scrappy Saturday

Scraps, as most readers would know, are the core of my quilting. I belong to a community quilting group that makes quilts for donation. We, in turn, have fabric donated to us. Very rarely do we get commercial pre-cuts; sometimes the donations consists of yardage, half-metres, quarter-metres, fat quarters or fat-eighths but most of the time (at least as far as I’m concerned) it is off-cuts, fabric with pieces cut out (for appliqué or English paper piecing) or bits of projects long abandoned.

A few weeks ago, a friend in my quilting class gave me two bags of fabric – she is downsizing and needed to pass on some of her stash plus some saved ‘bits’. I store pieces of fabric larger than a fat eighth in drawers by colour; here is my friend's donated fabric after I finished sorting it.

As I arrived at a class a few weeks ago, the owner of my LQS handed me some four-patch units she had been working with and no longer liked. She then handed me the rest of the fabric she was using. Obviously it’s not enough for a whole quilt and I don’t have much Japanese print fabric so I might pass this along.

I like the challenge of making quilts from scraps and enjoy looking at patterns and interpreting them as scrap quilts. While working on my Jacob’s Ladder quilt, I realised that just turning or moving the blocks about would result in a different quilt. Very exciting – a new project on the horizon…

I have finished all the units  for my Jacob’s Ladder quilt – 100 four-patches and 100 HST 4.5” squares. Here they are, pinned in groups of ten (saves counting).

What I need now is a design wall so I can start putting the quilt together – I think WM is going to make one as my Christmas present. I certainly have asked directly (I have found that dropping hints is not effective).

For more than two weeks in November I spent every moment in my sewing room ironing, cutting, sorting and storing scraps. I worked my way through purple, blue, red, pink, teal and green. In the middle of the third week, I got a bit antsy. I just wanted to sew, sew, sew and sew! That's mostly how all the units for Jacob’s Ladder were finished: it went from being a ‘leader and ender’ project to being my main project!

I have found a new leader and ender project -- my container of 3" squares is filling rapidly and I have an idea which involves four-patches and HST but not set as for "Jacob's Ladder" quilts.

I still have to sort through and cut a tray of orange scraps and a tray of yellow scraps (both already ironed). The bases of these trays are about 11” x 8” and are about 2.5”  deep so it’s probably not as bad as this photo suggests – I am working with scraps after all!

 

In addition, I have all these bags of scraps that are not ironed. These contain black and white scraps, grey scraps, floral scraps, bright scraps, brown scraps and light-neutral scraps. *sigh*  This is just what I need screaming at me from under the ironing board! I need to find a tub to put all these bags in and hide them away – at least temporarily!)

At least when it’s all done, I will be much more organised and able to sew rather than search for fabrics, iron them and cut them! I am cutting scraps according to my scrap storage system which is both generic (square of all sizes from 2” to 5” in half-inch increments, triangles, strings and crumbs) and designed with specific projects in mind, like Solana Beach (free on Craftsy) and Make It Do (purchased from Craftsy). 

My Dutch Cap Hexie project continues slowly. I have removed some of the papers from the finished units and am spending ‘television time’ basting more hexagons. The last time I showed you this I had only seventeen units done;  now I have twice that. It takes me about an hour to add the seven diamonds to each triad of hexagons. At the community quilting group meetings, someone always remarks that I am still working on this project so I’ve taken to calling it my “100 year project”! I estimate that I will need 104 of these units to make a quilt of the size we donate so I’m going to be working on it for a while yet! Then I will need some half-hexies and some diamonds to make it square. I intended for the triad of hexies to point towards the top of the quilt but I can see that it might be easier to make rows rather than diagonals – I will have to think on it further.

I’ve barely done anything on the Rainbow Scrap Challenge this year because I  haven't been organised. Next year, I’ll be able to take the appropriate container of crumbs from the shelf and get sewing! What's more, I know exactly what block I’m going to make for the whole year!  Yahoo! I’m looking forward to that!

Meanwhile, my Relaxing Robin project, Canary on a Pinwheel, remains untouched. Why? Because I have to cut fabric for the flying geese units and I am over cutting for the moment!

What do you do with your scraps?
Use them?
Store them?
Give them away?
Toss them?

Something Old, Something New – March 2014

How did you go with your goals in the shortest month of the year?

I thought I was on track but then WM and I went to visit an “open house” (we weren’t really expecting to buy) and we “fell in love”. The photo shows the western side of the house where all rooms have doors opening onto the “deck”. That first door (on the left) is the main bedroom, then moving towards the right: the door from the secondary living area, the window from same, the window from main living area, the door from same, and (just showing through the trees) another window from the main living area. What you can’t see through the trees is the door from the second bedroom. The view is across crown land into the national park. Those plants are on our property and in the bottom right corner you can get a glimpse of our swimming pool. My sewing table will be near the window of the secondary living area (or at least that’s what I have planned)
 
That, of course, meant that we had to put our house on the market. The real estate agents advised us to get rid of all the clutter and to keep the house like a show home – which we did, but it meant that sewing has not been an option because I make two much mess and have too much clutter around me! The photo shows my living room and piano as they’re rarely seen!

My goals were to bring my Country Houses quilt up to the point of binding and to learn how to foundation piece.

The quilt remains untouched.

The foundation piecing nearly didn’t happen either. I knew that we would be doing this technique in class when we resumed at the beginning of February. What I didn’t take into consideration was the procrastination of my class mates. The first week the teacher explained what we would be doing and showed us a bag made from four sample blocks. The second week she gave us pictures of the block layouts. We were to look at them and decide what we wanted to make by the third week. In the third week, we told the teacher which blocks and how many of each we wanted to make, so that she could bring the foundation papers necessary in the fourth week (which was last Monday).

Only two of the five students who were “playing along” came to class prepared to make the first block. The teacher gave a demonstration and then the two of us who were ready began to sew. Well, I would should say, I began to get ready to sew. First I had to select fabrics from my pink scraps (that was the colour of the month at the Rainbow Scrap Challenge), then iron and cut them. Then my sewing machine played up and I had to unpick the “loops” created on the back of the fabrics where stitches should be. Then my bobbin thread ran out. Finally I got some sewing done but there’s not much to show for a three-hour class (the demonstration didn’t begin until the end of the first hour).

However, I also learned another new technique the week before that. Knowing that we wouldn’t be doing foundation piecing, I asked the teacher to show me how to piece curves (also pink for the same reason).

I’m linking this post with the ScrapHappy Saturday for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge hosted by Angela at SoScrappy blog.

For March, my “Something Old” plan is to get the Country Houses quilt moving forward and, because I’ve only had one lesson on each of these new techniques, my “Something New” will be to continue learning about Foundation Piecing.

What about you?
How did you go in February?
What are your plans for “Something Old, Something New” in March?

Link here with the URL of your blog post.
Don’t forget to pop into some of the other blogs and see what others are doing for this challenge.