Scrappy Projects

I love Scraps.. I collect tiny pieces and can't bear to throw them away!
I'm linking up to Scraptastic Tuesday

Here are some of the things I've been working on lately, the first two are with the long arm quilters so that I can bind them when I'm on Quilt Retreat in three weeks or so.

This is a Drunkards Path in Modern fabrics. I've seen a few around on the interweb and thought I'd have a go as it is a block I've never spent much time on. I've made quite a few Winding Ways like the quilt at the head of my blog, and have another cut out, but it is a much simpler block with much shallower curves. Circles are always an interesting design element, and I find that more and more I am attracted to restricted colour schemes.

 This is my version of a Quilt designed as a teaching sample by Helen Butcher. Three of us have made it now and they are all totaly different! Helen made hers in sophisticated greys and red/orange, and Helen Howes made hers in a stunning rainbow. Mine as you can see is a rather restricted palette again, but I really like it. It was an interesting project because some of the blocks are traditional, some are pieced over papers and deadly accurate, and some are free-cut modern blocks like my crosses bottom left. There is also the freedom to add in touches of your ovn like the two little pieced hexagons cut from pre-joined strips that I was teaching last year... can you spot them? Each of us also arranged our blocks differently, so from the same start point we have quite different results.

 And these are some free-cut Modern Blocks from Jenifer at 42 Quilts which is another Scrap project.

I have long been a fan of Gwen Marston and these are such fun to make, and a great "light relief" project to fit in some short sewing time in between other activities.

I've also been working on more Zippy Purses for the Quilters Guild Tombola at the Festival of Quilts in Birmingham in August, and developing patterns for them in the hope of persuading people to contribute.

We have set up a blog to show pictures of our makings and there are links to our free patterns there:
Zippy-Purses

These are great for using up those really small scraps!!!
These are from my pattern Pretty Patchwork Purse.

Work in Progress

The severe electrical storms seemed to interfere with the laptop and I haven't been able to post for several days. Herewith some pictures of stuff I am working on.

 I have set my little experimental squares into wide sashings of very pale blue hand woven linen that we found in the drapers in Bungay, lovely stuff but you have to wash it first as it shrinks.

I was trying out the technique of using very narrow strips of fabric, using plains and Oakshott cottons from my stash. I have another set of these, bigger blocks using a deep mustard yellow and black with Japanese fabric, which are waiting their turn at the finishing...

And below is my second attempt at image transfer using paper lamination. This is for the Stretching Art challenge based on Illuminated Manuscripts, but I've rather turned the idea on its head as in my piece the meaning is obscured, partly by the technique where the paper is mostly washed away (picture of that to follow) and also because I have used texts which mainly I cannot read as they are in a variety of languages.

There are texts in French, German, Spanish, Chinese and even the English is taken from the financial information at the back of the newspaper on stock prices, which is all gobble-de-gook to me!



I've also been working on some more Modern Blocks using Log Cabin as this is the subject of the next two classes I'm doing with my rolling program for beginners. I have traditional samples so its nice to make one that is freer and plays with the idea.

 First two completed blocks: but as you can see from the picture below it does make an awful mess... had to get out the hoover before the day got started!

And finally:
No Room At The Bin!!!