Scraptastic Tuesday - March Link is open

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

First, the tradition is for me to share my scrappy project with you. And there are my boxes of scraps and bins of scraps to be sorted, just waiting for me to get to work.

But I have to admit to not having made any progress on scrappy projects in a while - in fact I have done little sewing since I left for QuiltCon. This happened last year too, with so much inspiration, I want to make everything and nothing. I want to do tiny piecing and I want to go minimalist with large huge blocks. I want to improv and also do very geometric piecing. I find myself unable to focus - and so I don't make much - I did manage to work on my Lion quilt, making paper scraps at least, I will share that progress tomorrow, but it is not really a scrappy project.

So today I am fessing up. Luckily for the blog, it is my Blog Birthday coming up and with the help of some friends and sponsors I have been able to celebrate that at least. But I have a scrappy quilting plan - its diversion.

Instead of figuring out which new quilt to make with my scraps, I am going to get the giant scrappy log cabin top loaded on the long arm and I am going to quilt that quilt. I am going to use this quilt as an opportunity to get over my reluctance to quilt a quilt twice on the long arm.

That is, I love cross hatched quilting - squares and rectangles like down filled jackets. But on the long arm to do that easily, you need to quilt the lines horizontally, then take the quilt off the machine, turn it and reload it so you can quilt the next set of lines horizontally. It generally takes me less than 15 minutes to load a quilt, surely the "hassle" of quilting twice is all in my head.

So, you folks are keeping me honest. I am planning to visit your links and be inspired on how to use my scraps and in the meantime it is my intention to report back here next Tuesday with the quilting done. Maybe even the binding too, it will be a scrappy binding for sure - I think with black and dark grey scraps or else pink ones.

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 - Sam and Mitzi 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.

Best,

Leanne

An InLinkz Link-up

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

January Scraptastic Tuesday Winners

Before I tell you about the winners of the January Scraptastic Tuesday Linkup, I'll share my scrappy progress.



Last week I said I would try to organize my scrap boxes into strips and squares leaving the other pieces in the boxes for improv sort of work. Of course I put that off until last night. It took an hour or so but I went through all the boxes of prints and took out the strips of any width that were clearly cut as a strip. I was astonished to see all these strips. I am going to look around and see if I have a jelly roll or two hanging about ignored to add to these as well as I am pretty sure I have at least two.



So before I saw all these strips (the two photos are front and back view, not two different piles),  I was considering starting a scrappy challenge quilt - a really interesting one is called the 365 Challenge here - but I am now thinking hard about it - I might still join and use my solid scraps only. Either way, I clearly have enough strips to keep me busy for a while. I am considering making:

• a giant rainbow log cabin - as big as I can go until it starts to warp too much. I made one of these a few years ago for the back of a quilt that I gave away to a special friend - you can read about it here
• some rainbow log cabin blocks to become a quilt top
• some scrappy strip sets to be used for a Blended Scraps Quilt, or another strip set type of quilt (rail fence, spider web, zig zag, another hst layout)

Do you have any other suggestions? I am going to continue with my plan from last week to pull out the already cut squares - I just got focused on the strips last night.  Then I have to decide if I will also cut squares from the remaining scraps or not. I have in mind to make a rainbow pixelated style quilt, it will depend on how many squares I find and make.

Now its time to award the prizes for the January Scraptastic Tuesday Linkup, from these wonderful sponsors:

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 - #77 - Anja at Anja Quilts 

• Fluffy Sheep Quilting - a €20 (20 Euro) gift certificate - #37 - Adrienne on Instagram as arden

• Green Fairy Quilts - $25 gift certificate - #71 - Cathy Marie at Sewing with my Sister

• Karen Lewis Textiles  - scrap pack - #60 - Debra at Feathers in my Nest

• Fat Quarter Shop - $25 gift certificate - #35 - Jannette at Quilting and Cardmaking

• Massdrop - Little Bird Fat Quarter Bundle - #13 - Debora at Studio Dragonfly Quilts

• Sew Sisters Quilt Shop - $25 gift certificate - #23 - Michelle at From Bolt to Beauty

• Simply Solids - £20 (20 Pounds) gift certificate - #51 - Cynthia at Cynthia Bentz Designs

Congratulations to all our winners and thank you to everyone who linked up for the lovely inspiration. I will be sending emails shortly to get the prizes to people.

Do go and take a look at the various projects linked up in January (go here) if you have not yet done so, there is a lot of scrappy inspiration.

Please plan to join Nicky from Mrs. Sew and Sow and I for February's Scraptastic Tuesday Link up on the second Tuesday in February which is February 9, 2016.

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