Scrap Happy in August

 We are having uncomfortably high temperatures at the moment. It is August in the Northern Hemisphere after all. I have a couple of quilts that need binding but I just can't face working on them in this heat. I'm not even interested in making blocks for a future quilt. Gotta have the iron on for that process. So I have turned to hand sewing and working with some of the smallest scraps in my magpie's nest.

I started with a strip of muslin 2.5" high and about 23" long. On top of that I raw-edge appliqued various patches, mostly in pinks and purples as it turned out. 

Once I had the strip covered I began embellishing it with simple embroidery stitches. 

There are some lazy daisy or detached chain stitches and straight stitches in various configurations in the section above. 

I did a spider web rose, blanket stitches, tiny upright cross stitches, and more chain stitches in this section.

Eventually I added other embellishments like strips of ribbon and lace, charms, buttons, and a tag from a man's necktie. Following are photos from the left end to the right end. 

I believe that's a piece of antique lace in this section.

 

 The next step is to put a back on the strip and find something to wind it around for the full scroll effect. While I do that you can visit these other Scrap Happy Day participants. 😊

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

 

Seven Months of Textile Postcards

 I've been stitching postcards along with Tori over at KoolKookyKreatures on YouTube. She gives us a prompt each month for inspiration. I shared a few at the beginning of the year but have slacked off since then. So I thought this might be a good time for a review and a reveal of the latest postcards. 😊

January's prompt was "Snow Day!"

 February was "Feathered Friends."

 March's prompt was "Time for Tea." I went with time for tea with Dr. Who. 😉

 In April we were invited to make "My Secret Garden."

May was all about "Faerie Tales." I went with flower fairies. 

In June we peeked "Under the Sea."

 And for July the prompt was "Wild Thing." A friend reminded me about Animal, the drummer in the Muppet Show band. Then I found these guys in my stash. 😁

 

 

  Now it's time for "Doggust." This should be fairly straightforward - I hope!

Scrappy Remixed Geese

 For Scrap Happy Day back in May I shared the progress I'd made on a scrappy version of the Remixed Geese pattern (free from Robert Kaufman Fabrics). This is what it looked like then:

 It would have finished at 54" x 72." I could have stopped there but I prefer the slightly larger size of 60" x 80" for unknown recipients. There would inevitably be more scraps to cut into geese and background patches so I put it away for a while. 

 I was able to get another ten or so flights of geese made recently. They've been added to the flimsy to make this quilt top:

 Now it will finish at 60" x 80." 😊 

 

Scrap Happy in July

The 15th of each month is Scrap Happy Day as declared by our hostess Kate. Once a month we show and share something we've made from scraps or leftovers. If you've been here recently you'll know I've been working to empty the tin of 2.5" patches that I've cut from scrap or leftover fabrics.

This is the tin when I began:

The stacks of patches reached up to the rim of the tin. Now the tin looks like this:

 All those patches were sewn into 16 patch blocks that finish at eight inches each. I ended up with something like 67. Obviously I could make a few more... and there will be new patches added as I work on new projects. 

Sixty-three of those blocks were put together to create this quilt top:

With all that variety in prints I used the dominant color that ran diagonally as the criteria for placing the blocks.  There were a few outliers but that helped a lot to organize the chaos. The print I used for the borders is black with tiny multi-color hashtags. Two inches down the long sides and 4" across the top and bottom brought the top up to my standard 60" x 80." 😊

You may remember that I was working on a scrappy version of the Remixed Geese pattern back in May. I  have added to that in the last week too but I'll talk about that in another post. In the meantime, here's the list of links to others who usually join us in scrappy goodness each month with out hostess at the top of the list. Enjoy!

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

 

 

Scrap Happy Follow-up

 I've continued to sew my 2.5" scrap squares into sixteen patch blocks. My tin looked like this when I began:

And this is what it looks like today:

 The stacks at the top had four or more patches of a single print in them. The stacks in the middle were two or three of a print, and the bottom stacks were single squares. 

And now this is what my design wall currently looks like:

That's fifty blocks that will finish at eight inches each. They are on the wall in the order in which they were made, not arranged in any specific way yet. I want to see how many more blocks I can get out of the patches that are left in the tin. After that we'll make a decision about how to use them in a quilt top. 😊

Some of the blocks are very controlled while others have a wide variety of prints in them. Mostly I let color drive my placement decisions. The two blocks below have a variety of prints but read and red, white, and blue on top and black drives the lower block. 

This pair of blocks are more controlled: blue and yellow, then green and yellow. 

 

This may or may not make assigning block placement a challenge. That remains to be seen!

Scrap Happy Day in June

 It's the 15th of the month again which means it's also Scrap Happy Day, the day we share something we've made (or are making) out of scraps or repurposed somehow. 

Last month I shared the flying geese I'd been making and the quilt top that resulted. Since then I've decided to make about ten more flights of geese to make the quilt top a bit bigger. I haven't made those geese yet. I got distracted by the 2.5 inch scrap patches that have been accumulating. 

This tin measures about 9" x 11" and is 3" deep. The stacks of squares came right up to the top when I began. Generally I try to make 6" Shoo-fly or Barn Door blocks out of my patches that finish at two inches. After setting up as many of those blocks as I could this is what was left over. I'm still not sure what I'll do with the triangles. After the Double 4 Patch quilt I shared last month four patch units were on my mind. But instead of four patch blocks I chose to make 16 patch blocks.

This is what I have on the design wall at this point. You can see that they are the same size as the star blocks I also make out of scrap fabrics. 

 

This is only the beginning. I also have a stack of strips 2.5" wide from which I can cut more squares. In fact, I've been wondering what to do with those strips. Some version of Log Cabin blocks is an obvious choice but somehow I'd rather cut the strips into patches. So we'll see how much progress I make between now and Scrap Happy Day in July! 

Go have a look at what everyone else has been doing with their scrap materials by clicking 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

 

It's Time for Teal

Teal is the color used for the Trudy Crowley Ovarian Cancer Foundation in Australia. For the last twelve years Kate at talltalesfromchiconia (and our hostess for Scrap Happy Day each month) has been assembling a quilt to be raffled off to raise funds for this organization. She always comes up with a pun for the title of the quilts. This year the quilt is called Tealing All Our Stories. To illustrate that theme she asked for contributions of bookshelf blocks. 

I've made blocks for several of Kate's ovarian cancer quilts and have always been happy to do so. This year was more of a challenge for me. I've never made a bookshelf block. To an experienced quilt maker it shouldn't appear all that difficult. Mostly the books are spines represented by strips of different prints. However, I found this year's brief intimidating. I wandered around online - mostly on Pinterest - to see what other makers had created. For those who applique or paper piece there are a lot of really cool things you can add to your bookshelf. That didn't necessarily help mitigate my intimidation! 

I committed to making two blocks for Kate. I began with something I'm familiar with and that I thought would lighten up a bookshelf: a cat.  

 I was able to fussy-cut the word Friends out of one print to use as a title on one spine. The word London was already on the fabric I cut that spine from. (I did not do a good job photographing these blocks.)

One of the things I like to do with the prints I buy is to fuss-cut bits out of them for specific purposes. In this case, I used portions of prints as the whole spine.

 Kate said she would add titles (names of the makers or people they would like to dedicate their blocks to) on some of the books so I left a couple of blank spaces for that on two of these books. 

Now that I was in the appropriate mindset I decided to try for a couple more blocks. I found a small panel - the interior of each block is only ten inches square - that I thought could either be a framed sign in the shelf or even the very tin standing on it's side on top of a couple of books.

 

 

One final block involved appliqueing labels onto the spines, just to prove I could do it.

 The idea was to use a dark teal for the back of our shelves and as much teal as we could manage for the books. Every block is framed in cream so the quilt top will look something like this (only much better!):

 I encourage you to hop over to Kate's blog to see some of the other blocks she has made or received pictures of so far. They are impressive. 😊 

Scrap Happy in May: A Finish and a Flimsy

 Back at the beginning of this year I made the decision to use up some of the fabric that had been in The Magpie's Nest for decades. I settled on a simple four patch pattern using patches that finish at 3." I had a bunch of 6" (finished) fussy-cut squares that I could use between the four patch blocks too. I had to cut more of those to get the size I was after for the finished quilt. Overall it was a pleasant project. It is finally a finished quilt.

 

My original intention was to donate it for a child in foster care or to Wrap the World With Quilts. However, now I find it to be a comprehensive record of the quilts I've made over the years (and a few I haven't yet made but thought I would). So this quilt is going to stay with me for the time being. 😁

I have continued my quest to use up older prints and remnants. If you've been here before you will have seen some of the scrappy blocks I've been making.  The greatest number were flying geese.

 When I stopped to count them up I discovered I had more than enough for another version of the free Remixed Geese pattern from Kaufman Fabrics. In some flights of geese I used a print for the large triangle (the goose) and sometimes I was able to also use that same print for the background. So when it came time to audition the geese for this new quilt top I tried to avoid using a single print more than once. 

If you follow the pattern directions they have you making only two geese at a time. The quilt top can then be assembled in horizontal rows. I tend to make my geese four at a time and sew them all into a strip. That makes it a greater challenge to lay out the blocks. Sometimes I have to separate the flight into two halves. I don't consider that a huge drawback. 

 The bigger challenge for me is extending my design wall to accommodate all the geese and then keeping everything in place until I can get it sewn together. Pins and the camera in my phone are a great help. Then it becomes akin to assembling a jigsaw puzzle, another activity I enjoy. 

 This is the completed flimsy. It would finish at 54" x 72" at this point. (I added an extra row to the pattern.) I'm currently debating whether to add a 3" border all the way around just to bring it up to 60" x 78." I believe I will be able to send this one out into the world when it is finally a finished quilt. 😊

I'm probably one of the last to post for Scrap Happy Day as this blog hop begins with Kate in Australia and I'm on the west coast of the United States. We all post on the 15th of each month in our various time zones, spanning the globe. You can see how others are repurposing or using up scrap materials all over the world by clicking 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

 

Finishes and Flowers in May

 Progress on quilt finishing seems to be going pretty slowly these days. The tops get done, backs get made or purchased, and then things stall. To be fair, my in-house quilter has other things he likes to do. But getting the bindings made and applied and then sewn down just feels like it's taking longer than it used to. 

For the first time in our history we have sewn down the bindings on the latest quilts by machine. I prefer to hand sew them. I enjoy the process and I like the look better. Since the painful flare-up I experienced last year in my wrists and forearms I've been trying moderate my hand sewing activity. The stitching I do on my postcards or scrolls or textile books don't seem to be a problem. Maybe because I don't stick with that one activity as long as I tend to do when sewing down a quilt binding. 

This green quilt began simply as a way to use up some of the green prints in my stash. As the blocks were accumulating on the design wall Son commented that he really like the look. Green seems to be his favorite color too. So we decided that quilt would be his and I made it to the dimensions he requested. It's much narrower than most of the quilt I make at about 48 x 75 inches.

He quilted it with an overall leafy design.

 The other quilt I just finished is the Welcome Blanket, 40 inches square.

I found a brown remnant in my stash that worked really well for the binding. I like the way it disappears visually. 

Coming up with a quilting pattern was a bit challenging due to the single heart block and other considerations. In the end we decided on this simple gentle wave across the width of the quilt.

 And now for the flowers 😊  This is the lilac we planted in our front yard two years ago (or has it been three years?).

 Not directly, but across the street there's this marvelous specimen with paler florets.

I have no idea how old it is but look how tall and big it is! That's the roof of the garage on the property at the far left in the photo. 

Meanwhile, my roses and peonies are budding. The front lawn is sprinkled with delightful yellow buttercups too. 

What's growing in your corner of the world?

Postcards for the #Kookypostcardsal2025

 I have been remiss in sharing the textile postcards I've been making this year. You may remember this one for January's Snow Day! prompt:

February's prompt was Feathered Friends. I'd recently acquired a vintage hankie featuring a pair of machine embroidered birds so I used them as a starting point for my postcard.

 The prompt for March was Time for Tea. I'm not a tea drinker. Tea time isn't really a thing here in the States either. (The prompt originator is a UK resident.) It wasn't until I came across some Dr. Who prints in my stash that I was finally able to come up with a plan for the March postcard.

I called this one Timey-wimey Tea with the Doctor. 😁

April's prompt is Secret Garden. If you're familiar with the book or the movies you will know about the garden brought back to life behind a hidden door. That was just a little too obvious for me but I didn't have any other ideas until a conversation with friends in a Zoom call. One of them spoke of how love grows in our hearts. Bingo!

Hmm, I should have photographed it on a different background. Oh well. Lately I've been scattering tiny upright crosses to give texture to background areas. I enjoy the process and like the results visually. This postcard also gave me an opportunity to use some really tiny heart buttons I acquired somewhere along the way. The prompt for May is Faerie Tales. I wonder where that prompt will take me!