Catching Up

I've been doing some more little stitched panels of late, just for the heck of it. 😊

This first one began with that triangle of pink silk on which I placed the key at the very end.

I stitched what would have been seam lines except all the fabric was left raw edge. Then I sprinkled it with French knots, a few star sequins, and some bead chips. 

This one was very simply treated with running stitches... until I felt compelled to stitch over some of the flourish applique. 

The stitching is very subtle on this one but it's there, trust me. 

And this one is reminiscent of a square I made for the Great Big Little Stitchery Swap Round 2. There's seed stitching amongst the little floral bouquets. I tried to emphasize the tiny flowers under the hedgehog with some straight stitches and Colonial knots. All of these panels are in the neighborhood of 3" x5." Well, the one at the top is probably just under 4" square. They've all been sent to the Disabled Artists Foundation for fundraising purposes.

I decided to keep this one for myself. 😁 It's about 3" x 4." Just seed stitching and one column of chain stitches, then an outline stitch to highlight a line that was already in the music print. I'm not sure what I will do with it but I sense there's a fabric book in my future and it could be a cute pocket!

 

A Very Catty Scrap Happy Day in March

First off,  I have a couple of scrappy finishes to share. This Scrappy Trips quilt had to wait a while to get quilted. When the time came James used a variegated thread and a simple meander to do the job.

60" x 80"

The second finish, this scrappy Remixed Geese, was a more recent project. In fact, Scrap Happy Day in January this year was the motivation to get it going.

54" x 66"

To finish it off I went through my binding leftovers, pulled out all the blues, and sewed them together for a scrappy binding.

This month I sewed up some more of the cat blocks I've been making out of scrap fabrics.

I wondered how many cats I had when this batch was done. I was shocked to see that I have 126 cats altogether. I had no idea there were that many. The question now is what to do with them? It's a harder block to work with in the usual way because it finishes at 5" wide and 9" tall. I can't just plug them into a quilt plan the way I would stars or other square blocks. I've had some ideas but nothing has gelled at this point. Not that all the cats need to end up in one quilt! In fact, I suspect they will make appearances in several quilts. The block is just so easy to make and so useful for larger scraps. 

Scrap Happy Day is hosted on the 15th of each month by Kate in Australia and Gun in Sweden. Participants span the globe, posting according to their own time zones. If you'd like some motivation for using up scrap materials hanging around in your nest leave a comment on either of their blogs. Theirs are the first two links in the list below. And then be inspired by what's being done to recycle, repurpose, or otherwise keep things out of landfills around the world.

Kate, Gun, Eva, Lynda,
Birthe, Turid, 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