Scrap Happy in March

Welcome to Scrap Happy Day! I have a couple of quilts to share with you this time around. First off, this Shoo-fly and Courthouse Steps quilt that I pieced last year.

It ended up being about 60" square. The blocks are all six inches finished surrounded by a 3" border. 

 It has been donated to be used by a child in Foster Care or a patient in chemo therapy.

I haven't done a lick of piecing on the machine since I started on the Textile Tales books. Before that even. It's a little unsettling. We shall see what the future brings. 

The other quilt I want to share was made some time ago. I have no idea exactly when or by whom. I purchased it when we were living in Texas from a sort of antiques shop. That would have been between 1988 and 1990 probably. It was intact when I bought it and have treated it gently but it has suffered since then. Somewhere along the way a mouse got to it and removed some of the cotton that was used for batting. I've enjoyed it folded at the end of my bed and over a chair back most recently.

 The last time I had a good close look at the quilt I noticed some stitching between patches had fallen away and a couple of places where the fabric was all but gone. It was beyond my ability to repair. {sigh} So I have begun taking it apart. 

Based on what I've learned over the years my conclusion is that this was made by an African-American woman, maybe in the 1950's. The batting is raw cotton. We were living in what would have been cotton growing country at that time. In fact, it still was when we were there, just not to the same extent I suspect.

 I have discovered a repair that had been done before I purchased the quilt but hadn't realized was there. There's also at least one patch that had been pieced before being used in a block. Everything about this quilt speaks to my soul. It make me sad that I can no longer use it in its' original state. I have every intention of figuring out how to use and honor the parts of it that are still viable. 

Scrap Happy Day is hosted monthly by Kate at Tall Tales from Chiconia. Not everyone participates every month but there's plenty of inspiration to be found in the list below. 

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

 

 

Textile Book Number 2

Honestly, I meant to do this a week ago! Life sure has a way of subverting plans.

I'm following along with the Roxy sisters and Volume 9 of their Journal of Stitchery project. Not that I'm adhering strictly to the brief, but I am trying. The idea is to use a physical book as inspiration for a textile book. For February I went with a genre rather than any specific title. I'm calling my book Tales From the Macabre. 😁 

It all began with a beautiful vintage hankie. Black, with cutwork outlined in white. I'd never seen such a thing until I found it on eBay. Fortunately, I didn't have to pay through the nose to get it. For the cover of my book I laid a piece of purple cotton underneath the cutwork. I used black batting to pad the cover. 

 

The hankie was a bit too big for the size I wanted my book to be so I had to make a pleat where the spine would be. In the end I was able to decorate the spine with some crinkled seam binding and beads so the pleat disappeared. 

 I used a piece of hand dyed (not dyed by me) crochet to create a pocket on the inside front cover. Then I made a tag from an Edward Gorey note card to give me a place to write my documentation.

 The haunted house was cut from a quilter's cotton and surrounded with a piece of gathered black lace. Actually, several pieces from my quilting stash were used to create the pages of my book.

The cat is a flat back embellishment I was able to couch in place. I left the adder alone. That page has next to no stitching on it in fact. I used a spider charm and a bat button on the next page. The skeleton was cut from a twill ribbon that I tea dyed. 

 This is the center spread of my book. I was able to use a third corner from the hankie here which pleased me very much. I still have the fourth corner to use somewhere else. Those are tiny black star sequins held in place with a bead scattered across the background areas. 

 The crescent moon is a sequin and the flowers at the bottom of this last page are paper on top of a strip of lace, secured with a matte flower sequin and a bead. The background is scatter stitched with a thread that is virtually the same color as the fabric. The pocket on the inside of the back cover was made with a piece of vintage lace. So far it remains empty.

 And finally, the back cover. All of the stitching on the cover was done with a purple Sulky cotton petite thread. The purple on black about did my eyes in. I used Sulky threads and occasionally a size 12 perle cotton throughout. Three strands of floss to blanket stitch the pages together. Overall my book measures 3.75" wide and 4.5" tall. The idea is to keep the books all the same size but this one turned out a bit larger than my book of feedsack fabrics. I think my feedsack book is going to turn out to be the smallest in the series actually. It was the first one, and I learned along the way. 

My book for March has been started. It will pretty much be the polar opposite of February's book. But then, February was not at all of a piece with January!  

Scrap Happy in Febrruary

I have been following Rachel and her sister Sarah of Roxy's Creations on YouTube since they instituted the first Journal of Stitchery project. I don't think I've ever actually started and finished any volume of the projects they proposed but I found them inspiring. They introduced volume nine in December and stitching began in January. It's looking like I will come closer to fulfilling their briefs this time around than any previous version. 

The suggestion was to choose six books - fiction or non-fiction - to inspire the creation of six textile books, one per month. We are free to make the books any size we like, as many pages as we want, any techniques, etc. I thought long and hard about the books I might use for inspiration. In the end it's looking like I will be more inspired by the idea of a book, the subject matter, rather than any specific title. For example, in January I knew I wanted to use the scraps of feed sack fabrics I still have in my possession. I feel like I used to have a book about feed sacks, or the quilts made during the Great Depression using feed and flour and grain sacks, but I can't find any such title on my shelves. (I have had to weed out books that are too toxic for me to peruse safely.) Nevertheless, I know such books exist.

I confess to buying a piece of vintage feed sack off a vendor on eBay. Otherwise I used only the scraps and remnants I had on hand. I also tried to incorporate buttons and rick rack that seemed of the era.

 My book measures roughly 3.5" wide by 4" tall closed as in the photo above. The flower on the cover is what most folks consider the back side of a yo-yo or Suffolk Puff (which I personally prefer to the gathered side) on top of a rescued crochet medallion with rick rack for stem and leaves. I outlined the yo-yo with perle cotton.  All the edges of the pages have been blanket stitched with 3 strands of embroidery floss. 

Inside the front cover I fussy cut and raw-edge appliqued the rose from one feed sack print. On the opposite page I appliqued a crocheted Colonial Lady that I liberated from a vintage handkerchief. There are scattered single chain stitches in the background around her. 

 

This spread features just about the last pieces I have of the white with the pink rosebud print and the yellow patch with the two young ladies doing housework. I scattered pink Colonial knots on the pink patch. There are red upright crosses on the turquoise patch. The other patches have been seed stitched. 

This is my center spread. Those are vintage buttons on the yellow patch. There are blue stars embroidered above the little girl on her vehicle but the rest of the stitching is all straight stitches done to blend into the backgrounds.

 More simple straight stitches on these two pages and one vintage red button. I really wanted to showcase the prints so I have not added a lot of embroidery or other embellishments. I used the letter buttons in place of a title or a reference to a specific book.

This final page features two more patches that are the last of their kind: the white with the flowers and the blue floral print. Inside the back cover I used rick rack again to frame the motto of the era I was trying to honor. I simply wrote with a Micron pen on a square of muslin for that. There's another bit of crochet secured with a button to dress that up a bit.

This is the back cover. A little bit of feather stitching on either side of another "upside down" yo-yo, a vintage laundry label, and a strip of rick rack. The initials on the laundry label are not exact but they remind me of the name of one of my great-grandmothers. 

 Finally, in lieu of the title of a book on the spine and as a way to document what this project was I cut a piece of cardstock, punched a hole in it, wrote on it and stitched it in place, leaving the thread long enough to make a bow. 😊  

Thus my entry for February's Scrap Happy Day, which is hosted by Kate over at Tall Tales from Chiconia on the 15th of each month. To see what other participants have done with their scraps or leftover materials recently just click on the links below.   

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

 

No Kings Since 1776

 I've been using my needle and thread to help me cope with what's been going on in the United States of America. I shared this little book a few months ago, when it was still in the works. It is now complete.

 I have ancestors who participated in the original American Revolution. 

Most of the men in my family have served in the military through the generations. 

I firmly believe in the principles that were the foundation of this nation.

I wish I could do more to fight in this new American revolution.

So I turn to fabric, needle, and thread.

Scrap Happy in January 2026

 In my last post - in December, on Scrap Happy Day - I shared a couple of scrolls I'd been working on. One was for a Christmas gift. Our son created a couple of spools for me out of two different diameter dowels: one for the spool and the larger one for end caps. This is how the Christmas scroll turned out:

I am unable to paint or stain wood due to my chemical intolerances but I did rub some beeswax into the exposed ends of the spool. 

I finished another scroll (that you haven't seen previously) as a gift for a friend.

The beautiful antique bowl was a gift from my husband for the holidays. 😊

 

The first scroll unrolled from the left. I had this second one unroll from the right. This friend loves Dachshunds and snails. Oh, and sunflowers. I was delighted to be able to include all three over the length of the scroll. 

I now have another, slightly larger, Christmas scroll in the works just for the fun of it. I suspect you'll be seeing more scrolls than quilts on Scrap Happy Days this year! 

Scrap Happy Day is the 15th of each month, hosted by Kate at Tall Tales from Chiconia. Other regular participants are listed below. 

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