Work in Progress

After a fairly long hiatus, I was sewing yesterday. Not every day is about a finish at the SCQ Studio (well, it is really an empty bedroom but don't tell). In fact most days are work in progress and I am making an effort to show that more in this space.



I loaded my long arm with a backing of fabric I don't hate but doubt I will ever use in a quilt - it is perfect for the inside of the Brass Ring Pillow (from Heidi's new book Sew Organized for the Busy Girl). I line my pillow covers so that I can wash them when they get, inevitably, spilled on.

A longarm can easily quilt small and even tiny things, you just need to load a large enough back to roll onto both rolls and then float the piece - I float all quilt tops and batting so this is my usual approach anyway. I used this same back for both the back and the top of the pillow.



I decided to matchstick the pillow front. I have to say I still love matchstick quilting the most, even if it takes much longer to do.



While I was on the longarm, I grabbed a bit of scrap material and pulled out the ruler base and a longarm ruler to give this another try. I have been watching videos and gathering technique information. This try was much better, I need to practice often. I am a fan of freely drawn lines but the diagonals are not something I can freely draw yet, so learning how to use a ruler is worth it as I do want to be able to incorporate diagonal lines into my quilting too.



By the time that was done, and several other things about the house, there was an hour before dinner. With my lovely spouse doing the cooking (he almost always does), I pulled out my scraps to work on my scrappy blobs. This is really a lovely way to play around, I am going to try for at least 10 minutes of this a day from now on.



When I pieced a bit onto the blob, there was a Y seam which I did not execute that well. Rather than ripping it out, I just pulled out a needle and fixed it with some hand stitching. Don't forget this option, it saves a lot of time and no one will ever know.



Later, I returned to the sewing room, thinking I would play more with the blobs. But a little stack of Liberty fat sixteenth pieces caught my eye - they arrive regularly from Australia, Polka Dot Tea Fabrics has a little club I joined. I had seen a beautiful St. Louis 16 Patch Liberty quilt where the blocks were monochrome lights and darks and the quilt had a variety of colours in it somewhere on the internet in the last week or two (if you know the quilt I mean, please remind me of it's location and maker) and I kept thinking about it often. Well, I decided to try to make my own.

My scraps are not large enough to make the regular size St. Louis 16 Patch quilt you see about the internet and I wanted to have larger cuts of fabric, not tiny 16 patches, so I made 9 patches instead, cutting the fabrics into 4" squares to start.



I'm liking them so far, and several got made before bed. The blocks are about 10.5" unfinished. These are so not my normal style, pretty, vintage and scrappy looking but I love them all the same. I am not sure if they will be their own quilt  - I certainly don't need another new project but these fabrics just seemed to insist on it. Or maybe I will combine them with the blocks from the scrappy sampler I have been making using Nicky's (Mrs. Sew and Sow) Scraptastic Tuesday Sampler tutorials.



That is Sundance. He and Butch are very much crazy torpedo-like teenage kittens blasting about the house, but when he settles he will sleep in this chair that is in the corner of my sewing room. I think I need to find some less precious fabrics to make his tunnel out of for future.

There are only a couple of days to link up to Nicky and my April Scraptastic Tuesday Link, please join us with some progress on a scrappy project or a finish, or your thoughts on taming the scrap mountain. You can link from your blog, flickr, or instagram - there may even be other ways. There are some excellent prizes that I will give away on Tuesday morning and I am going to be checking out the linked up posts and photos today. So please join us by linking up here.

I'll be finishing that pillow today, tomorrow is my day on the blog hop.

Best,

Leanne