Scrap Happy in April

Scrap Happy Day- on the 15th of every month - is hosted by Kate in Australia and Gun in Sweden. It began as a way to use up some of the fabric scraps from their quilting endeavors. Now we're delighted to see how folks are using up scraps from other crafting activities. 😊

I'm still not up to sewing many blocks for quilts but I have managed to get a couple of scrappy stick blocks pieced over the last couple of weeks. Some of the "sticks" are 1.5" x 6.5" strips made of scraps I've sewn as leaders and enders.

These were not assembled in one sitting. I've sewn a seam here and there inbetween the little bit of sewing I do in conjunction with my embroidery preparations. The shoulder is feeling significantly better these days but is far from being completely healed. Now is the time I have to be very careful not to overdo things. Knowing that Scrap Happy Day was coming up I looked around for something else I could do with scraps of one sort or another...

Last month I showed my Year in Stitches embroidery sampler. There's been additional stitching on it since then but not necessarily with scraps of embroidery floss. This is primarily a place where I play with the hand dyed floss I get from the Victorian Motto Sampler Shoppe.

For Scrap Happy Day I decided to look for something to do with the cotton embroidery floss leftover from the many needlepoint kits I've stitched the last few years. I'd seen this little heart pattern from Mary Corbet on her website and decided to use it as a starting point.

I found a scrap of quilting cotton to use for the ground cloth and then opened the box of leftover floss.

Instead of stitching the spirals Mary drew I chose to indulge in my new-found love of buttonhole wheels.

Then I filled in around them with teeny tiny fly stitches to make leaves. Which was kind of silly given how small the stitches had to be. I'm working in a four inch hoop here.

Having completed the heart I was faced with what to do next. I recently discovered the Facebook group All About Smalls courtesy of Margaret at thecraftycreek. I've spent a lot of time drooling over the goodies others have made/are making there. What is it about little, palm size treasures that makes them so appealing?! The upshot is that I want to make my heart into something that qualifies as a small. I'm still not sure exactly how I'm going to do that but the first next step is to seed stitch/quilt around the heart with a single strand of rayon floss.

This provides some wonderful mindless stitching. And that rayon floss is something from someone else's stash - more leftovers. 😀If you're a regular visitor you would be safe in assuming I have a lot of batting scraps laying around. This little project won't make a noticeable dent but it feels good to be putting a bit of it to good use.

Here are the links to see what others are doing with their scrap materials. Enjoy!

Kate, Gun, Titti, Heléne, Eva, Nanette, Lynn, Lynda,
Birthe, Turid, Susan, Cathy, Debbierose, Tracy, Jill, Claire, Jan, 
Karen, Moira, Sandra, Linda, Chris, Nancy, Alys, 
Kerry, Claire, Jean, Johanna, Joanne, Jon, Hayley, Dawn, Gwen, 
Connie, Bekki and Pauline