Scrap Happy in June

 This Scrap Happy Day I am sharing my start for my Textile Tales book for June. These little books are great for putting small scraps to use. This time I'm using Janet Kime's book Quilts to Share as my inspiration. 

 

This is an older book, published in 1991 by That Patchwork Place. It's one of many in my library I've had to have taken apart and individual pages put in archival sleeves to protect myself from the particulates/fumes that emanate from the ink or paper. It's the source for the cat block I've used for quilts in the past. 

 Most recently I've had this quilt from the book on my mind:

 What if I made the cover for my book like that?

 I didn't get as much variety in strip widths but I was also working at a much smaller scale. This cover piece measures 8.25" x 4.5." I worked strictly out of my bag of scraps that are less than 1.5" wide. 

I used the sew and flip method to secure the strips to batting and the piece of fabric for the inside of the cover. 

 This is a Mary Lou Weidman print. A major part of the book is dedicated to sharing how to organize the making of scrappy community quilts (quilts to be donated to a charity) within a quilt guild or group. So I felt the print of "quilt ladies" would be most appropriate to include. 😊

I have also constructed one half of one signature for my book. Out of scraps of course.

 This 7" x 4.5" unit will eventually make up two pages in my book. I have an idea for the center spread based on the little house quilt blocks in Janet's book. After that I don't know what will come next. The cat block will not work at this small scale or the square format of my pages. The Textile Tales books are not meant to be exact replicas of the inspiration volumes by any means. Just a jumping off place. 

I try to keep a stack of scrap patches near the sewing machine to sew together inbetween the seams of other projects. These are the blocks I've built over the last month or so:

 One of these days I really need to do something about the drawer FULL of 6" Hole in the Barn Door blocks (also known as Churn Dash blocks). It's getting so I can't easily put any more blocks in that drawer. 

Scrap Happy Day is hosted by Kate of Tall Tales from Chiconia on the 15th of each month. We have a new participant joining us this month. Welcome Wizzy!  

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, Tierney,
Hannah, Maggie and Wizzy 

 

Textile Tales #5

I'm a little slow to share my May textile book with you. Better late than never I hope. 😊 

I didn't have a specific book to use as inspiration this time around. I might have had if I hadn't thinned out my library before now. Suffice to say I used my collection of African prints for this one. I'm calling it African Tails and Textiles.  

 

On the front cover I simply did a bit of outline stitching around the warrior and the shield.  Then I couched a chenille yarn around that patch. 

 

The inside of the cover is a single piece of fabric. It's pretty tightly woven, making it less fun to stitch through, so I just put some tiny upright crosses in the sky area. A lot of the stitching in this book is very simple.

 

The black lines on the print behind the cheetah were stem stitched with black floss. I used a green perle cotton to overstitch the green markings in the print in the lower right corner of the right hand page. 

 This is the center spread. The background is a single print. I didn't bother with any stitching other than what was necessary to applique the animals in place. 

 

Again, I only outlined stitched the face in the center of the upper half of the left page then put some straight stitches in the orange background behind the rhinoceros. African trade beads were strung to dangle from the button in the top corner of that page. On the left are a few more beads and another button (lower right corner). 

 

The final page has four more buttons and a few Colonial knots. There are some straight stitches in the yellow area at the bottom of that page. Opposite that is the rest of the blue print from the inside front cover. Then a string of African trade beads separates the blue from the next patch. The light batik print is folded over the edge from the back cover.  

 

The back cover probably has the most stitching of any page in this book. It was no easy feat to stitch with a black thread on that black background around the figures in the central patch. At least, not for my aging eyes! It's basically echo quilting. There is a layer of thin batting between the cover pieces. 

 

Here's the outside of the book open flat. I had more trouble stitching up the spine of this book than I've had with previous volumes. Not sure why. There are some tightly woven fabrics, and it's possible I ran into knots or stitches in some of the pages. I'm happy to have it done finally and am pleased with the result. Now it's on to my Textile Tales book for June! 

In case you weren't aware, I've been making one book per month since January of this year, following along with the Roxy sisters on YouTube. Their project ends with book six. I may very well carry on for the rest of the year as I'm finding this a great way to use up little pieces of favorite prints and treasures that I can stitch in place.