pieces out of the scrap bag and into a quilt block! 

Of course I had to throw in some Canadiana scraps to honour the olympics!

And here are the 5 blocks I have made so far. They are covering up the project I should be working on that is on the design wall!

I am excited about this project and have decided to finish it using a quilt-as-you-go technique, using white, grey and/or black sashing. But first I have to make 15 more blocks!

Okay now, I must get back to sewing the signature quilt. 

But first... I cut a few more little bits of orange scraps to start the Bonnie Hunter Leader Ender Challenge for 2024 called County Clare.  Bonnie is making her quilt in blues and greens, and I will make my version in the Rainbow Scrap Challenge colours. Here is the first test block, and parts sewn for more. I'm in!

Okay... now back to that boring signature quilt!

Linking up to the Rainbow Scrap Quilt Challenge

Design Wall Monday

I haven't written a design wall post for a while but am happy today to share a new project I have started.

I was inspired by seeing this scrappy quilt made by a quilting friend (Nellie), and being hand bound by another quilting friend (Barb). I love this scrap pattern! Barb called it a "potato chip" quilt which I researched on line and found a good tutorial on the Alamosa Quilter blog. 

I studied how Nellie made her  blocks, noticing that she made one light round of rectangles in each block. Then I dug into the scrap bin, and started cutting and sewing. It was so much fun!

Here is my first block on the design wall. I used yellow as a light contrast round because there were not many light neutrals in the bin I was working from. I also would like to find some brighter colours to add into future blocks and will pull from another scrap bin for the next one.

I have many more rectangles cut and am ready to start sewing more blocks! I am enjoying the energy that a new project brings!

Linking up to Design Wall Monday at Judy's

Scrappy Saturday

It has been a very busy fall here with lots of quilty activities going on. A week ago I attended a "Saturday Mingle" with my local quilt guild and we had a great time visiting and playing with scraps.

When I arrived I had my photo taken with the Mayor and the quilt that Annie (a blog reader) had donated to the Home for Good project. You can read about the story of this quilt here. Thank you again Annie for your kindness and generosity!

There were many quilts hung for our enjoyment, and here are 2 very different Chilhowie quilts - the left was made by Annie from Washington State using 16 blocks, and the right was made by our very prolific guild member Lynn using 12 blocks. Aren't they just amazing?!? 

Just look at this lovely table full of projects. The bags are pre-cut coordinated kits with  patterns, made by the outreach committee from donated fabrics. Amazing!

 And at the front of the table are scraps cut for quarter log cabin blocks.

I took on that challenge, and sewed some blocks for a group quilt. Each block has a gold centre, and scraps are sewn on 2 sides. It was very fun, thanks to Colleen who did all the pre-cutting for us. 

While we were sewing, we were also visiting, and I was so happy to see a former guild member Sharon, who dropped by to donate her fabric scraps as she was cleaning out her stash. We had a little visit and I snapped a photo of her in front of our guild quilt which she helped to create many years ago!

It was such a wonderful opportunity to spend time with interesting and creative people. I really missed this socializing during covid and hope I never take it for granted in the future!

Today I will be participating in an online zoom sewing day with guild members. We are so lucky to have all these opportunities! 

I plan to work on the hand binding on this guild donation quilt. It is a scrappy quarter square log cabin quilt... just like the blocks I was making at the mingle to make another quilt!  I had an outing to the lake this week and took this quilt along to stitch, and today I'll finish it from my sewing room while visiting with guild friends.

Design Wall Monday

Finally I am posting a design wall blog post on a Monday! 

I received a bag of blocks from my friend Dorothy who is moving and decluttering. She was done with this project and tired of her scraps (we all know how that goes!) and I accepted the challenge to make them into something.

I put them on my design wall to see what I had to work with. She had some partially constructed blocks in the bag so the first thing I did was finish those. Then I decided to add a white sashing to separate the blocks a bit. 

Because about half of the blocks had blue borders, I decided to make 4 blue rows, and the other rows would be the remaining colours which were red, pink, purple green and black. (Yes, there is a dinosaur on the right hand side of the second row - quilting studios are wild places sometimes!)

And here is the quilt top so far on the design floor.

I think it needs another white border on both sides and then maybe another scrappy squares border on top and bottom? It's still a work in progress. 

Linking up to Design Wall Monday at Judy's

Design Wall Monday

It's a blue wall of blocks today. I am participating in Bonnie Hunter's Hearts of Hope Sew-Along. Part 1 was posted on Friday and I have started 12 blocks.

(On the left are two scrappy strips for fun, and my first Moda Blockheads 4 attempt)

String piecing blocks on phone book papers is a fairly new adventure for me and I'm not sure if I like it or not. There is something pleasing about it - some kind of tactile enjoyment and perhaps a sense of accomplishment looking in the waste bin.

I do enjoy the mess of sewing with strings and scraps! All of these pieces were pulled out of a scrap bag from my friend Marg. There must be enough fabric for 2 quilts here!

Sewing on the phone book pages, I did find that my fingers got dirty and so did the machine bed. After sewing my blocks I wiped the corner to see how dirty it was. To the left of the seam ripper is cleaned. The photo doesn't really capture how dirty my machine became. I don't love that about this technique.

I'm looking forward to Friday's step of how to complete these heart blocks!

Linking up to Design Wall Monday over at Judy's

Finished Quilt on the Design Wall

I am so happy about this Scraphappiness finish! 

The blocks were started last winter when I made strip pieced scrappy blocks measuring 3.5" x 9.5". Then I joined 3 blocks together which became a  9.5" square. The blocks were joined with yellow sashings with scrappy cornerstones.

It makes such a big difference in my ability to finish a quilt when I chose an easy quilting design. I often make finishing (everything!) harder than it really needs to be! So this time I just quilted horizontal wavy lines about 3" apart and it went really fast.

Here you can see the quilting lines on the back. The photo makes it look like it's kind of ruffled, but it's really not.

One of the things I love about this quilt is that every bit of it is made of leftovers. The scrappy binding was made from my basket of leftover binding strips. Purple was the most plentiful in the basket so that is what the binding is made of...majority rules!

This quilt has been proudly donated to my guild's community outreach committee. Every little bit helps - every scrap, every effort, every kindness!

Linking up to Small Quilts and One Monthly Goal

Scrappy Saturday

Usually by this point in January I have a clear sense of what scrap projects I will be working on for the year ahead. But this year I have not followed the process I usually do and I am more unorganized than usual... and oddly, I am not worried about it at all!

Playing with the scraps!

It seems that all I want to do right now is sew mystery blocks and have fun with scraps! 

So I'm just living in the moment and going with the flow, and maybe sometime I'll get myself more organized for 2022... or maybe not!

I have been drawn back to working on my RSC Bitcoin variation (pattern by Bonnie Hunter). I have done blue, purple and aqua, and some short ladders of orange. This week I sewed my light green strips together that I started back in November, which made 3 1/2  ladders. Then I started cutting and sewing some red ladders for this month's colour. The red ladders look more interesting than the green ones don't you think?!

I don't know what I'll be sewing next week... I'll see where the scraps lead! 

Linking up to the Rainbow Scrap Party

Design Wall Monday

Ta da! The Scraphappiness quilt top is together! 

I started sewing these blocks last winter and really enjoyed the process. The soft yellow solid sashing strips provide a bit of order with all that scrappy chaos and I love how it turned out. 

This quilt top contains over 500 scraps! 

Linking up to Design Wall Monday at Small Quilts

Design Wall Tuesday

making cornerstones

I am still working on my "Scraphappiness" quilt this week. I have figured out the math for the remaining yellow sashing yardage, cut all the sashing strips, and decided on the scrappy cornerstones. Here is a photo of the scrap sorting and cutting table. 

The two sections on the right are sewn together and I am sewing more cornerstones today.

I want to get this off the design wall asap so I can focus on the new Quiltville mystery quilt for the rest of the year.

Linking up to Design Wall Monday at Judy's

November Table Scraps

A scrappy treat bag arrived in the mail earlier in the month and I immediately started sewing the scraps together. I didn't sort them, just started sewing the pieces that were right sides together. Why is it that other people's scraps are WAY more fun than my own?? Once I had the pairs sewn, they just seemed to sew themselves together into 3.5" broken dishes blocks.

I made 12 blocks which were the perfect size for a placemat for November's Table Scraps Challenge. Because of the bias edges on all the blocks, the placemat did not lay completely flat. Some very wonky "stitch in the ditch" (horizontal, vertical, and diagonal) soon fixed that problem, but don't look too closely!

Total # of scrap triangles rescued from the trash = 192! 

In December this placemat will join it's friends (that you can see here) in going to Meals on Wheels.

PS - I love the pumpkin fabric backing that I found, and the binding is one of my favourite Henry Glass fabrics called "Harvest Blessings" - perfect for a November placemat finish!

 

Linking up to the Table Scraps Challenge, and Wendy will link me up to the mini quilts challenge at Constant Quilters.

Scrappy Design Wall

Last week I took an online/zoom class with Adriana Fagan called "Wild about strings". It was inspiring to see how many creative variations she has come up with for using up strings.

Instead of starting a new project, I focused on making more blocks for my scrappy string quilt that began in January. I strip pieced any width of strings and then cut them into 3.5" slices. Then I join 3 slices together to make a 9" square block.

I decided to start sashing the blocks with a solid yellow that was in the stash. Here are some sashed blocks on the design wall today.

You can see some easy breezy blocks peeking out on the left side. I'm already know that I am calling this quilt "Scraphappiness"! I love it! I'm not sure how many more blocks I will make or how big this quilt will be yet. For now, it's all just about having fun with the scraps!

Linking up to Design Wall Monday

Scrappy Saturday

November and December are the months for finishing our Rainbow Scrap Challenge projects. I am currently working on 2 RSC quilts - machine quilting my Maverick Stars and piecing together my East Breezy blocks.

But as we know, I am easily distracted and look what arrived in the mail this week! It's a treasure trove of fresh scraps from Cozy Quilter Gail. Well, actually these are from a friend of Gail's who heard that there is a crazy quilter who makes things with little pieces, and she is sharing these scraps with lucky me!

So what did I do? I dumped out the scraps and just started sewing. I didn't even take the time to sort these pieces. If the triangles were right sides together, I just sewed them together. There are greens, blacks, pumpkin, white... all fabrics I haven't seen before.

I wonder what these scraps will become?

Happy Quilting everyone! 

Design Wall Monday

My Bitcoin project took a hold of my interest this weekend and I sewed together the left side of the project. This is not a good (late night) photo, but you can get the idea. These are the navy, purple and aqua columns for my rainbow bitcoin. Still to sew over the next few months are green, yellow, orange and red scraps. I'm hoping that placement order will make a pretty scrappy rainbow.

I really love 💜 sewing the ladders of scraps, but find the column joins to be hard work. I think I am cutting and sewing accurately, but when it comes to sewing these columns together, apparently I'm not 100%!

Pressing is particularly time consuming, but I've got a system now and I know the remaining joins will be less frustrating.

Linking up to Design Wall Monday at Judy's

Design Wall Monday

Some major sewing progress went on over the weekend and the centre of my Sister's Scrap Challenge is sewn together. It was a struggle because I am worn down from the isolation during our 3rd provincial lockdown/stay at home order. My brain isn't quite firing on all cylinders, but spring weather is on the way, we are half way through this covid lockdown, and hopefully I will be allowed to see some friends before the month of May is over.

I used a piece of every scrap that was mailed to me in the scrap bag and attached each scrap to background fabric. It was an unfortunate background choice and I wish I would have picked a white or cream fabric but didn't have the yardage on hand. However this is for a challenge and I certainly did challenge myself!

I do like some parts of the quilt... like this tiny Ohio star that finishes at 1.5" and I enjoyed including this selvage edge that came in the scrap bag.

There are now 2 borders to attach. One border will have corners using the 4 patch units that I wasn't sure what to do with. I think they'll make a nice frame. And the last border is the background fabric to make the quilt a bit bigger.

It is my May goal to add the 2 borders, machine quilt and hand bind this project. Linking up to One Monthly Goal and Design Wall Monday.

New Project - Step #5

I'm starting to feel the time pressure with this challenge quilt because the deadline to become a finished quilt for the Scrap Sister's Challenge is May 15.

The next decision was what to do with the many green strips in the envelope. Having no other ideas at the time, I just made a stack of 4 patch blocks.

Now I need to figure out how to integrate them into this quilt. 

I don't know... sprinkle them around the quilt? Use them as sashing? There aren't enough to go around the quilt for a border, but maybe partial borders?

I will ask the quilt and see what she says!

New Project - Step #4

The best thing about a quilt challenge is that at the beginning you have no idea what to make, and eventually your creative brain makes decisions and gives you direction, and before you know it, you're making something. It might not be something you like, but if you're open to the creative process, it's a fun ride!

In making my version of the Sister's Scrap Challenge I have been asking myself "what could I do to help me like this project more"? 

I had to deal with this ugly fabric and the best way to deal with ugly is to cut it into small pieces. So I made 4 more friendship stars with the background blue fabric and the ugly. It's not too terrible.

Let's see how it's coming together with all the decisions made so far. Here is the design wall situation today.

Gulp! Well, so far it's a dog's breakfast and maybe that's the name of this quilt?!?! I'll keep asking myself what I could change/add to help me to like this more and see where it takes me!

Linking up to Design Wall Monday over at Judy's

New Project - Step #3

The friendship stars made earlier in the week gave me an energetic boost for this scrap challenge. I really like them. Then I took a good look at the fabric pile and found these 2 fun pieces that look a bit like fireworks.

I fussy cut the circles in different sizes and bordered them on 3 sizes with the background fabric strips.

Okay, now what should I do with those?

I just kept on sewing the small scraps to a piece of background fabric and accumulated a pile of these 2 piece units.

And I learned how hard it is to photograph this growing quilt with accurate colour since there is so much bright blue.

 Thinking of the next step...thinking...thinking!

Finally I decided to join the fireworks with a pile of the crumb pieced units and got these fun strips. Oh yah... this is going well.

Now, what next?

Stay tuned for an update on Monday!