Scraptastic Tuesday - February Link is Open!

It's the second Tuesday of February so the Scraptastic Tuesday monthly link is open.



I decided that I needed to continue with my scrap strips and make more regular sized log cabins, at about 15" square. I might just carry on until the box of scrappy strips is empty.



I only managed 2 tonight. I did clean my sewing machine too, but my long walk earlier means I am sleepy now. I am still Quilt Con training and will have to figure out how to go for a long walk or two shorter ones tomorrow too.



In case you missed it, there are my scrappy log cabins from the weekend - now a 60" quilt top. I need to make these a back so I can get them quilted soon.

Now its time for you to share your scrappy projects, plans and ideas.

InLinkz.com

A huge thank you to our generous sponsors for providing the following prizes which will be awarded randomly among those of you who link up.

• Fat Quarter Shop - $25 gift certificate

• Sew Sisters Quilt Shop - $25 gift certificate

• Sew Me a Song - $20 gift certificate

• Massdrop - tba

• Fluffy Sheep Quilting - a €20 (20 Euro) gift certificate

• Green Fairy Quilts - $25 gift certificate

• Karen Lewis Textiles  - scrap pack

• Mad About Patchwork - a $40 gift certificate

Please join Nicky from Mrs. Sew and Sow and I by linking up a blog post or flickr or instagram photo sharing a scrappy project, in progress or finished, or your thoughts on dealing with your scrap mountain:

• You don't have to have joined us before, everyone is welcome.

• One link per person, and it will be your entry into the random draw for the prizes. It is the same link up here and at Nicky's blog - Mrs. Sew and Sow - so you only need to link up on one of our blogs.

• You can link up from your blog, instagram or flickr, but you have to link up to be entered in the prize draw.

• Please visit at least a few of the links, they are very inspiring, and leave comments too as everyone loves to connect. 

• Use the Scraptastic Tuesday button and invite your friends to join us too. Please share our button, or a link or the hashtag #scraptastictuesday in your linked post or photo.

• The link is open until next Monday night at 10:00 pm MST. We will announce the winners next Tuesday. 

• If you have trouble linking up, let me or Nicky know and we will get you sorted.

Best,

 Leanne

An InLinkz Link-up

I used a lot of my scraps this weekend

Last month I went through my scrap binds and pulled out all the strips - long rectangular pieces with at least one straight edge - and then I put them in a box. This weekend I took them all out again.



I picked the easiest block for different sizes of strip scrap - log cabins. Every log can be a different width and it does not matter, your log cabin can continue without issue. I picked blue as there were a lot of blue strips and it always makes me happy to sew with blue fabric.

For the first several rounds I could sew, lean over to press and then trim right on my table. Once the log cabin got too big I hopped up to the actual cutting table with each log.



I made giant blocks - about 30" square, more or less. This was block one, finished on Saturday night. I decided just random fabric placement was working fine - I mostly looked for the next strip by size.



This morning I made another. I figure it takes me about 1.5 hours to make one of these big blocks, working fairly steadily. At this point it was lunch, and time for a long walk - I managed 7700 steps today, I am in training for QuiltCon.



I figured I did not have enough blue, so I later this afternoon I started a green one.



Before supper I had three finished. After making the green one I was almost out of green scrappy strips, but I also realized that I had enough blue left for one more block.



After supper - my DH cooked and did the dishes and it was yummy - I made the last one. This is not a great photo as it was dark and in my hallway, and I edited it heavily, but you get the gist. A 60" quilt top, all from scraps! It's a bit scary that I can name almost every designer of every one of those fabrics too.

I know that the February Scraptastic Tuesday link up is not opening until this Tuesday, but maybe you are inspired to join Nicky from Mrs. Sew and Sow and I now. Those scraps can turn in to lovely quilts.

I might have to start another, I have a lot more scrappy strips.

Best,

Leanne

Scraptastic Tuesday - January Link is open!

It's the second Tuesday of the year, and of January, so the Scraptastic Tuesday monthly link is open.



I've spent much of my holidays tidying and unpacking and arranging and rearranging, in my whole house, including the sewing space. As you can see, I have unearthed my longarm - for a long while she was a fabric holder as you can pile a lot of fabric on the longarm's table. I have also managed to get some of the scrap boxes handy under the long arm and I've put away the fabric.

I am hoping to reorganize the scraps. I have struggled with how to do that as I don't like the idea of chopping up my fat quarters (they are in the dark cupboards) before I am sure what size I need. But since my scrap boxes are so full, I am going to work on organizing/cutting the larger pieces into 5" squares and into strips and store those separately, which will, hopefully mean that I can consolidate the remaining scraps into 4 boxes - warm, cool, low volume and solid. Since I don't like cutting fabric, this is a big step for me - let's see how it works out.



I also put mostly scrappy projects on my Q1 FAL list so that I would focus on them first this month. I'm out of town for work until later this week, but I hope to have some more scrappy progress to show you next week.

Now its time for you to share your scrappy projects, plans and ideas.

InLinkz.com

A huge thank you to our generous sponsors for providing the following prizes which will be awarded randomly among those of you who link up.

• Mad About Patchwork - a $40 gift certificate

• Fluffy Sheep Quilting - a €20 (20 Euro) gift certificate

• Green Fairy Quilts - $25 gift certificate

• Karen Lewis Textiles  - scrap pack

• Fat Quarter Shop - $25 gift certificate

• Massdrop - Little Bird Fat Quarter Bundle

• Sew Sisters Quilt Shop - $25 gift certificate

• Simply Solids - £20 (20 Pounds) gift certificate

Please join Nicky from Mrs. Sew and Sow and I by linking up a blog post or flickr or instagram photo sharing a scrappy project, in progress or finished, or your thoughts on dealing with your scrap mountain:

• You don't have to have joined us before, everyone is welcome.

• One link per person, and it will be your entry into the random draw for the prizes. It is the same link up here and at Nicky's blog - Mrs. Sew and Sow - so you only need to link up on one of our blogs.

• Please visit at least a few of the links, they are very inspiring, and leave comments too as everyone loves to connect. 

• Use the Scraptastic Tuesday button and invite your friends to join us too. Please share our button, or a link or the hashtag #scraptastictuesday in your linked post or photo.

• The link is open until next Monday night at 10:00 pm MST. We will announce the winners next Tuesday. 

• If you have trouble linking up, let me or Nicky know and we will get you sorted.

By the way, if you have not joined Q1 of the FAL, please do. You still have until Friday, the link up is here.

Best,

 Leanne

An InLinkz Link-up

Scraptastic Tuesday - a quick scrappy quilt top

Last night I got home from work late. I had intended to make more scrappy Liberty blocks to catch up with Nicky, my Scraptastic Tuesday partner from Mrs. Sew and Sow, but as I walked into my sewing room I looked at the blocks that I had arranged on my design wall. Those blocks are the ones I made during the Decipher Your Quilt series and I needed to join them into a quilt so I would have some photos for a post about how to do that.



It's harder to see as I had to seriously lighten the photo given that it's now dark after dinner, but I had made these blocks with low volume scrappy backgrounds. My original plan was vague, maybe I would join them using the math - they all are sized to go together. But I was feeling like trying out something more scrappy.



So I picked up some low volume scraps that were handy on my cutting table and started sticking them up on the wall. I've seen many of these quilts with blocks and a bunch of random low volume pieces and I love them. Using only the light low volume pieces in the background is a way to make very scrappy quilts that are far less overwhelming than the brightly coloured similar ones. So I decided to give it a go and started piecing the puzzle together.



As the night wore on, I had scraps piled all over the place, and the quilt was growing. I made a rule for myself, I had to find the low volume piece somewhere already as a cut bit - I did not pull any fabric off a shelf and cut a piece for this quilt - which really forced me to use only the messy scrap mountain, not the folded scrap pieces.



This project totally benefited from my lack of scrap organization. I just kept pulling out more possible pieces of every possible size. If I had already cut and organized those scraps into uniform sizes this quilt would not have happened because I needed every possible size piece and plenty of larger ones too. However, I did end up with scraps everywhere as a result.

This morning I am wondering if I should just sort my scraps by volume, low, medium, high (dark), and solids. Maybe separating them also by neutrals, warms and cool colours? Maybe I don't have to embark on one of the popular and efficient scrap cutting and storage approaches after all but instead just get some accessible bins for the scrap mountain?



Here is my quilt top at the end of my sewing night. I stayed up far later than usual and again this photo is heavily edited to brighten it up. I think it is a success. I am not sure if I will trim the bottom or add more bits to it and also add to the right side or maybe all sides - I need to figure out the best overall size for this quilt. I will share my process for fitting the scraps and blocks together in the next Decipher Your Quilt post.

This was a fun project. It is full of pieces from other projects which I was reminded of with each scrap added. It was low stress, unplanned and improv. I highly recommend it, with or without a few traditional blocks added in.

I see Nicky has made even more blocks on her scrappy sampler - she is including all the instructions so we can make one too, do check out her progress. I will be pulling out my Liberty scraps to catch up to her this week.

Next week is already the second Tuesday of the month. Nicky and I will round up some more sponsors, and we hope you will be joining our link then with a post about a scrappy project - in progress or finished, or about using, organizing or dealing with your own scraps. We are going to leave that link up open for only one week from now on, and we sure hope you will be joining us - last month was great fun.

Best,

Leanne