What Was In The Box?

What was in the box?

It's not a deep box - just a flat of 3.5 inch width scraps I accumulated in this little pile over the last few months. Quite a few of them are leftovers from recently making complete sets of Buckeye Beauty Variation blocks and then Eight Patch blocks. A few were given to me. A few were leftovers from some other projects and a few appeared out of nowhere. 

I've emptied the box now. Would you like to see what I've made? 

Well, I've been making Monkey Wrench blocks this year in three different sizes from scraps. I think I will continue that into next year and when I get tired of making the blocks (right now I love making them) I will see how many donation quilts I can make with them. 

These blocks finish at 7.5 inches. The 3.5 inch (unfinished) HSTs (half square triangles) were cut with an Easy Angle ruler.  The neutrals were not in my flat but came out of a little drawer of neutral scraps. The 2 inch squares came out of my Monkey Wrench work box. Remember the last time I emptied a box of 2 inch width scraps I cut sets of four 2 inch squares and put them in my work box. 

My only rule is to try to keep the blocks looking happy because I think donation quilts should always have some happiness in them. 

Wow! that sure added a lot of blocks to my collection! 

After I used the longest pieces to make Monkey Wrench blocks I looked to see if a scrap was long enough for two 3.5 inch squares for Four Patches. 

These blocks finish at 6 inches and will also be used in donation quilts next year. 

These are two color Four Patches because I need to replenish my neutrals. And anyway, two color Four Patches are a little more fun and look a little happier. 

Then if there was at least a six inch length of scrap I cut four 1.5 x 3.5 pieces and made Switch Plate blocks with neutral centers. 

The blocks finish at 3 x 5. I'm not sure which way I will orient them in a quilt or quilts. For now I'm just making them.

Then if there was enough of the scrap to cut a 3.5 inch square then that is what I did. I turned the browns, blacks and multicolors into little Snowball blocks with 1.5 inch light flippy corners. 

Someday I'm going to alternate the little Snowballs with little 3 inch Nine Patches with light corners. I have an old bag full of swapped Nine Patches with light corners. (No, I'm not the only old bag in my sewing room.) 

So, the quilt will probably look something like this. 

This is the little pile of squares I cut. For now I'm going to add them to my box with 3.5 inch squares. I will use these squares to make some Snowballs each month next year in the Rainbow Scrap Challenge (RSC) color of the month. I prefer to make these a few at a time. It's rather boring to cut all those 1.5 inch squares for the corners and then sew them onto the corners and then trim so for me this is a few-at-a-time RSC kind of block.  

If I make a twin sized or throw quilt I think it will take 520 blocks - 260 Snowballs and 260 Nine Patches.

Then you probably know by now what I do with the pieces less than a square -- I make Chinese Coin strips. 

I have a bag of them in all different colors and a box of strips each made in a single color. 

And then I had two little piles of pieces. The solids I put with the rest of my solids. I'm making a couple of different blocks that take solids and I don't have a big supply so am trying to keep all solid bits and pieces together right now. 

The other pile is 4 inch width. I'm not really making any blocks that take 4 inch width pieces right now but I do have a little drawer of 4 inch swapped novelty squares I have not yet used in kiddo quilts so I think the novelty pieces will be cut into squares and the other pieces will go back into the scrap chunks sorted by color. 

And sew on...