Scrap Happy in October

 I feel like I should have something seasonal to share for Scrap Happy Day but, I don't. Instead I have another quilt top created from the Parts Department. Frankly, my sewing mojo has been pretty weak of late. Parts Department to the rescue! 

I pulled these 48 postage stamp stars out to see what I could do with them. 

I spent some time arranging and rearranging to try to get an even distribution of colors and such. I knew I didn't want to mash them all together the way they are on the design wall in this picture, although that was an option. While there are tiny pieces of whimsical or juvenile prints in the stars this seemed more like an adult's quilt in the making. Choosing a single color to use as sashing was a challenge. Then I remembered a paisley print I'd been given specifically to be used in donation quilts. Oddly enough, even though it looked like a busy print, it worked!

The paisley has a dark blue background, and the other colors in the print can be found in quite a few of the stars.

Most of the stars have 16 patch centers. Three of them have these Broken Dishes in the middle of the star. They were created from half-square triangles that finish at one inch. I don't think I'll be doing much of that in the future. There are an awful lot of seams in the center of that block. James will probably end up quilting around the center, but it does make for a bulkier block than even the 16 patch centers. 

I "pre-sashed" the blocks by adding a 2" strip (finished) to one side and the bottom of each block. That brought the blocks up from 8" to ten inches each. Once I had the blocks sewn into rows and the rows sewn to each other all I had to do was add a 2" strip to the top and one side of the flimsy for a finished quilt top. 

It could use another, wider, border but I'm going to stop it here and finish it with a dark binding, probably dark blue. It will be about 50" wide and 60" long when it's completed. To me that seems a good size for the destination I have in mind for this quilt. 

Scrap Happy Day is a blog hop hosted by Kate in Australia and Gun in Sweden. They are at the top of the link list below. The idea is to make something new out of recycled materials or the scraps left over from a previous project and then share your creation on the 15th of each month. If you'd like to join in leave a comment on either Kate's or Gun's blog. 😊

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