Scrap Happy Day in October

I've got another textile book for you. This one is just a tad larger than the last few at about 4" square. I took a vintage hanky, folded it in half over a piece of batting, and randomly quilted the layers together.  

Eventually I added the vintage yo-yo and button to the front cover. 

The pages were kept within the lace trimming of the handkerchief. This book was made for my SIL. She is suffering from macular degeneration, slowly losing her vision. My goal was to make high contrast pages with a variety of textures that would give her pleasure to see while she still can and hold and stroke when her world goes entirely dark.

I cut a heart template out of a 3" square and used it for every page. This first one is a flannel heart on denim. All the hearts are raw edge applique, blanket stitched in place. 

The second heart was cut from a piece of kantha (a type of quilt made in India). The white stitches in the heart were done by the maker of the kantha. The background of that page is a dupioni silk. The next page foundation is cotton damask. The heart is another silk that came with chain stitching lines on it. 

On the left page of the center spread we have a heart cut from Guatemalen woven cotton fabric. The right hand heart was cut from vintage feed sacking. The foundation is a quilter's cotton. 

On page six we have a wool heart on the other half of the cotton damask. The floral heart opposite was cut from a precious piece of baby wale corduroy. The foundation under the corduroy is the dupioni silk again.

Page eight is denim ticking on blue jean denim. I used the corner of another vintage hanky to create a pocket to hold a piece of paper with descriptions of what I've done someone can read to my SIL.

That just leaves us with the inside back cover. 

We share something we've made out of scraps or repurposed materials on the 15th of each month. Scrap Happy Day is currently being hosted by Kjerstin. Having a deadline has helped me more than once to get a project made or finished. If you'd like to participate too just leave a comment on Kjerstin's blog. 😊

Kjerstin, Eva, Lynda,
Birthe, Turid, Tracy, Jan,
Moira, Chris, Alys,
Claire, Jean, Dawn, Gwen,
Sunny, Sue L, Vera, Kate,
Ann, Dawn 2, Carol, Preeti,
Viv, Alissa, Tierney,
Hannah, Maggie and Wizzy  

Scrap Happy Day in September

 I've started another little textile book. For this one I've used a piece of denim from jeans my son discarded for the cover. It's about 8" wide like this and 4.5" tall. I expect the finished book to be about 3.75" x 4.5"

 The floral elements I've appliqued on what will be the front cover came from a linen doily that had also been discarded.

 I'm using strips of vintage grain sack for the page foundations.

 So far I have used more bits of grain and flour sacking to lay the groundwork for two signatures or what will ultimately be four pages. (Each of these signatures gets folded in half to create two pages.)

I purposely left a bit of the plain gran sack visible on this first signature. We'll see if it stays exposed!

 Nothing brand new will be used in the creation of this little book. Which is the premise for Scrap Happy Day after all. 😊 To see what others are doing with their scraps or recycled materials click on the links below.

Kjerstin, Eva, Lynda,
Birthe, Turid, Tracy, Jan,
Moira, Chris, Alys,
Claire, Jean, Dawn, Gwen,
Sunny, Sue L, Vera, Kate,
Ann, Dawn 2, Carol, Preeti,
Viv, Alissa, Tierney,
Hannah, Maggie and Wizzy  

 

Scrap Happy in July

My latest scrap busting effort involved making what's called Big Dipper blocks in my reference book. I see hourglasses personally. Or time turners maybe? That may not be totally appropriate in terms of the Harry Potter series of books but it makes sense to me. Some of the prints are new-ish while others have been in my stash for many years. Time Turners it is. 😁 

 The individual blocks finish at eight inches. I made 64 of them so I could set 63 in 9 rows of 7 each. ('Cause you know I'm not into sashing. 😉) That gives me a flimsy 56.5" x 72.5." With a two inch border down the long sides and four inches across the top and bottom I'll have a quilt top that measures 60" x 80." 

As I went through my fabric collection I couldn't find enough yardage of anything I was willing to part with to make the borders for this flimsy. So I ordered yardage. I also ordered some extra wide fabric for the back. They haven't arrived yet. But right now the flimsy qualifies for Scrap Happy Day! 

This blog hop has been hosted for 11 years by Kate at Tall Tales from Chiconia. Unfortunately, Kate has developed some physical issues that will curtail her making and blogging for the immediate future. Kjerstin has kindly volunteered to take over hosting duties. Thank you Kjerstin. ❤️

Here are the links for everyone who joins ScrapHappy from time to time (they may not post every time, but their blogs are still worth looking at).

Kjerstin, Eva, Lynda,
Birthe, Turid, Tracy, Jan,
Moira, Sandra, Chris, Alys,
Claire, Jean, Dawn, Gwen,
Sunny, Sue L, Vera, Kate,
Ann, Dawn 2, Carol, Preeti,
Viv, Karrin, Alissa, Tierney,
Hannah, Maggie and Wizzy

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 

 

Scrap Happy in May

Scrap Happy Day occurs on the 15th of each month and is hosted by Kate at Tall Tales From Chiconia. The idea is to share a project or object that has been made entirely out of scrap materials or repurposed somehow. A couple of months ago I was gifted some vintage 8 pointed star quilt blocks that had been rescued from the trash! 

 I forget now how many of these blocks there were. Six or eight maybe. The star points were pieced on paper foundations from what I think was a catalog.

 I took off all the papers and hand washed the blocks. Then I separated the star points and eventually quite a few of the patches as well.

 I hadn't a clue what I was going to do with the patches. I had no interest in trying to put the star blocks into a quilt. But making slow stitched scrolls has been a source of real pleasure lately. In order to use the patches without cutting them down at all - because I always want to showcase the prints and colors - I figured a 4" strip of foundation fabric would accommodate the largest patches and I could use the smaller ones to fill in around them. So I ripped a strip off of a dress I can no longer wear (off the sleeve actually) and used it as the foundation for the scroll.

 A second strip from the other sleeve off the dress on the left and the scroll I made on the right. 

When I got to the end of my strip, which is about 17" long, I didn't know what to do with it. Then one day the lower quarter of the strip got folded up and the idea came to turn this into a hussif (needle roll or sewing kit). 

 That section will become a pocket to hold scissors, maybe a spool of thread, whatever might be needed. 

Above that I plan to put a pin cushion and somewhere along the length there will be felt pages for needles.

 Folding it up again and then the last bit becomes a flap and a place for a closure.

 That's as far as I've come. I'm thinking of using a piece of blue jean pant leg to line the patchwork. The pin cushion and needle pages will be secured to the denim. There will be a little bit of decorative stitching I think, and maybe an embellishment or two. Don't expect to see the end result next month though. I have two Textile Tales books I need to work on, not to mention a couple of other projects I have in process. In the meantime, you can visit the links below to get even more inspiration. 😊

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 in April

 I've got another little book to share with you. This may have been my very first attempt at a fabric book, inspired by Susan Taylor Brown's "just because" books. Other books have been started and finished since I embarked on this one.   

 This book is about 3.25" wide and 5" tall. I only used things I found in my stash. The challenge was to see what I could do in a black and white palette. The 'Liberty' tag was cut from a silk tie. The buttons are vintage. I had fun playing with my buttons in this book. 

 I tried to use a variety of fabric types. The eyelet on page 2 is a little pocket. The black flower next to it is a crochet piece as is the white flower on the next page. 

 More labels from neckties on page four. The number 2 and the spiffy fella on page 5 were cut from quilting cottons. I used this book as an opportunity to feature some laces along with everything else.  

 After I'd added the mouse (from another quilter's cotton), the strip of crochet and the fibers I couldn't bring myself to do any additional stitching on this center spread. I really like being able to read the words that were printed on the cotton along with the images of cookie dough on the cookie sheets. 

 More labels. Then I fell into spooky mode. 

 On the upper left of the back cover is a waterfall of scrap patches. 

 I used this book as a learning experience. That's one reason it has taken so long to get it to a finished state. I'd get stuck, not knowing what to do next. Then I'd come across someone else's approach or technique and give it a try. I've learned what I enjoy doing and what doesn't appeal to me so much. 

Here are the links for other bloggers who generally participate in this blog hop.  😊

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