I May Have A Scrap Problem... Goodbye March, Hello April!

Hi, all!

Wow!  How fast is this year flying by, right?  It's hard to believe, but it's already April.  It's been a good year so far, and I do believe that I've come to love scrap sewing!  

At the end of February, I decided that for my March scrappy goals I wanted to quilt my Long Time Gone quilt and finish the top of my Gypsy Wife quilt.  And I'm happy to say that I met both of those goals!  Here's my Long Time Gone...

...as it hung on the line drying!  It has a wool batt, my first experience with that but definitely not my last - but that means it can't go in the dryer.  You can see lots more detailed photos that show the quilting and gorgeous texture in this post.

And not only did I get my Gypsy Wife quilt top finished, I got it quilted too!

I'll be posting LOTS more pictures of this one on Friday!  But it's done and I love it...

And as if that wasn't enough, I did some other scrappy sewing in March, too!

I made a kid-sized version of the On-Line quilt, using all solids.  It came out so cute!  This one will be going to Jack's Basket.

I made a second version of the On-Line quilt early in the month when I needed a "brainless" sewing project, and pulled it out of the to-be-quilted pile and put it on the frame!

This quilt also jumped out of the to-be-quilted pile - it's been there a while!  It's made with solid binding scraps, with some black and white bindings thrown into the mix.  I separated them all with a cute rainbow print just to spice it up.   The original intention was to "slice and dice" it and re-assemble it, but I decided finished was better than good intentions!  This quilt will be going to another of the Hands2Help charities.

And just because scrappy sewing is more fun with friends, I got my quilt ministry buddies in on the mindless sewing!  This was one morning's accomplishment, and I think we now have enough for four or five twin size quilts!  

So I think it's safe to say March was a very good and productive month! I still have tons of scraps, but at least now I have something to show for it.  

Then I dug out the Scrap Attack box and pulled out a goal for April...

Now, those templates aren't new any more - I got them over a year ago - but they ARE still unused.  And it's been so long, I couldn't find the original inspiration shot that made me get them, but this is similar...

The arcs aren't pieced, they are one piece.  I love this look!  So I'm going to give it a whirl this month.  We'll see how it goes!

Now I'd love to know what wonderful scrappiness you did in March, and what you plan for April!  Link up below and let's cheer each other on!

Hugs!

Sarah

Can I Get A Whoop Whoop? Well Begun is Half Done...

Hi, all!

Welcome to another Friday!  Arguably the best day of the week, the beginning of the weekend, and most important of all, time for us to get our whoop whoop on!  Are you ready?  Let's go!

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Well, I don't have a finish this week, but I do have a start!  Wednesday afternoon, I loaded Gypsy Wife onto the quilt frame...

...and Thursday I started quilting her!

I'm using a wool batt again, so I'm doing a lot of heavily filled areas to make other sections stand out.

It's fun coming up with ideas to fill in the spaces!  I've had a lot of help from some good friends...

I'm combing these books, by Christina Cameli, Angela Walters, and  Amanda Murphy, for Quilting ideas.  Excellent quilters all, and they are so good at sharing their techniques!

This is an early shot taken shortly after I started.  I've worked on some of the larger blocks here, and you can see that it's going to show some pretty definition!

 

A close-up shot of that corner.

The heart was a fun one to quilt.  I really like the bottom corners of that block!

By the end of the afternoon, I had finished most of the first pass.  Fatigue was starting to set in, though, so I killed the electric lights and took some pictures in the natural daylight.

As you can see, I decided to stitch in the ditch between the vertical strips.  I like the definition it gives, but I'm still trying to decide if I want to do anything else in those spaces.

It is amazing how the quilting can change the looks of a block!

I really like seeing this picture of the upper left corner, taken after I added the vertical background stitching.  Look back at the earlier picture of this corner and you can see what a difference it makes!

So in the spirit of "well begun is half done", 

can I get a whoop whoop?

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And now it's your turn!

What's got you whooping it up this week?

What's making you do a little happy dance?

Share!  We want to dance right along with you,

And it's always more fun to dance with friends!

The party will stay open until Sunday midnight.

Hope to see you there!

Hugs!

Sarah

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I May Have A Scrap Problem... Gypsy In The House!

Hi, all!

Scraps, scraps everywhere - they can really consume you, can't they?  But every so often, it's nice to have a finish, and be able to look at it and know that you took something that could have been thrown away and turned it into something beautiful.  You may have seen this post about my Long Time Gone quilt...

...and today, I'm happy to say that now I can add Gypsy Wife to the (nearly) finished column!  I went back and looked through my pictures, and found this one, dated August 8, 2017.

That was the day that I started Gypsy Wife, a Jen Kingwell pattern.  The fabrics are Latitude batiks by Kate Spain, and were a wonderful and unexpected gift from Kate herself.  I came home one day to an enormous box on my doorstep, filled with scraps of the line before it even came out, along with a note from Kate saying SURPRISE!  I divided them up into cool and warm colors, pressed and sorted them into these tubs, and started on Gypsy Wife.

The blocks have been finished for a while, but trying to find time to set them into the background strips was hard to do, with so many projects going on.  However, last week I decided that it was time to put those blocks together, AND I DID!

Bear with me, because I've got a lot of pics!  

Isn't it gorgeous?  I love the way it looks like the blocks are floating on the vertical strips.

And even though it was windy, I wanted to get a stained glass shot (or two or three...)

I tried to use mostly warm colors in my blocks, with cool tones as the backgrounds.  Then I used all cool tones as the background vertical strips.

This quilt has a nice variety of blocks, and is a great way to learn to piece well.

There are no paper pieced blocks in this quilt, either. Hooray!

I made one mistake in this quilt - well, at least one! - as I found as I was piecing the last section that one of the blocks I had left wasn't what was called for in that space.  But by then, I wasn't going to go find where I messed up earlier and take it apart, so I made it work.  At least I'll be able to identify it as mine and no one else's!

It was such a rarity to have sunlight, I even love this shot with the sun glare!

One final shot as the sun sets in the west.

And don't think that this top is going to languish on a rack waiting to be quilted - I ordered another wool batt which arrived today, and the back is made and ready to go.  I need to quilt one more ministry quilt to reach a self-imposed finish goal before I load Gypsy Wife on the frame, so I should get to start on it tomorrow sometime.  I can't wait to try out some new designs that I picked up from Christina Cameli's new book, Step-by-Step Texture Quilting!

I still have scraps, scraps everywhere - even in the Latitude tubs - button I have two beautiful scrap quilts that I will be keeping for myself.  And I'm so inspired to keep making scrap quilts!  

Hugs!

Sarah

Make-A-List Monday - Back to Business As Usual!

Hi, all!

Well, last week was an interesting change of pace!  If you didn't catch them, I invited guest bloggers to highlight each of this year's five Hands2Help charities, one each day of last week.  Which meant that I didn't have a Make-A-List Monday post last week.  So let's take a look at how my list from two weeks ago went, then I'll show you what I did last week...

1.  Finish quilting the customer quilt (without mistakes this time!)

Done, thankfully!  And with no further problems!

2.  Keep working on the vintage quilt repair job.

Done!  Well, at least, still in progress.  It's going to be a slow job, because there's a lot of repair needed, but it is a fun one!

3.  Start preparing next week's blog posts for Hands2Help.

Done!  And there was a lot of great feedback - people liked learning more about the charities!

4.  Keep working on the mindless sewing project.

Done!  I couldn't locate a finished pic of my own top, but here's a pic of the wall full of more blocks we made at church on our monthly sewing day!

5.  Bind four ministry quilts.

Done!  And I even remembered to take a picture!

6.  Keep up with any quilt ministry needs that come up.

We gave away quite a few this week...

This quilt went to a woman whose mother passed away this week...

...and this one went to a woman in hospice care.

Another woman died unexpectedly this week, and we provided several quilts to family members...

This quilt went to her 4 year old granddaughter...

This quilt went to her daughter...

...and this quilt went to the woman's mother.

This quilt went to a church member's new grandbaby...

And this quilt went to a young woman in our community just diagnosed with leukemia.

This beauty went to a woman who just had surgery for breast cancer. 

And finally, this quilt went to a woman who lost her adult child to a brain tumor recently.

In addition to all of that, I also said that I was hoping to PLAY - and PLAY I did!  I had been wanting to make a solids version of the On-Line quilt, and I made a 36" square version that will be donated to Jack's Basket once it's finished.

But wait, that's not all....

I finished my Long Time Gone quilt!  Don't worry, I'll be sharing more about this, probably on Friday - I've taken lots and LOTS of pictures!

And then....

And then I finished my Gypsy Wife top!  It may be a little while before I can get this one on the frame, but I love that it's all put together.  And I love it!  

OK, so that's enough about last week.  Here's my plan for this week...

1.  Finish a ministry quilt for a special request.

2.  Make heart blocks for the drive for the Christchurch victims (more about this on Wednesday's blogpost.)

3.  Work on the vintage quilt.

4.  Quilt the solids On-Line quilt.

5.  H2H administrative stuff - lots of emails!

6.  Sort out H2H prizes.

7.  Taxes. (UGH)

8.  Keep up with any quilt ministry needs that come up.

I also got a new toy last week - a tiny little camera, like a Go Pro (but cheaper!) and I need to learn how to use it so I can start doing video tutorials!  So I think I will spend some time playing with it, too.

So now, the question is - - - what are YOU working on this week?

Hugs!

Sarah