What Happened To Those Pink Crumbs?

 It seems like I've been sewing up pink crumbs all month long.  I define crumbs basically as any scrap less than a 12 inch square.  A lot of the pieces are very small and a lot of the pieces have curves or angles.  I define chunks basically as any scrap greater than a 12 inch square but less than a fat quarter.  I've been making blocks each month using crumbs in the Rainbow Scrap Challenge color of the month.    At the beginning of next year I'll see how many donation quilts I can make from the blocks. 

And so...

I made two heart centered twelve inch slabs.

 I made 18 eight inch crumb stars.  For these I've been using chunk scraps in complementary colors. If I have no chunks I pull from stash. 

 And from Cathy's Confectionery Company...12 eight inch Crumby Yummy Candies. 

Twelve little itty bitty nitty gritty fishes swimming in the deep blue sea. 

 14 ten inch Mendota blocks (5 inch centers with 4 inch and 2.5 inch sides). If the center is a primary color I've been framing with a primary color and if the center is a secondary color I've been framing with a secondary color. Again, I first use scrap chunks to frame if I have them and if not I pull from stash. 

 I ended up with a little mixture of four inch blocks.  (I THINK that pink calico in the four patch is left over from a sundress I made my daughter when she was about 4 years old.  She will be forty-two in July.) 

Four nine inch blocks.  (The fabric with the little girls in the nine patch is left over from aprons I made the granddaughters when they were about six years old.  They will be fourteen later this year. I also gave them Easy Bake Ovens that year. If I remember correctly it  was the last year the ovens used a light bulb for a heat source. ) 

And finally... a 12 inch block, a 10 inch block and a 6 inch block. 

Gosh that was fun. 

Rainbow Scrap Challenge ScrapHappy Saturday

I see in June I'll be working with aqua/teal/turquoise scraps. 

It's a Flimsy! Salsa Dancing

Salsa Dancing

72 x 90

It's a flimsy!

Pattern is Anna Maria Horner's Spinning Stars 

When finished it will replace the tattered quilt my hubby keeps on the back of his recliner and evidently uses frequently.  He loves salsa and grows most of the ingredients for it - peppers, tomatoes, cilantro, garlic, onions.   I had most of those ingredients in my stash as well as a few chips. 

My One Monthly Goal (OMG) was to finish 12 blocks. 

I finished the blocks and assembled the top.  

At the end of the month I'll link up to Elm Street Quilts OMG.

I thought I should try to get my goal accomplished since I'll be gone for a week. 

Oh Scrap! at Quilting is More Fun than Housework

Pink 2.5 Inch Scraps and Then Some

This week I dug into the 2.5 inch pink scraps.   

I made two 10 inch Lady of the Lake blocks.  The centers are six inch so I used some larger scraps for those. 

I also sewed together pink 2.5 inch bits and pieces usually less than a 2.5 inch square. The strips will probably be used later in the year in a Chinese Coin quilt or as a border. 

 Two 8 inch Depression Blocks. 

I've been making these for years. 

And I made some mini Happy Blocks.  They have 2.5 inch centers and I raided the 1.5 inch scraps for the sides.  I've been making these for years too. 

Rainbow Scrap Challenge ScrapHappy Saturday

Adding a Row

I am participating in a round robin. To begin with we could send off a center medallion or a row.  BrendaLou sent me a row of butterflies and posies. I added some liberated butterflies and kitties which aren't as liberated but are free spirited.    A tutorial for the kitties can be found on the tutorial page of Sally's blog The Objects of Design. 

The row I sent off, which will be a donation quilt when it comes back to me and is finished, is above. 

It's a Finish!

Green

a donation quilt 

40 x 60

It's made from some lotto blocks and orphans. 

I've had the four blocks I used as the center medallion since probably the late '80s.  I made a couple of "Quilt in a Day" twin sized quilts for my oldest kids some time back then. I know I made them before I even owned a rotary cutter.  Anyway, these blocks were left over and it was finally time to dust them off and put them to use. 

I pieced the batting and used a serpentine stitch for quilting. 

I had enough of a green floral to use for binding. I am feeling better these days about how my machine stitched binding looks.  

I pieced a green backing from pieces left over from backing larger quilts. 

This will go to either Quilts Beyond Borders or Wrap-a-Smile.  If you'd like to join the Sunshine Online Quilt Guild the group supports both charities. 

This was my goal #14

for 

Q2 Finish-Along

Duck, Duck, Goose

Two quilt tops

I recently found bits and pieces of different duck prints so decided add them to a few chunk scraps to make a couple of child sized donation quilts. 

I had some pink scraps out for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge so decided to add some blue and yellow for this quilt. What to do...what to do...then Duck Duck Goose popped into my head. So I made some Flying Geese and sewed them together randomly into columns.    I was going to alternate columns of Flying Geese pointing upwards with columns pointing downward; however, when I went to sew the columns together they looked sort of weird - probably because the corners on the Flying Geese aren't all the same color? 

Anyway...I didn't want to add sashing between each column so just went with one sashing.  I cut a couple of two inch strips so I could use the leftover for making those 2048 - 2 inch HSTs I have in the works for another project. 

You know I usually sew blocks or units together randomly and I'm kind of amazed at how often the same fabrics show up next to each other like all the Flying Geese with the light pink corners all in a row. 

And here I evidently have all my ducks in a row. 

I had a lot of duck prints in various sizes of squares from past swaps. I combined with the leftovers from the Flying Geese quilt so I had 24 squares to use in 10 inch blocks.  For this quilt I used blue, yellow and orange. 

These were quick and easy tops to put together in between gardening - my other love. 

It will probably be awhile before they get quilted. I haven't looked for backings yet. 

The Taming of the Crumbs

Strips of crumb fabric approximately 4.5 inches wide. 

This year I decided I was going to deal with the boxes of crumbs I have laying around here taking up space. I set up an old sewing machine and keep the crumbs near it so I can sew on them as the urge strikes or if I have a very small segment of time. I decided on several blocks to make out of crumbs.  And right now I'm sorting crumbs by the Rainbow Scrap Challenge color of the month which this month happens to be pink. 

I sort most of my scraps by size most often used. So I have boxes or bins of 1.5, 2,  2.5, 3.5, 4.5 inch pieces, strings, and chunks - pieces less than a FQ but normally greater than 4.5 inches in width since that's the largest size bin of scraps I have.   Then that leaves crumbs - mostly weird or irregular sized pieces that don't fit any of those other categories.  

The first thing I do is pull out all the larger pieces that look like they could yield a 4.5 or 3.5 inch square.  I cut those squares and sew them into a variety of different blocks and a few slabs.  Leftovers from the scrap go back into the crumb pile for later use.  It takes me awhile to just cut squares from all the different pieces so I keep the large pieces on the cutting mat to cut in between cutting for other projects since cutting is not one of my favorite things to do. 

 When I'm left with the itty bittiest of crumbs I sort out all the angled pieces and try to find a mate to add to it so I have a bunch of rectangular shapes. 

Then the new rectangular pieces are easier to sew to the rest of the crumbs.  Most of the crumb blocks I am making use 4.5 inch squares so I keep that in mind as I sew pieces together into strips. 

 Later I will take the strips and cut off 4.5 inch pieces and then square those up to make my blocks. 

At year end I will combine all my blocks into donation quilts.  It will be fun to see how many quilts I can make. 

After I'm finished with the crumbs all those little teeny tiny scraps too small for a seam allowance go on my flower garden paths. 

On another note...something that's not crumby...

One of my Mother's Day gifts - a basket of Morels and Golden Oyster mushrooms freshly foraged on Mother's Day. 

All Creatures Great and Small

This time of year I spend a lot of time in the garden so when it comes to hand work I work on smaller projects instead of hand quilting on a big quilt.  One of the projects I worked on this week was my All Creatures Great and Small hexies.  I completed eight of them and prepped many more. 

They will go into the pile with some of the other critters...

...now totaling 83.  Not sure how many I want or the size of the quilt I'll make. I guess I'll just make them until I've made one from all the different creature fabrics I have in the stash. 

I have my pencil case loaded with more pieces - scraps from the 30s reproduction box.  These will be hexies with the star configuration.    Just an FYI - to baste fabric to my scratch paper templates I use old spools of thread from the thrift store. I'm not sure why someone would have all those itty bitty spools but they work for me. I then use the thread from the ends of machine quilting thread and ladder stitch for piecing.  My cross stitch biscornu pincushion I made years ago has seen better days but it fits perfectly into my pencil box.  I guess my little needlework scissors must be under the pieces.  So now I have hexies to go. 

Slow Sunday Stitching

Oh Scrap! at Quilting is More Fun than Housework

Pink 1.5 Inch Scrap Edition

This week I used pink scraps from the 1.5 inch scrap bin.  

I made two 6 x 14 Whatchamacallit blocks ( aka Chinese Coins). I didn't have quite enough different scraps for two blocks so I added in a few red scraps. 

Little 3 inch Rail blocks. 

3 inch Nine Patches

Rainbow Scrap Challenge ScrapHappy Saturday

324 Down; 1724 To Go

I have 324  - 2 inch HSTs. 

I need 2048 to make Garden Mosaic (aka Totally Demented)

Gayle of Mangofeet challenged me and Sally of The Objects of Design to make what she calls a Totally Demented quilt.  I find it interesting that we have all approached the making of the quilt in different ways.   I'm going to make all the HSTs first, then the four patch units and then the blocks.  So far I have made HSTs out of the 2 inch scrap pieces I had in a bin.  Now I have to cut some 2 inch strips from scrap chunks. 

Update on the HST count will occur next month around this time.  Hopefully the count will more than double. Time will tell. 

And, yes, I enjoy the lost art of addition with scrap paper and pencil! 

It's a Finish! Snowball's Chance

Snowball's Chance

58 x 78

I used a 2014 Block Lotto block called Spokes to make the "Snowflakes". I had a variety of snowflake themed scraps left over from making my daughter a nine patch/snowball quilt years ago.  I also had a variety of different gray solid pieces left over from a few other quilts. I thought they might look like a cloudy sky background for snowflakes. 

I first quilted it on my DSM with a serpentine stitch in white (snow) at various intervals. I then hand quilted a few lines in white perle #8.  I left a tie each time I left off with a thread in the lines.  I also hand quilted and tied each snowflake. 

I thought the ties kind of looked like snow.   I also had a few spots in the machine quilting where there were skipped stitches. I'm not sure if that was my machine or me (I tend to think me) so at those spots I hand quilted in some snowflakes so the places where the skipped stitches were would not snag. 

I hand quilted in circles around the snowball. No marks...just eyeballed it. 

I pieced together some batting. 

I had enough of some light green snowflake fabric in my stash to use. 

The binding is scrappy -  made of snowflake fabric scraps. 

And the label says: 

"A Snowball's Chance

Despite the odds I believe some snowballs could survive a trip through hell. 

I believe in miracles too."

This will be a gift for someone who needs to know that miracles do happen. 

This was my goal #9

for

Q2 Finish-Along