Festival of Scrappiness

It's finally time for the Festival of Scrappiness hosted by Rachel over at Stitched in Color.  On January 2nd this year, Rachel started the Scrap Attack and issued the challenge to all who were interested to make scrap quilts and projects.  Now it's time for everyone to show off their creations, and there's even prizes! 

Happy Scraps
63 x 82 inches

Here is my entry in the the festival.  "Happy Scraps" is all crumb blocks, which I learned about from Bonnie Hunter over at Quiltville.  I made the very first blocks about 5 or 6 years ago.  We were in the middle of selling the house and moving and I had to put all my sewing projects away to show the house.  I kept out a small bin of scraps and my machine while everything else went into storage for the duration.  When we actually sold the house and drove out of town, heading for the Pacific Northwest, this also came along in the car with me.  I've worked on these blocks off and on ever since, and yesterday this got put into a box and sent to my long-arm quilter for her to work her magic on it.  Yay!  


This actually ended up much bigger than I had originally envisioned.  You can see my "quilt holder" up above is struggling to hold it all up!  I was thinking just a lap quilt, but now it's big enough to snuggle into, or even to use on the bed.  I'm still a little unsure of how all this large-ness actually occurred.  
  

I got somewhat of a wild hair and decided to piece the back.  I started with this panel that I love and then decided to make it a log cabin block.  The world's largest log cabin block?  Probably not, but it sure felt like it!  I was trying to use up some fabrics that have been in the stash for too many years awhile.  Now that it's done, I'm not so sure I like it.  I'm hoping that the quilting will help.

Here are some random blocks, letting you see some of the fun fabrics I used.

I've made lots of other crumb blocks since I started, and even finished a few charity quilts with them.  But these are some of my favorite blocks, with fabrics that have meaning to me.  Lots of baby quilts, pillowcases and scraps of other quilts that I've made are in these.

I also used some random orphans and rejected bits.  That just adds to the fun!  Anything really does go in these crumb blocks.

Recently my quilt guild hosted a "crumb workshop" for the members.  Many of the members had never heard of crumb blocks and wanted to know how to make them.  They were fascinated by my quilt top.  It was a lot of fun.  We made enough blocks for about 9 charity lap quilts, and still have so many blocks in process that we'll be having another workshop to finish them.  Everyone that came had fun, and I think many of them are "hooked" now.

If you haven't tried crumb blocks yet, I suggest that you give it a try.  It's fun, and I call it therapy sewing.  There are no mistakes and it's stress free.  Plus, you get rid of some of the scraps and end up with something useful using something that might otherwise have been tossed out.

And now, please go visit the Festival of Scrappiness and see what all the other quilters have been up to.  There are some wonderful quilts to be seen!  And thanks for the kick in the pants to get this finished, Rachel!

Snow Day!

We had our first significant snow this winter in the last 24 hours.  We've gotten about 2 inches so far, with more on the way.

Here's a photo of the backyard this afternoon, with lots of snow coming down.  It did this off and on all day, so I called it a "snow day".  Fortunately, no one had to go anywhere today.  We're far enough out in the boonies that we don't get plowed.  They plow the highway which is about 2 miles from here.  It warmed up enough today that some melted, but now we're below freezing again, so there's ice under all the snow.  I have to go to P.T. tomorrow, but not until early afternoon, so hopefully it will warm up enough to have the ice on the road melt before I get out there.

So, due to a "snow day", I couldn't possible do anything other than sew.  *grin*   Here's what I was working on:

My Crumbs quilt.  I got this put together the other day, and then decided it wasn't long enough.  So I was making more blocks to add one more row.  You can see that Shade was supervising me.  I decided that this final row was a "design opportunity" and made some blocks just for this.  I took some of my Parts Department blocks and leftovers and rejects and used them as the starting point for the blocks.  I added a rejected "S", a wonky star, a little heart and so on.  I also added some fabrics that are favorites or significant to me.  That was fun and it didn't take too long.  I managed to get that row finished and sewn together before dinner, but still have to sew it to the top.  Then it's time for borders.  I think I know what I'll be doing.  I can't wait to get this done - I'm so excited about it!

My guild is doing a Crumb block workshop this coming Friday.  I and another lady did a demo on crumb blocks at the quilt show, and everyone wants to have an intensive lesson on doing these.  Since we have a lot of scraps left from the quilt show (we were selling scraps next to the crumb demo), we'll make those into blocks for charity quilts.  It should be fun.  So I want to get my top mostly done.  I only had 3 rows done at the quilt show.  The other lady does bigger pieces and a more controlled color scheme for her crumbs, and I want to show the other end of the spectrum.  In other words, my usual crazy-ness!

Actually, this crumb quilt is going to be my entry (only one?)  in the Scrap Attack Quilt-Along that Rachel Hauser is hosting over on her blog Stitched in Color.  She's challenging quilters to use up some of their scraps.  Since that's my favorite kind of quilt, of course I've got to do it.  If you interested too, go here.  Fortunately, she's not requiring that the quilts be quilted and bound - whew!  And I already have enough crumb blocks sewn for another 2 (at least!) quilts.  The one above is all for me, so the others may be charity quilts.  I haven't decided yet.

I haven't made any more progress on the D9P I Spy quilt.  I'm still debating what I want to do for the border.  I'm tempted to just sew plain borders on to get it done, but that sounds pretty boring to me.  So, I'm still considering possibilities.  I don't have too long to debate with myself.  The quilt needs to be done in a month, which is when DGD's birthday happens.  Do you have a favorite border technique that you use?  I'm sure open to suggestions if you have some!