Scraps, more scraps, and even more scraps!

When I got really serious about using my scraps, one of the first things I did was to make bins to put them in. I sort by color, but I've found that many quilters use size and shape as their primary sorting system. No matter how you store them, you do eventually have to use them. I decided to share a few of my ideas for using the scraps that muliply like rabbits. 

Of course, I've made scrap quilts using a variety of colors, and I've made a few using only one or two colors.  I've found that a limited palette is a great way to use up the scraps that have gotten out of hand. 

In fact, I've made quite a few quilts using just scraps or mostly scraps with a solid background. The blue quilt above and the red one below are made from HSTs set in different patterns. Though the quilts look the same size, the blue is a baby quilt and the red chevron is a queen.

This brown/beige/gold quilt was a good way to use up all the scraps I had in those colors. The trick is to limit the palette to colors in the same family and include a variety of shapes, sizes, and textures. My only other trick is my design wall and camera. Though I take bad pictures, looking at the arrangement on the design wall through the camera lens really helps me to see what stands out or recedes. 

Quilts that are going to have a solid background work best if they are wildly asymetrical or give the sense of symmetry. In the khaki coins quilt above, the coins are not symetrical, but they are evenly spaced and have clean edges, which gives a sense of balance and proportion. 

Obviously, I wasn't even trying for any kind of balance or sense of symmetry in these last two quilts. In the one above I was playing with techniques that I wanted to practice or try out. In the one below, I was simply trying to use up some blue scraps. Heavens, those blues just keep mulitplying!

Another way of using up scraps includes making a rag rug for the camper out of fabrics that I don't want to put into quilts. It's not the prettiest of rugs, but it will do the trick and used up a huge amount of fabric scraps cut into one inch strips. 

Additionally, I use my Accuquilt cutter to make kits that sew up extra fast. Those I take with me when we go on vacation so that I have some sewing to do. While I've read blogs suggesting that fabrics be cut into uniform-sized pieces, I do this only when I am cutting the pieces for a particular quilt. Since I tend to sew scraps in an improvisational manner, I like to have all shapes and sizes available. However, whatever works for your needs is what I recommend you do.

I love making small pincushions using my scraps, too. I have a plan for some of them when I go on a retreat in March, so I'll be hitting the scraps again soon to make a few more. In the meantime, I'm working on a scrap project that may prove just how insane I am. Unfortunately, I'll have to keep it on the DL for a little while longer. 


Lastly, I use scraps for many small projects. I've used them for baby items, such as bibs, diaper covers, and changing pads. As a matter of fact, I have a few of those on my To Do List...just need to get to them before the end of April. When this newest baby gets a little older, I'll make a doll quilt or two.

How do you use scraps? Do you have any favorite scrap projects? I'm almost out of ideas for using them, so any suggestion that adds to this list will be greatly appreciated. They are still multiplying!

Louisiana License Plate Patterns

I am finally finished working on patterns for the AMB license plate!  I am so very sorry about not getting to them last week as I had hoped to do.  I guess playing in New Orleans had an adverse effect and scorched my brain.  Regardless, I have patterns.
  

Now why the paper looks pink or beige, I do not know; so more apologies all around.  I was able to clean it up even more and will post a PDF file so that you don't have to print this version.  For now, though, we'll have to be satisfied.  I've sent an email to Zoey and asked for help in making the pdf downloadable since I don't quite know how to do that.  As soon as we figure it out, I'll let you know.  You can email me at mary.marcotte@gmail.com and I'll send you the pdf version.  

city scene and crawfish page 1

In the meantime, you should know that I simply cut and placed the pieces onto background fabric, pinning them down. I tend to work in an organic fashion: cutting by hand without a pattern and used the completed license plate to draw my pattern pieces 

The fabric color and number are on the pattern pieces just under the name of the item. On page 2 "tt" means tree tops and "lp" means lily pads.  Those pieces are so small that I didn't have room to write the whole thing.

swamp scene page 2

I did use fusible web on a few pattern pieces, but I tend to work without the fusible most of the time.  You may want to use fusible on the smaller pieces: draw the pattern on the paper side of the fusible, then apply the fusible web to the back of the fabric and cut out on the lines.  Peel the paper backing off and place your pieces where you'd like them. 

You can use my license plate as a guide, but I suggest that you play with the design and move things around so that you're pleased with the end result.  I pinned the whole block to a heavy interfacing--I used Ricky Tims' Stable Stuff, but others will work.  If your interfacing is not heavy enough, the fabric will pull together and bunch up.  Add another layer of interfacing or change to a heavier one.   

I have layered my entire quilt so that the batting acts as another interfacing, and this works especially well when thread painting.  I didn't have that option for this project, but you may.  If so, I recommend that you consider it.  

Once all the pieces are in place, press or take the block to your sewing machine and stitch down the pieces, threading painting as you go.  I like to put down at least a few stitches on every pattern piece to help hold them in place.  Then just have fun.  Feel free to change threads and add color to your liking.  Louisiana is diverse, if nothing else, and the people who fell in love with Blue Dog certainly will allow you some leeway in making your block your own.  So just have fun!

Did you notice the lines in the water?  Those are gator lines!  When alligators and other large creatures swim on the top of the water, they move the duck weed and the other stuff on the surface, leaving a trail of sorts behind them.  

The crawfish is perhaps the most difficult of all.  I cut it out in one piece of fabric with fusible web.  Pressed the crawfish in place and then stitched in the sections of his body.  He doesn't even have a face (I didn't want to deal with those buggy eyes) but no one has noticed yet.  I did add antennae because they are so long and prominent but the antennae can be just two swirly lines going in any direction.  Use the thin lines that I drew in to see where and how to section him off.  If you leave out one or two, don't fret....say that you were too busy thinking of how good he tastes!

Lastly, I do not have a pattern for the letters.  I just wrote the letters backwards on the fusible web paper and then made them thick.  I pressed the fusible onto black fabric and cut them out. They are only about 3/4 inch tall.  After pressing them in place, I stitched over them several times to make sure I had each one well sewn.  They are not evenly sized or spaced, although I did try to keep the letters close together so they would appear as one word.  In some cases I didn't even snip the thread between the letters because the stitches are so short and they barely show. 

And there you have it: a Louisiana license plate block!

Happy Friday Finish

Whew! This one was fast.  Of course, it's not a big quilt: only 33 by 41, so it didn't take long to quilt.  The leaves took the longest but there are only nine, so even that wasn't too bad.

While I'm at it, I thought I'd share a tip with you: I discovered that one of the leaves had a serious flaw.  The backing fabric bunched up behind the leaf and I didn't notice it until the entire leaf was completed.  Isn't that the way?  So of course, I had to rip, rip, rip, and rip.  Every seam doubled or tripled.  Can you imagine the little tiny pieces of thread that were left?

 The tip: use tape to remove the thread.  It's easy and fast.  Just cut a piece of tape (I use the cheap clear packing tape); stick it down, and rip it off.  More ripping. 

I use the same tape a couple of times.  For this leaf I needed only one piece of tape. Voila!  all cleaned up.  Ready for sewing again.

I am now down to hand sewing the binding, so it won't be long before I really am all done.  

Happy Quilting,
Mary

Just in time for Christmas shopping

an idea for making your shopping just a bit easier.  Richard and I  Have already begun Christmas shopping and, because I really don’t like shopping, I was determined to be efficient and accomplish some of the difficult holiday chores. 

We don’t purchase a great deal of gifts, but it does begin to get muddled after a few hours.  Even more muddling is when I get ready to wrap the gifts.  It’s easy to mix up the gifts that are similar, especially the grandchildren’s gifts.

Of course we make a list of names and gift ideas, but I also write the names on stickers.  Rich holds on to the list and I keep the stickers.  Once we find a gift, I stick the recipient’s name on it.  If we plan to buy another item for that recipient, I write the name on another sticker. 

The great thing to see is an empty sticker page, because that means we’re done!  Everyone has a Christmas gift from Grandmay and Poppa. 

When I’m ready to wrap, there’s no confusion or worry of who gets what…the stickers tell me exactly who each gift is for.  I leave the sticker on the gift because these little circles aren’t very large.  Although removing price tags isn’t much of a problem anymore, occasionally I’ll find one on the box.  If that’s the case, I cover it with the sticker eliminating one more little problem for when I wrap gifts.

If you give my sticker system a try, let me know how it works for you.  I’m pretty sure you’ll find it helps both while shopping and later when gift-wrapping.

Happy shopping,

Mary

Christmas is so close and I'd really like to turn over the last of Angie's quilts to her before then.  That would mean she can give the quilts to her grandchildren as part of their Christmas gifts, and also it would free me up to do some of my own sewing during the almost two weeks of vacation that I'll have. 



Josh's quilt has been on the design wall for some time now, so I thought it might be good to get back on that one.  I had about a third of the blocks completed and almost all them rest cut out.  That meant I was able to finish the top during the week.  I loaded it on the long arm this morning and promptly decided that I wanted to repeat the sea turtle motif.


I started out by drawing the motif on my trusty little white board.  Once I figured out the basics I redrew the design with a different colored marker, trying to turn it into a continuous line drawing.  It worked....sort of, but I could see that I'd be able to use the motif.


I discovered a neat trick in the process.  I normally clip the board to the metal clad door in the studio, so the magnetic clips just always stay on the board.  Those same clips, moved to the side of the board helps to hold the board on the top bar of the long arm frame.  


I could easily see the design as I worked the first few onto the quilt.  This allows me to free hand "draw" the design without getting too mixed up.


I decided that the turtles would go on the large blocks and wanted to quilt some "X's" in the nine patches.  The "X's" simply did not work.  I can't seem to make a straight line and didn't want to pull out rulers.  Stippling seemed to be the answer.  


After dropping in one or two turtles, I realized that I needed to wait to quilt the nine patches because the turtles ran over onto the adjoining blocks.  In the end, I'm much happier with the stippling and like the individuality of the sea turtles. 


They show up on the back of the quilt since I used a soft grey thread.  This photo shows the backing fabric as white but it's really a light green fabric.  That and the darker green on the front both came from mom's stash.

All that's left is the binding and label.  Those will be added this week.


I'm hoping that Josh likes the sea turtles.  Since he asked for black and green fabrics, I'm not worried about those.  What do you think?  Will the sea turtles work for a 13 year old boy?

Nuts for Tips

Have you heard of tipnut.com?  What a fun site.  It's exactly what it claims to be, which is the following:

This website began in the Fall of 2006 as a way for me to organize all the creative homemaking tips, crafts and projects I have collected over the years. It has grown to feature all the cool ideas and projects that I've discovered online (one of the most popular features of Tipnut).     I'm regularly adding goodies and there's always something new to check out on Tipnut.com, you can subscribe here for free updates:

Have you heard of TQPM?  It's my newest quilting magazine and is completely web-based.  I love that I print only those articles and patterns that I really want in hard copy.  The rest I can download.  


It's from the same lady who started quiltcampus.net, so I can assure you that it's well written and includes articles and patterns by real quilters.  I'll do a profile of Cindy after the craft fair, I promise. (She's already agreed, yea!)  In the meantime, if you click on the link, you can see a few of the current issue's pages--just click on the magazine in the middle of the screen.

Finally, have you heard of favecrafts.com? It's another of my favorite sites. There's all sorts of stuff you'll love. I couldn't possibly tell you half. They're doing all manner of Christmas crafts right now. I just can't seem to keep up! Go check it out!

Okay, one last item--a request. We're starting over with the votes on picketfence.com.  Yep, I'd appreciate it if you did, please, click on the blue/green picket fence button on the upper right.  It's just a fun thing for me to see the votes add up.  I know, it matters not one whit, except that I like it when the numbers climb.