A Scrappy Quilter

Put Your Foot Down

Free Motion Mavericks

Tuesday, March 11, 2025

Sea Glass is Rolling

This found quilt is taking up a lot

room on the design wall.

Last week's layering created a big wind and

took most of my laid out design down.

Back up and working, it is about at the halfway mark.

The first corner finished up was

really a boost in enthusiasm!

It was lost in the archives for years

so any bit of progress is a finish!

Getting back to it after the Log Cabin finish,

brought to light a few variations,

and you know how I love variations!

It turns out that I started my rows with the

wrong colour squares. That calls for just a little bit of reworking

of the layout for other rows. It also makes it difficult to

work from the lower right corner,

without making the same mistake again.

It seems that there are a different number

of rows across the quilt from one side to the other!

That will result in either another added or

one taken away somewhere. This is definitely turning to

a little bit of an adventure.

I guess that's a bit predictable because

sea glass rolls all over the ocean before it

ends up on a beach to be admired.

Wish me luck and calm currents

while I finish up this greeny-blue beauty.

Updated!

Here it is all finished and ready!

It is in Scrap Basket Beauties by Kim Brackett

Stay safe and sew on !

Linking up with:

Put Your Foot Down

Beauty Pageant

Monday, March 3, 2025

Tower of Power

Organization is so empowering!
I was gifted a big tower of drawers.

It precipitated a reorganizing of the sewing room.

The question for now is to what to put in the drawers.

I think I will reevaluate the chunk piles

that I have in my stash closet. My BB

recently took all her chunks and

cut them into workable strips,

and I think that might be the direction I am headed.

To start off, though, I'm getting projects ready for a retreat.

The chunks will move to the top of the list

if I get done with that.

My most popular size of scrap is 2 1/2".

I used up a goodly supply last year making

the stash buster Irish Chains.

There are still copious amounts of strips remaining.

Organization is great, but I feel that being

organized won't help you get anything done if

you don't spend time in the sewing room.

One particular blogger I follow, Kate over at

Life in Pieces

encourages us to track how much time we spend sewing.

A small goal will encourage us

all to make some time to get some stitching done.

When we do that we often find that getting a little

stitching is good for our soul and ours psyche.

I think I will sort some more chunks

by color to ease up some of the stress

in my sewing room.

The center section is already color sorted,

but the two sections to the sides are

a jumble of recently acquired chunks from various sources.

I'll also may start storing 2 1/2 inch strips by color.

It would make for easier and

tidier set up when I'm ready to sew.

I will let it happen organically when

I'm working on projects.

Stay safe and sew on

Linking up with:

Design Wall Friday

Sunday, February 23, 2025

Last of the Logs

The final Log Cabin quilt is complete

and ready for viewing.

It was moved to the top of the heap

when I needed a quilt to bind for a workshop.

This new style Log Cabin, with a 1/4 colored block

edging turned out very well.

It holds pride of place as the first finish of 2025!

The multicolored binding enhances

the 1/4 colored sections in

the border blocks.

I used straight line quilting across the entire width

with many, many rows. My new sewing room partner,

the grand Bernina, made quick work of the straight line sewing

and zoomed through all layers of the top, binding and backing.

Since this quilt is multicolored,

it received a multi-colored dinosaur back which is really

suitable for all ages.

I am sad to see the last of the log cabins,

but since they are so conducive to sewing with strips,

they will probably crop up again in my sewing room.

Stay safe and sew on!

Linking up with:

Bolt to Beauty

Off the Wall Friday

Thank Goodness It Finished Friday

Tuesday, February 18, 2025

Into the Scrap Stash

A little trip into the wonderland

of Pinterest and a lovely new

scrap burner has been discovered.

We are in the midst of a cold spell here

so it is a good day to start a new project!

Windchill of -42 is nippy!

This design lends itself very well

to strips and is turning out to be a

very good time!

Made up of isosceles triangles set

end to end form diamonds,

the big piles of colors surrounding

my sewing machine makes me

feel like the miller's daughter!

This triangular block uses up

lots of strings of all sizes.

Each top will use about 100

blocks. There are 60 in the

stack so far but there are still

four colors to go!

The design boards are getting

put to good use. Piling up a

stack of blocks laid out

makes the stitching fast and fun.

The goal is to sew thru the piles completely

without returning them to storage!

I will make a good run at them,

and there will definitely be more than

one top made out of this wealth of scraps.

Stay safe and sew on!

Linking up with:

RSC 2025

Bonnie Hunter's Leaders & Enders ,

Stop and Go Quilting or "No More Bird Nests!

I was sewing along merrily

the other day when I had to grab my

seam ripper to take care of a "bird nest"!

The thread either knots up or some of the

fabric gets eaten. This happens most

often on older machines I think.

Especially on my little featherweight,

as it doesn't have a "needle up" feature.

Argh! I had let myself

run out of stop and go bits!

If you are not familiar with these

you may know them as

scrap starters, sewing tag or as

my BFE calls them, "Bunny tails!"

They are the little pieces

you put under when you Go to start sewing or

when you Stop! They keep

the trailing end of the thread from

pulling down in to the bobbin and

tangling into a bird's nest on your piece.

They also save a bit of thread,

(I have lots of thread ) so I don't

worry about that too much.

My current Stop and Go project

is more 1/2 squares. I have

boxes of 1/2 squares all sizes.

I had a great time sorting and trimming

during a recent internet sewing session.

I ended up with a nice pile of

1/2 square triangles to be sewn together!

They get saved up in my small plastic drawer storage and

I use them to add size to backs or quilt tops.

It seems I need to

frequently modify my sizes

and having a stash of fillers is very handy.

There is one section of flying geese too.

There always seems to be left over bits of blocks

that I save for using elsewhere.

I used the last bunch of 1/2 squares for the borders

of this lovely.

Prior to the 1/2 squares, I'd been using little bits for

Stop and Goes. I had enough last week to make up

the scrappy portion of these waffle blocks.

It is a great way to use up little bits

that I can't bear to throw away.

I think that is another characteristic of a

scrap quilter, saving all those little bits!

Let's keep sewing them up!

Stay safe and sew on !

Monday, February 10, 2025

In the Year???

Another song reference there, in the year 2025!

Only 500 years to get to 2525!

A scrap sewing morning recently uncovered

a long lost project.

Another found treasure from the sewing room!

These blocks and the book,

were in a project box labeled

"strings and some squares".

I guess I was being only

descriptive when I labeled that box.

My best buddy and I figured out this quilt project

is about 10 years old.

So I cleared off the design wall

and started laying it out.

It will need a few more blocks,

all around finish up.

There will also need to be

setting triangles on the outside

edges to square it up.

I spent a pleasant evening,

stripping up some ocean blues and greens,

and will enjoy a cozy time inside

sewing up the four patches.

No actual sea glass will be used in the creation of this top!

Stay safe and sew on.

Linking up with:

Put Your Foot Down