Scraps and a gift

Before Christmas I decided I would do something with my big box of little scraps. These are quite small bits that had accumulated over time. I had used up my box of strings previously on my crap circle quilt shown below. I had a lovely couple of hours sitting on my bed sorting through these with the help of one of my furry babies. If you click for a better look you will see my cat, scraps and quilt - lol !

I then started sewing them together randomly and trimming after each seam. This is great fun and something I really enjoy. I have a 6 inch square ruler and once the piece got to a big enough size these scruffy pieces got turned from these

Into these . . . . . .


I have not been doing a lot of sewing - mainly due to the ongoing problem of sciatica - but now and again I have been doing a few more of these here and there. Yesterday I counted them up and discovered I have made 95 blocks already with still no end to the scraps - lol ! Not sure how I will set these but for the moment I am really enjoying them. Quite satisfying making something from nothing. When I started quilting - seven years ago - I used to throw my scraps in the bin. What a terrible thought !!!

I am still slowly working on the 600 flying geese needed for the quilt in my last post. However my sewing machine is playing up again so for now I am using my little back-up machine to make these scrap blocks.

Last week a new friend - Julie - from my quilting group became a grandma for the first time. She phoned to let me know her daughter had the baby - a little girl called Amber Lily. My first thought was to make her a little something. I was going to knit a little jacket but I knew Julie had done lots of knitting for her so I decided a small wall-hanging for the nursery would be nice.
Here is the start of it

And here it is appliqued, bordered, quilted and bound. Tada !!! There are little hanging tabs on the back so hopefully it will be up on the wall soon..

I gave it to Julie on Tuesday to pass onto the new parents and she was so touched she almost cried - literally. I did not expect that ! It was so nice to do something from start to finish.

Because I can't sit at the computer for long before my leg starts paining I am behind on answering comments and emails - please forgive me. I am keeping up with all your blogs and comment when I can. I am currently awaiting hospital appointments for physiotherapy and am sure once I start these my sciatica will improve. I can't wait to get back to my quilting properly.

Have a good week xxx

Good morning. I have a couple of questions for you today. The first one I'm pretty sure I know the answer too but I'm very curious about the second.

1. Do you have UFO's ? - see I think I'm almost positive most of you will say yes - lol. I think of my UFO's as something I have started and abandoned before it is done. I am not classing my long term projects in this - such as my English Paper Piecing quilts ( of which I have a few ) as I keep doing a bit here and there. When I get to the stage where my quilt becomes a UFO for whatever reason - deadline on something else, just got distracted etc - I stop working on it. This leads to my next question.

2. Are your UFO's carefully put away in a logical order - perhaps with notes - so you can see where you're up to ? Or are they literally bundled away out of sight, out of mind - lol.

You have probably guessed I'm going somewhere with this. Yes I am working on one of my numerous UFO's - not sure how many I've quite got but a few should cover it :-) After the Christmas rush I got to thinking which one of my quilts-in-progress would I like to see finished first. I decided on one I started only last year but which I really want completed. I will re-cap on this. It is one I saw in Quilters Newsletter and was love at first sight. It is made mainly in Reproduction fabrics and my wonderful friend Dawn very kindly bought me the poison green, chrome yellow fabrics I was struggling to get hold of. She had seen the quilt " in the flesh " and also sent some photos of it. We decided to both make this quilt.

Anyway I knew where it was - all piled up on a tray under my sewing table - like so

Some bits were done - some fabrics cut - little bits half done - no order whatsoever ! So I spent a bit of time working out exactly where I was with this.

There are 25 blocks in the quilt. I discovered 4 were complete.

Each block starts with a nine-patch in the centre and is then bordered. I found all nine-patches done and some ( about 5 more ) had their borders. I had no little borders cut so first job was to go through my fabric drawers and get the fabrics I had used so far - adding a few more to the mix - definitely a scrappy quilter at heart.

I now have all the borders on the nine-patches and am in the process of making lots of flying geese units ( there are 600 altogether )

To my delight I also found I'd made the 80 four-patches needed for the outer border. I can't even remember making these - lol !

I know this is a little long winded but I wanted to share how much fun I had sorting through all my bits and pieces and finding out what needed doing. I know it would have been far easier if everything had been tidy and labelled in little bags and the rest of my pieces cut out but I guess that's just not me.

I am up to 9 blocks complete now with lots more flying geese made and ready to sew. Might get some done later with a bit of luck although my leg is troubling me today. Could be worse.

My heart goes out to everyone affected by the Australian floods - so much devastation - the world truly has it's troubles. I hope to make a small donation tomorrow and wish it could be more.

Take care xxx