Fabric Baskets Revisited

Remember this scrap bucket I made back at the beginning of December?  I wrote about it here.

It sits on the top of my worktable, and I just toss fabric scraps in as I run across them.  It's been very convenient, although I do like to use up scraps as much as possible.  Then a friend called to say she had a few scraps for me.  Yahoo!  Since she tends to overbuy way more than she should, her scraps are sometimes large pieces of fabric.  

Add to that the reason for her scraps: she embellishes tee shirts for college sororities who tend to like really nice matching shirts--Vera is their favorite designer, but they often ask for other fabrics.  Anything loud and bright will work for some.  You can visit her Facebook page here to see more of her work.

AND these scraps already have iron-on adhesive attached, so they are ready for appliqueing!  Yeah, the yahoo is well deserved.  

In no time I had the scraps organized into large pieces without adhesive, solids, prints, greens and reds.  There are too many reds and greens to mix all the solids together.  


The greens are perfect for leaves, vines, and stems, which I used often, so keeping them separated works well for me.  

Of course, sorting through the scraps had me wanting to use them.  I started out thinking I would make a small quilt for the studio or for AAQI but it grew and the next think I knew, I had a quilted piece just the right size for another basket.  Oh well then, another basket would do.  

I've decided that since my friend is an artist, this basket would work quite nicely in her tee shirt business.  I plan to give it to her the next time we're together.

I think she'll like the flowers and birds.  She teaches lots of collage, which this design ended up becoming.  I used the fabric scraps that she gave me cutting out flower shapes based on the flowers in the fabrics and pressed them to the background.  Of course, I added stems and leaves but I didn't worry too much about whether the flowers came from the same fabric or not.

I really like the little basket.  It's a tad smaller than the first one I made, but it's much more creative and fun.  

Check out this black and white bird.  I don't know who the fabric designer is, but I loved the look of the flowers and decided to cut out a bird using the Accuquilt Studio die.  In fact, all the birds were cut using the same die, which has three designs on it.

 This bird is part of a fabric design.  I couldn't stand the thought of wasting such a pretty bird, so I cut it out the same way I did the flowers and ironed it on a flower so that it looks, I hope, natural.

 I'm fairly sure she'll like the fabric basket.  It's meant for the scraps she produces as a result of her tee-shirt business, but she can surely use it for whatever she likes.

Happy Quilting,

Mary