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?

Relaxing Robin progress

Dawn hasn’t had a linky party for the Relaxing Robin this month – probably because she and I are the only ones doing it! You can still join in at any time; the details are on the tab at the top of my blog.

My 'progress' on this project has been slow. October was a non-sewing month for me and most of time in my sewing room this month has been taking up by ironing, cutting, sorting and storing scraps (which I am nowhere near finished)! The little time I’ve had to sew, mostly in class, has been focused on my braid quilt which has been causing me no end of problems (and will get it’s own post when the top is finally done)!

I really wanted to work on my Canary on a Pinwheel quilt, which is my Relaxing Robin project; but I had no idea where I was going with it. I like to work my way through a project without too much of a plan but with only two nine inch blocks and twelve four inch blocks, the goal of making a 48” x 64” quilt was quite daunting!

For instance: I knew I wanted to make flying geese units to try out the no-waste method (Jennifer Houlden on YouTube; Patchwork Pieces pdf file here) but how big and how many did I need?

I have been inspired to try an asymmetrical quilt since I saw this book last November.

I got really inspired when I found a pdf file on quiltinggallery.com for Gypsy Breeze quilt by Phyllis Dodds. This works because of the limited palette and (I’m assuming) the use of one fabric range.

It was time to draw up a rough plan. I did one on graph paper, then I duplicated it in Microsoft Paint so that I could try out tones/colours. I don’t know why Paint decided to change many of my lines to red when I tried to colour a block but that's okay – its just a guide!

You can see how Phyllis Dodd’s’ “Gypsy Breeze” influenced my plan. I, too, intend to use a limited colour palette of clear blue, red, yellow and green – no muddy colours here. The fabrics will mostly be tone-on-tone or semi-solids – I think the idea is busy enough without fussy patterns getting in the way! I’m not sure what my background fabric (shown here in pink) will be; I have to use something that is on hand so I will make the blocks, probably more than I need, first then find a background fabric that works.

And now, dear friends, it’s time to cut and sew some flying geese blocks!
See you with another post on Friday.

Relaxing Robin "progress"

Several weeks ago, in this post, I mentioned that the second round of the Relaxing Robin had opened on Dawn's blog, sewyouquilt2.

The first step was to choose a block from your UFO pile to work with. I actually chose two pinwheel blocks, and decided to build my quilt around those; one in the top portion of the quilt, measuring 24" x 48"; the second in the bottom portion of the quilt, measuring 36" x 48". Unfortunately, I don't have photos of both blocks to show you; the other block is the same but with pinwheel 'spinning' in the opposite direction.

The second step was to  add a small border and to try and use a colour not used in your block. There was no green in my original block so that was an obvious choice. My cordless iron never got hot enough, so this block needed a good pressing but I've never retaken the photo.

 The third step was to add applique. I have not done this yet; I know what I want to do but have not decided on the placement so this will come later.

 The fourth step was to add some triangles. I've taken this step and was still playing with it before the rest of my life interrupted my sewing program! ;-)

Firstly, I found another block called "pinwheel" and made three of those.

Next time I make this block, I will change the placement of the colours.

I also made use of ten small blocks I had made in a HST workshop by joining them together with a thin navy strip between each block. It's amazing how colours look very different when one stands away from them, or when one photographs them -- I hadn't realised how dark these strips were. Hopefully, once the quilt is put together, the dark will be a lot less obvious. This strip of blocks will go between the top and bottom portions of the quilt; bring the total dimensions to 64" x48".

I had two of the 4" blocks left (deliberately set aside) because they were also pinwheels. I have framed one of them in yet more triangles but have not yet decided what to do with the second one.

As you can see, all of this doesn't go far towards making a twin bed topper so I have a long way to go! I will probably continue making more triangles before moving on to the next step.

Here are the rest of the steps - if you'd like to join in, Dawn and I would be happy to have you join us.

5. using some of the fabric in the first border make another border of your choice

6. make a border that has squares in it; 4 patch, checkerboards etc would be welcome here. again have fun

7. finish as you wish. this can mean another border or if you think you are done, quilt and bind up the baby.

For now, I'm linking up over at Dawn's blog. Why not pop over there and see what she is up to? I believe she is still working on her quilt from the first round as well as having started another!

See you when I get home from holidays/vacation!