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! 😊

Black and White Flimsy

 This collection of black and white blocks from the Parts Department...

 

Grew into this assortment of blocks.

Which then became this 60" square flimsy.

Whenever I can I enjoy including little surprises into the blocks I make.

I find it challenging to create backs for quilts smaller than my usual 60" s 80." For some reason, I can wrap my brain around piecing a quilt block but not when it comes to a quilt back. So I'm quite proud of myself for figuring out a giant 4 Patch block to back this quilt. 

detail shot of the center of the back

 

 I had a little over one yard of the two white prints and just enough of the black to pull this off. And now I have less yardage in my stash but more scraps. This won't be the last black and white quilt coming out of The Magpie's Nest!

Scrap Happy in November

 I wanted to be making a quilt but had no motivation to start a new project from scratch. Parts Department to the rescue! I pulled out eight and nine inch blocks, figuring that they would make rows just under 60" each. There are 8" variable stars, 9" wonky or liberated stars, 9" Shoo-fly blocks, and 9" Hole in the Barn Door blocks. (They don't show up in the photo below.)

 They really are a random lot. That's all the wonky/liberated stars I had, and I think the Shoo-fly and Hole in the Barn Door blocks are all gone in that size too. 

 As you can see, I used a tone-on-tone blue for sashing between the rows and as compensating strips at the ends of the rows to bring them all out to 60" wide.

 This is the completed top. The quilt will be about 60" x 80" when it's finished. Not my most original or creative use of random blocks but it got the job done. Someone will now have a warm, colorful quilt to snuggle in and perhaps be entertained by. 😊

You can see how others have used their scrap materials or repurposed something that might have been thrown in the trash by following the links below. Enjoy!

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

Black and White

 For a while now I've been thinking about another black and white quilt. No specific plan came to mind so I rummaged through the Parts Department to see what turned up. There are blocks in almost every size from 6" to 12." I put the 8", 10," and 12" blocks up on the design wall. In full disclosure, there were a few 4" units that I combined to turn into 8" stars.

 I have begun using 6" Shoo-fly blocks as the centers for 12" variable star blocks. At the moment I'm thinking I'll make a total of 25 blocks. The 10" Churn Dash and 8" stars will be framed up to 12."

 Setting 25 blocks 5 x 5 will give me a 60" quilt top. I've found that to be a useful size for a child or an adult. What you see here is only a tentative arrangement. No doubt there will be tweaks as new blocks are added to the mix. 😊

Not Very Spooky

 Not only have I slowed down my blog posting, we've reduced the amount of decorating we do for Halloween. Which could be a sad thing except that quite a lot of "Halloween" decorations actually stay out on display all year long. 😉 

The prompt for #kookyspostcardsal2024 for October was "spooky cute." Not long after I began to think about what I might do I ran across a fabric sample from the late 1990's. It's a large checkerboard pattern with a border at either end featuring very American country toys. In and of themselves the rag dolls looked a bit spooky to me. I found a spiderweb print and then appliqued the dolls on top. From there I fussy cut a couple of ghostly shapes out of another print that is nothing but pairs of eyes on a black background. This postcard was primarily raw edge applique. I seem to be doing a fair bit of that lately. 

I couched the chunky yarn around the perimeter of the card to represent the dust bunnies one would find in an attic. Oh, and there's a spider charm in the web in the upper left corner. I'm calling this one Spooky Cute in the Attic. (I'm nothing if not literal.)

For the first week of the stitch journal project k3n taught us about enso, a meditation practice. This involves calming yourself, then drawing a circle without thinking about it. I drew my very open circle with a watercolor crayon. Wetting it then allowed the color to spread a bit. I stitched over the drawn line and then added other stitches as seemed appropriate in the moment. 

The next week we did some 'scrapplique.' Kathryn and many others made a butterfly image with two or more layers of fabric to decorate the wings. I chose to make a heart to celebrate Gracie's addition to our household. 

The theme for week 42 of the stitch journal project was "all of a piece." We were to take a single layer of fabric and pull threads from it to stitch with. Kathryn used a piece of linen with larger threads and a coarser weave than anything I could find easily in my stash. I ended up using a piece of muslin. 

Part of the muslin was dipped in tea to provide slightly different color threads to stitch with. I pulled my threads from the other side and stitched where the tea stained the cloth. The threads from the muslin were so fine I had a hard time seeing to thread the needle. I did not enjoy stitching through the single layer of thin fabric either. It's an interesting concept though, to use the threads pulled from your cloth to stitch back into it. 

Last week we explored stitching for the senses. Various textures of fabrics of course, but also paying attention to the sound of the thread going through the cloth, any scents embedded in the scraps, etc. 

In the upper left corner I have a piece of huck toweling that had been dyed in a tea that left a faint scent behind. Just below and underneath it is a strip of paper ribbon. I played with a few French knots and a tiny bit of turkey work to create more texture. Felted wool is the foundation for this piece, and the green square dead center is another bit of wool. There's a lot to feel when you close your eyes and run your fingers over this piece. 

As I write this I am debating what to do about the prompt for this final week of October. Kathryn has invited us to blindfold ourselves and see how we can stitch without sight. With appropriate preparations I can see this being a very enlightening experiment. Unfortunately, my gut reaction to this prompt is one of fear. Not of stabbing myself or anything like that. I don't want to make myself that vulnerable, even in my own studio space. I don't understand entirely where this is coming from. I do suffer from a degree of PTSD; maybe that accounts for it. In any case, I need to decide how to address this in my journal. I could write on the page where the stitchery would go, explaining my reason there's no stitched cloth there. Or I could just stitch something else altogether. I haven't yet decided what I will do. In the meantime, those of you who celebrate, have a happy Halloween! 

Scrap Happy in October

 It's that time again, to share something we've made from scraps or something we've been able to upcycle or repurpose in some way. This blog hop is hosted by Gun in Sweden and Kate in Australia. Links to their blogs will be found at the bottom of this post. Everyone is invited to participate. Just leave a comment on either of their blogs. 

This month I have four little quilts to share. Most were made out of the smaller parts and patches from my Parts Department. My intention was that they would be used by cats in our local humane shelter until I realized they may not stand up to daily laundering. There's a gift shop attached to the shelter; I'm hoping they'll be able to sell them to folks who have just adopted a cat. They might also work as doll quilts.

This first one was made from blocks leftover from a quilt top I haven't yet shown you. The blocks were made by stacking, cutting, and shuffling layers of green prints. 

I had a go at quilting this myself with simple straight lines running in opposition to the piecing lines. It's about 18" x 27."

The next one was made from 2.5" x 4.5" rectangles I'd been cutting with the intention of making flying geese. Eventually I got tired of that process at that size so I figured I'd do a simple bricks quilt.

James quilted this up for me with a fun variegated thread. (20" x 26")

This is the quilt I made out of the little flying geese I made back in the day.

Also quilted by James. (16" x 24")

The green quilt below is another made of units I got tired of making some time ago. It's also larger one, about 20" x 26." James quilted it with leaves.

The next little quilt might have to be for Gracie! (see previous post)

Now you can go see what everyone else has done. 😁

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,
Lynn, Tierney, Hannah, Maggie

Introducing Gracie

 We didn't have pets when I was growing up. But as an adult I have discovered that I am definitely better off with animals in my life. This was brought home to me with some force in recent days. When our sweet Luna passed away a little over two years ago I was determined to try to live without a dog. 

 Living with a dog has been a real adjustment for Hubby as he wasn't raised with pets either. He would be content to live without any animals in his life. However, he has come to realize that I actually need the companionship a dog provides. I'm alone a lot due to his work schedule and the fact that my multiple chemical sensitivities (MCS) keeps me pretty much home-bound. So I have been on the hunt for a new companion. It has not been without it's ups and downs, let me tell you. If I go into a shelter (because I do not need a pure breed) I will be ill for at least another day afterward. I was prepared for that prospect if there was a good reason to suffer in that way. I filled out applications online for nearly all the shelters and foster organizations in our immediate area. Sometimes I received a response in a timely manner and other times not. There were a couple of potential adoptees that fit my criteria - Chihuahua mixes for the most part. But they seemed to get adopted out to others before I could arrange to see them in person. 

Finally, a local organization with volunteers who foster dogs and cats listed a black and tan "Chi-weenie" on Petfinder.com. She was cute (sometimes the photos of the dogs online aren't the best; you can tell folks have had a hard time getting them to be still) but I was a little nervous about the Dachshund aspect of her anatomy. Turns out she's well proportioned after all. 

She's young, about a year old, and came with the name Gracie. We see no need to try to change that. 😊 And so far she looks to be a very good fit for our household. She's also a good fit on my lap.

 The trick may be to convince her that she can't spend all day there!

September Stitching

 The first week of September Kathryn (k3n.clothtales) gave us the opportunity to do some needle weaving for our stitch journals. My first attempt didn't work out. I think I used the wrong threads for the fabric base I'd created. With the right combination of threads and fabric I enjoy needle weaving. I used variegated threads for both the warp and weft in this case.

The second week of September Kathryn invited us to do a representation of home. Many stitchers depicted the homes they currently live in or their dream home. I couldn't bring myself to do that. Instead, I made a collage of the elements that make a house a home for me.

 The third week of September we explored texture. Kathryn was inspired by lichen and taught us a fair amount about it. I chose to begin with some tangled threads I'd saved from pre-washing new yardage. They led to other orange elements. I also included bits of a white polyester (possibly organza) I'd put through an embellisher some years back. 

A detail shot

Oddly enough, after I created that monochromatic piece the following week the assignment was to work with a monochromatic palette. Somehow I ended up using the same colors!

 Kathryn has been making "wonky Wednesday" videos in addition to the stitch journal videos. They are hand piecing projects (or have been so far). That week she shared information about the Gee's Bend quilters and the blocks they call Housetops or Pig Pen blocks. I found this a fun way to use up some of my skinniest scraps. There might even be a few more of these in my future. 😁

The postcard prompt from Kool Kooky Kreatures for September was Autumn Hygge. I wasn't feeling particularly creative when I had the time to work on the postcard so I went with something very familiar and simple.

What's more cozy and comforting than a quilt?

Stars for Pat

 My sister-in-law enjoyed sewing and was an avid hand quilter. Sadly, she developed macular degeneration and now can no longer see to sew. She asked me if I would be willing to make a version of a quilt I'd made a few years ago out of fabrics she'd accumulated and saved. Of course I said yes. 

This is the quilt she referenced:

And this is the one I made out of her fabrics:

About 65" square

 They were some lovely colors and prints to work with but they turned out to be highly toxic to my system. They'd been pre-washed in one of those laundry detergents that chemically bonds to the fibers. Even though I re-washed every piece they let off toxic fumes with handling and especially under the iron. It was a struggle, but I was happy to be able to assemble this quilt for Pat. I only hope her vision will last long enough for her to truly enjoy the fruits of my labors.

Scrap Happy in September

The 15th of each month has been designated as Scrap Happy Day by Kate in Australia and Gun in Sweden. We are invited to share something we've made from scrap materials or something we've repurposed. There have been some pretty ingenious transformations among the regular participants. My scrap material tends to be fabric, and I most often turn them into quilts of one sort or another.

Over time I have developed a system for cutting patches and strips from leftover fabrics. I begin with the blocks that require the largest patches or the highest number of patches and work my way down to 1.5" squares. I let these patches accumulate until I feel the urge to do something with them. That's when blocks get made that tend to end up in the Parts Department. Eventually those blocks are used to make a quilt top.

Recently I noticed that my basket of 2" wide strips was pretty full. About that same time I had a series of headaches to deal with. One way I cope with them is to do some mindless sewing, whether by hand or by machine. Last month it was machine piecing I turned to. Without much thought I selected 2" strips from that basket and sewed them together, end to end, until I had pieced strips 12.5" long. Eight of those strips were then sewn together to create 12" (finished) blocks, I call these my Lego blocks. 

Sometimes when I make these blocks I only do a couple and then set them aside. This time I just kept making blocks until my basket was nearly empty. Before long I had a whole quilt top's worth of blocks. Well, a skinny quilt top. So I pieced together some 3.5" wide scraps for side borders and found a length of fabric to sash them. Another couple of strips added to the top and bottom gave me a flimsy about 61" x 82."

I will have to purchase backing fabric for this (and batting of course) but the whole top has been constructed solely from scraps. 😊

If you'd like motivation for using up your scrap materials, fabric or otherwise, leave a comment on Kate or Gun's blogs from the list below. And be inspired by what you see in the other blogs!

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,
Lynn, Tierney, Hannah, Maggie