Scrap Happy in January 2025

 Belated New Year's greetings! Here in the Magpie's Nest I've been continuing my scrap reduction efforts. For my first project of 2025 I decided to focus on the 3.5" square patches that were overflowing their container. The easiest, most logical approach seemed to be simple four patch blocks. 

Eventually I realized there would be enough for half of my typical 60" x 80" quilt top. Once I had all 65 blocks sewn I arranged them in diagonal runs of color.

This also involved getting out the extension to my design wall. It's another piece of Warm & Natural quilt batting suspended from a dowel. Unfortunately, it hangs in front of the wall heater that keeps the studio warm. Of course, I began this project just before truly cold temperatures hit our area. During the day that's not a problem, especially with the iron in use. But I have to take the extension down overnight which means I have to keep the pieces of this project well organized. That's not always easy.

The next question was how to fill the gaps between the 4Patch blocks. I briefly considered using some of the 6" Hole in the Barn Door or Shoo-fly blocks I have in the Parts Department. Then I remembered that I had some squares cut to 6.5," mostly fussy-cuts. 

There were only enough for about half of the quilt top. That gave me the opportunity to dig into the older prints in the stash to cut some additional squares. 

And this is how far as I've progressed at this writing. Again, keeping all these pieces organized while I sew them together will be the challenge. I do love a super scrappy quilt though. 😁

Scrap Happy Day is an opportunity for us to share something we've made (or are making!) out of scrap materials. The scraps can be anything, not just fabric. Below is a list of the folks currently playing along. They may not have something new to share every month but their blogs are worth checking out anyway. And if you'd like the motivation to do something with your scrap materials just leave a comment on Kate's blog.

Kate, Eva, Sue, Lynda,
Birthe, Turid, Tracy, Jan,
Moira, Sandra, Chris, Alys,
Claire, Jean, Dawn, Gwen,
Sunny, Kjerstin, Sue L, Vera,
Ann, Dawn 2, Carol, Preeti,
Nóilin, Viv, Karrin, Alissa,
Tierney, Hannah and Maggie

The Last Post of 2024

 In this final week of December I have managed to make the last two entries for my 2024 Stitch Journal project. Between the holidays and other things I wasn't sure that would happen. It feels so good to have created a stitchery for every week of the year. In the past I would have fallen behind and dropped out well before December. I make no promises for any year in the future. 😉

The first week of December Kathryn had us make assignments for each of the six sides of a die then roll the die and stitch accordingly. This was fun! My six options were couching, adding a patch, French or Colonial knots, chain stitch (or a variant), Spider web rose, and blanket stitch. In order I rolled a 4, 2, 6, 5, 1, 4, and 4 again. This is how it turned out:

I am quite pleased with this one. 

For week 50 we were to stitch some text. I had so many ideas for what quote or thought to stitch that I couldn't decide what to do. This one languished until today (Dec. 31). Frankly, most quotes were long enough to be intimidating. This is how I got around that...

 Week 51 was a stitched take on grid journaling. My journal pages are only six inches wide so my grid squares are only two inches each. Kathryn stitched her grid in black; I opted to just use a Micron pen to outline my squares.

And to wrap up the year Kathryn had us do some wrapping of textiles.

 I wrapped a satin ribbon off a small box of chocolates I was given for Christmas, a strip of denim off of my husband's jeans (including a bit of the hem), a scrap of muslin, and a piece of batting. The batting is wrapped with a specialty yarn. The others were wrapped with various weights of perle cotton. There's also a gathered/ruched piece of lightweight fabric (the bow?). If I hadn't felt the crunch of time I might have done more decorative stitching in the background on this piece and on the stitched text piece. 

Kooky's postcard prompt for December was Happy Holidays.

Once I found the "gifts" in a piece of quilter's cotton I had a lot of fun creating this one. 😀 

I'm currently thinking I will keep doing Kooky's postcard stitch along next year. However, I think I want to do more of my own work rather than whatever Kathryn has up her sleeve for 2025. There are quilts to be made too of course!

I wish all of my readers the very best in 2025. Happy New Year!

Scrap Happy in December

 I don't have a lot to show but, for what it's worth, here goes.

If you were here a couple of weeks ago you'll have seen this before:

 These two stacks of scrap strips were each at least six inches high. Maybe higher; I didn't think to actually measure them before I started cutting them up. It took me four days of effort - and one was a full day of nothing else! - to get them cut to 1.5", 2", 2.5", 3", and 3.5" strips. I also cut 3.5" and 2.5" square patches, 3.875" and 2.875" half square triangles. These are the sizes and shapes I use most frequently. 

I haven't done anything with the longer strips yet. I hang them from bulldog clips in color families when I am motivated to do some organizing. Otherwise they just live on the end of my ironing board in piles according to width. The 3.5" squares and accompanying HST's went into the tin where they are accumulating until I figure out what I want to do with them. I am seriously considering simple 4 Patch blocks to begin with. They will get added to the Parts Department until I have enough for a quilt project. 

I did spend some time playing with the smaller squares and triangles. 

The taller stack are eleven Shoo-fly blocks waiting to be sewn up and the shorter stack will make six Barn Door blocks (6" each). If I don't just sew these up for something to do one day I will assemble them as leaders and enders as I work on another project. 

Let me leave you with this nod to the season. 

 The blocks in the middle of the quilt were made by friends in my local quilt guild. I added the blocks down either side. Apparently I finished this quilt in 2008! 

I hope all my readers can stay healthy and fully enjoy the holidays. And if you find yourself with some free time check out how the folks in the list below have used scrap materials or done some upcycling. 😊

Kate, Gun, Eva, Lynda,
Birthe, Turid, Tracy, Jan, 
Moira, Sandra, Chris, Alys,
Claire, Jean, Dawn, Gwen,
Sunny, Kjerstin, Sue L, Vera, 
 Ann, Dawn 2, Carol, Preeti,
Nóilin, Viv, Karrin, Alissa,
Tierney, Hannah, Maggie

 

November Stitching

 It's past time for me to get you caught up on the stitching I've done for k3n's stitch journal project! 

To begin with, in the final week of October I couldn't bring myself to do the prompt as Kathryn presented it. She suggested we blindfold ourselves - properly prepared with threaded needle(s) and scissors at hand - and try stitching without being able to see what we were doing. Something deep inside rebelled at the very idea. So I stitched this instead:

The following week Kathryn introduced us to various embroidery stitches often found on kantha, the quilts made by women in India. 

And the week after that she gave us an opportunity to use those stitches (or as many/as few as we chose) the way they are used on kantha, to create a tree of life design or fill in animal or other shapes. 

The last week of November we were inspired by another embroiderer, Sue Benneton. She does something she calls wrinkle stitching. Crumple up a piece of fabric and then stitch on the creases. The next step is to fill in the negative spaces between the stitched lines. In the beginning it looks a bit like a map. However, I found that once I started filling in I couldn't stop!

 KoolKookyKreatures' postcard prompt for November was monochrome (working only in shades and tints of one color). I chose to work in a hue I don't naturally gravitate to:

Now it's time for December's postcard. The prompt is fairly straightforward: happy holidays. Hopefully I'll be back before next year to show you how I've responded to that one. 😊

In the Studio With Gracie

 Our newest family member has been with us for almost two months now. One surprise has been to discover that she actually watches the television!

And now you can see how I have filled my limited working space. 😉

She has also delighted us with her efforts to bury a new chew-bone. She carries it from room to room, looking for the best place to bury it. She has tried to bury it in the cushions of the couch, under a quilt on a bed, and in the depths of my scrap basket. I've tried to keep the scraps in that basket sort of organized, mostly by the project they came from. After Gracie pulled her bone from the basket half of the contents had been dumped on the floor. I didn't have time to sort them when I replaced them. Needless to say, the basket has been higgeldy-piggeldy since then. 

I have reorganized the scraps from the basket. They won't all fit in anymore (no surprise there; it was overflowing before Gracie rearranged things). I have put the larger pieces back in the basket and kept the strips separate. 

The basket measures 8" deep and 13" wide. It's still overflowing.

These are the piles of strips. My challenge now is to utilize them somehow. The obvious solution is a very liberated log cabin set of blocks. I'm not sure my OCD will let me do that however. Stay tuned. 

On another front, I was doing some embroidery the other day. My favorite threads to use are perle cottons. Apparently I left a ball of Valdani on my work table while I was busy in the kitchen. I happened to be alone in the house at the time (a rare occurrence) so there was no one else to monitor Gracie's actions. In the studio she hopped up onto my chair and snatched the ball of thread. This is what I found on the floor when I returned to the studio.

I was glad to see the label intact at least. I spent yesterday untangling and winding the thread onto an empty spool. ALL DAY yesterday, aside from short breaks for play time and meals. After two hours this is the progress I'd made.

I didn't find any damage to the thread itself in the course of untangling and winding. Another mercy to be grateful for. 

And now I have this lovely fat spool of thread to return to my stash of perle cottons. It was after eight o'clock in the evening when I wound the last length onto the spool. I hope I won't have to do this again!

To my readers in the United States I wish you a Thanksgiving Day full of family and friends, love and laughter. Not to mention gratitude! 😊