Monday, April 21, 2014

Scrappy Stitching

As Spring weather arrives we get the urge to CLEAN SOMETHING OUT.  I tackled a closet and the cutlery drawer before I realized the cleaning could quite reasonably apply to my sewing room.  I turned to my drawer of 1 1/2” strips pulling out all the short pieces (under 10” long) to put  to use in a simple quilt block.

My notes tell me the block is called Scrap Happy, but I did not record the original source.  I found it hard to compose the individual blocks. I could not seem to get darker and lighter fabrics “balanced”, but then I realized that didn’t matter.  Once the top is assembled the overall effect does not rely on the fabric arrangement in any one block. 

Block centres came from the 2 1/2” drawer.  I used lights, darks, mediums more or less as they came.  By the time I had a selection of blocks on the wall I decided I preferred the effect of the lighter fabric in the centre, but I certainly was not going back to change any of the ones that were made.

Sashings were a handful of light strips and squares from the 2” drawer.  It feels wonderful to have those fabrics OUT of the drawer and into a quilt top!  And of course, those drawers are much tidier now!

scraphappyquilttop

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Friday, April 11, 2014

And it’s Scrap Squad time again!

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My second scrap squad post is up on Quiltmaker’s Quilty Pleasures blog. Check it out.  Here’s the link: Louisa’s post

While you are there, be sure to go back and read the other Scrap Squad posts, as well.  The six quilts we produced for the first quilt couldn’t have been more different from each other – I’m still trying to decide which I like best.  And I think you are going to see a real variety for this current project as well. Did you see Margaret’s quilt that was featured last week?  The post is here if you missed it.

I enjoyed making Mountain Summer.  And I was grateful to my “mountain-sized” sons for being available to hold it up for an outdoor photo!  The photo has been cropped but you can tell that my guys don’t need to stand on chairs for this job.

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