My Kind of Quilt

Scraptacular is proving to be just my kind of quilt. 

All those scraps that I seem to just leave on the cutting table edges and work around were corralled and taken upstairs to be sorted and cut into tiny, usable pieces. I know that some quilters have great success in organizing their remnants into strips and blocks but I get stalled just fretting about the final size to cut the scraps in case I want to use it for something else. Now I'm cutting with a purpose and those piles are revealing corners of my cutting table that haven't seen daylight in months!

My test blocks also gave me a good sense of what I want to cut. If you look closely, Edyta appears to have used just about everything and anything in hers but I'm planning to stay with a bit more of a traditional palette and toss in a few surprises along the way.

I also wasn't sure if I wanted to use large floral prints, but this block settled that question nicely. Love it....M

Trying to Find a Gear

Did you ever try to learn to drive a standard? Remember that feeling of not quite getting the car into gear and searching for the sweet spot that would take you forward (or backward, for that matter). Well, I feel like that's where I've been of late - sitting between gears waiting for something to click.

That said, I finally made good on my remake of the yellow braid for the mug rugs to be given with the Christmas gifts for our shut-ins.

And I got over my fear of leaving too many trimming scraps on the table. I cut three roughly 8" x 6.5". The last one that's sitting on the top of the pile was too narrow so I reoriented the cut and got a fourth slightly smaller rug out of it. 

A few of the larger trimmings will likely become small HSTs to use in another one. You'd think that I don't have any yardage 😏.

A lonely little pile of forgotten HSTs made up quickly into these, which I quite like. They are approximately 6" x 8", which I hope is big enough.

And, I used some 1.25" scrappy strips to play with Log Cabin blocks. I quite like these as well and have the makings of one or two more ready to go.

Now that I have a few tops made I'm going to see if I can't get them quilted and take them with me to bind when we are away in August for a few days. It's always nice to have a bit of hand stitching to pick up. It's not a ton of progress but it's something, and I'll take it...M

Fair Season Has Begun

On the weekend, we took a quick trip to Beachburg to see what we could see. They host an agricultural fair annually that has been running for 168 years now (which seems incredible to me) and it's been a while since we went, so I was keen to see what we could see.

Much of the livestock showing had happened a day earlier, but there was a barn with some animals on display so we were able to enjoy that.

and a judging circle that was busy with young 4H members learning their way around a ring. This little fellow was Patches II and his turn was coming up. He had a lot of personality.

The biggie for me was getting into the handicrafts exhibit hall to check things out.

For a small fair I thought that they had a great showing of items, particularly quilts. 

And the workmanship was second to none.

Originally, I thought that this was a temperature quilt but I've since realized that it goes by another name - Postcard from Sweden? It was beautiful hung up high in the rafters.

As was this appliqued Christmas quilt.

The one that we were keen to see was this paper pieced fish quilt. Just a week earlier we learned that the young gal who runs the diner that we go to most Sundays for breakfast is a quilter and made this for a girlfriend's 40th. 

For a first effort I'm thinking that she did amazingly well. She will be thrilled.

And this was the last little fellow to catch my eye. He was a winner too, and you can see why.

What a terrific beginning to fair season 2024...M

We're Going Four It!

This post might just as easily be titled 'Crazy Loves Company'. 

Last weekend I saw where Roberta had pinned this gorgeous scrappy quilt called - what else? - Scraptacular by Edyta Sitar from Laundry Basket Quilts, so I sent Roberta a note saying how I have admired it for a long time and was saving to start it for a day when I was truly crazy. 

This was one of three quilts in a Go Four It quilt along held in 2015. Yup, I'm at the leading edge of quilting trends...

Well, crazy or not, here we come. Before the weekend was out, we had decided that we were jumping in with both feet. 

I recently came across a new print by Betsy Chutchian so it will be the large floral for the alternating strips. We're still sorting out what the other main colours will be.

There are 480 little square-in-a-square scrappy blocks with four patches tucked into the centre, so before committing to this I made a few test blocks. They finish up at 2 1/8" so you sort of want to be sure. Scrappy, tiny - I'm in!...M