What 15 Minutes Can Lead To

I've been sewing out of my scrap basket inbetween other projects, first the little bits and then the strips. Before I knew it I had a stack of some 75 blocks. They wouldn't fit into the baggie I was using to store them in anymore!


I chose 15 blocks, set them 3 x 5 and then bordered them with some leftover yellow prints from my stash.


After that I wanted something dark to frame up the yellow:

At this point I'm looking at all the really old prints in my stash to see what I can use up. The dark stripe has the same pinks and greens as the rose print....

but looks much better when cut down to just a narrow run. The brighter pink adds sparkle.

I wanted to use more of my scrappy blocks but the top wasn't ready yet. It needed the stabilizing effect of the blue print. Once I had that in place I went all the way around with a row of liberated log cabins. The challenge then was to find something to bring the top up to my desired goal of 60 x 80 inches. The width was almost there but I needed length. This was my first effort:

I was happy to be able to echo the yellow again (with a relatively new print by Mark Lipinski) but the blue/gold print at the top and bottom just didn't look right to me. The next day I had to take it off. It was kind of fun to replace it with the same stripe as I had on the sides but in a different color:

Unfortunately I ran out of the stripe before I got all the way across the top and had to stretch it with another print:

The consensus around here is that it actually makes for a more interesting border.

I'm really happy with the way this turned out. I started with only a vague idea of a format I wanted to try and ended up with something I really like. During the construction of this top I've made still more scrappy blocks. I'm back up to 41 blocks already. Guess it's time to come up with another vague idea, maybe one that will require even more blocks. ;- )