The photo I showed when I first started the Summer of Scraps project only represented a portion of the scraps that I have. I also have a bin full of bits and pieces of batik fabrics:
So, this week’s project, which was also a UFO on my list for the American Patchwork & Quilting UFO Challenge, was to create Block 8 from the In Full Bloom quilt pattern by McKenna Ryan using my bits and pieces:
Running a little behind this week on my Summer of Scraps project so instead I’d like to share a commission project that was recently delivered. A friend of mine asked me to make a coat of arms that he had designed for a friend’s birthday. Here’s the final product:
I had such tremendous fun working on this project and was so honored to play a part in an important birthday and a meaningful gift.
I’m at the halfway point in my Summer of Scraps and I made a huge dent in the white scraps this week with this quilt top:
The colored “scraps” for this one came from a strip exchange I did with quilting friends a decade ago. We cut 2 1/2″ strips of some of our stash fabrics and shared them with the group so we all went home with a little bit of everyone’s stash. It’s such a wonderful way to remember those friends.
It was a lot easier to make the first week’s scrap quilt in a week since I already had most of the blocks made. (I sew squares together to be leaders and enders when chain piecing and after a while, I get a few blocks made that way.) Week Two’s top took a little longer so I’m thinking the Week 3 project (that I have not yet started and it’s already Thursday) will be something quicker.
Anyway, here’s the final product for Week 2. The blocks were made Log Cabin style by starting with a 4 1/2″ white square, adding a red strip to one side, adding a red strip to an adjacent side, adding an orange strip to the first side again, etc. Just a word of warning, count your strips when you finish the block. I went to sew a block in and wondered why it didn’t fit and only then did I realize it was missing a yellow row.
I didn’t quite get this one done within the week, but it’s close. My 5 year old is very much into rainbows right now so that’s the inspiration for this top and she’s a fan of this one. “I love your new quilt,” she said the other night as it started to come together on the design wall.
Summer of Scraps has begun! I was pushing a little on Sunday to get this one done by the end of the week, but voila! one scrap quilt done. There’s a larger blue version of this on my guest bed upstairs. To make these, I sew blocks of 2″ squares (2 1/2″ cut), put them up on the design wall and then figure out a dominant color. Apparently, I’ve used a lot of red lately because that was the color that jumped out at me this time and thus was the color I chose for the sashing.
So far, I am really enjoying having a new creative challenge. I’ve already got three more possible quilts in mind just because my wheels have been turning on scraps. Leave a comment and let me know what you think!
My scrap basket runneth over and you know what that means? It’s time to make some scrap quilts! Earlier in the week, I told you I was planning something light for summer. Well, this is it, the Summer of Scraps! I’m going to focus on easy sewing this summer and make some scrap quilts. I am challenging myself to make one top a week in July and August. (Yes, it’s probably going to be lap quilt sized.) I’m also challenging myself to do something different each week. And, I would love to have your help. Share photos of scrap quilts you’ve made using the hashtag #summerofscraps or email me a photo that you give me permission to post). If you share a photo, I will enter your name into a drawing at the end of the summer. The winner will be able to choose the scrap top that she or he wants and I’ll put it in the mail to you. (The rest most likely become UFOs for next year’s American Patchwork & Quilting challenge.)
If you don’t have a photo but still want to join in, I’d also love your comments here on the blog or on the Facebook page. Let me know what you think of the scrap tops, offer suggestions of things to try, share your stories about scraps or scrap quilts and I will enter your name into a drawing too. Winners of the comment drawing will get a scrap bag. If I don’t have any scraps left at the end of the summer (wouldn’t that be nice?), then I’ll make some new ones to send you.
Who’s in for a summer of scraps?
This small art quilt (approx. 10″ “square”) can be hung or used as a candle mat or under a vase. Yellow sunshine and rainbow border are machine stitched with cotton thread to a black cotton fabric background.
I am running auctions that start each Monday morning. If you’d like an email reminder when the auctions begin, sign up here.
I feel like I’m finishing up a school year and getting ready for summer because I have been finishing stuff up like crazy. Last week, I finished quilting “Rajah Quilt Revisited” which was a 2016 Block of the Month that I started in January. This week, I finished a quilt that had been in the UFO pile for a decade. Yes, you read that right. I pieced these tops in October of 2007. (I think. It could have been ’06 or maybe ’08.) I made them to be a Halloween costume for my DH and me. We each pinned a panel to our shirts, wore berets and threw drapery fabric toga-style over our shoulders and went as a pair of french doors. (Yes, it took some explaining.) After Halloween, I stuffed them in my drawer with the intent to quilt them one day.
One day arrived in April, which was the month when these were supposed to be finished for the American Patchwork & Quilting UFO Challenge. I pulled them out, started quilting the first one and then moved on to the other. It was at that point that I realized one was shorter than the other. (The one I started quilting, of course.) My DH is a foot taller than I am so I made my panel shorter, but in the decade that they sat in my drawer, I totally forgot that detail. So I pulled out stitches, added more fabric and started quilting again. Of course, as you’ll see in the photo, I still mis-measured. But, they are done, not perfect and after a decade, having them hanging is worth an extra half inch of fabric!
French Doors, 2017.
This was supposed to be my finished quilt for March for the American Patchwork & Quilting 2017 UFO Challenge, but it needed to be completely quilted and bound so I’m happy to have it completed by June. This quilt was the 2016 Block of the Month from The Quilt Show, called “Rajah Quilt Revisited.” It’s based on a quilt made on a women’s prison ship that traveled from England in 1841.
My quilt was machine appliqued, machine pieced, machine quilted and hand quilted and I am happy to say that I made it for myself so I get to keep it!
Rajah Quilt Revisited, 2017. 68″ sq.