Cutting, Committing, and Cuffs

Sometimes what I do in the sewing room seems hardly worth mentioning.  Cleaning up, refolding fabric, making frankenbatting...those are the kinds of things I've been up to.  Necessary, but mostly background stuff.  Eventually, it leads somewhere.  

I picked up a few shirts at the thrift stores last week.  It used to be (and not long ago) that I could buy a decent shirt for $3.99, but now they're almost double that in price and then some if it's a name they associate with a premium brand, which seems weird to me because brand name doesn't always correlate to quality.  Wow, I sound like such an old person.  

Anyway, when I shop for shirts now, I take note of the tag colors that are 50% off and hone in on those.  I came home with a good armful of them, and a few other items.

(Thrifted zippers for bag making and some thread.)

(I think this thrifted shirt and striped fabric will become a bag.)

Over the next few days, I cut up shirts.  There ended up being a nice pile to add to the stash.

I usually toss the cuffs and collars, but I played around with them first.  The thought occurred to me that perhaps I could join the cuffs together for a table runner.  

After removing the buttons and giving them a good pressing, I butted together the cut ends and zigzagged them, then joined them all in a row.  At that point, I couldn't tell if the idea was "cool" or "crap."

Should I trim them off evenly and use the button plackets as an edging and finish it that way?  I mulled it over for a few hours and then decided to toss it in the orphan box to marinate and move on.  But as I started to do that, I passed the bookshelf in the sewing room and decided to try the piece out on top of it in place of the vintage fruit-themed dresser scarf that was there.

Well, well, well...  I liked it there!  A humble little runner under the old toy tractor my dad used to have for his grandkids to play with.  It'll do just fine, as is.

Now what's next? I pondered.  A few ideas were floating around in my head, but I needed to focus.  One way to help me do that is to make a commitment, so I went and signed up for the Hands2Help Comfort Quilt Challenge.  

With that in mind, I started cutting out a sampler-type quilt from a free pattern I downloaded from JOANN and bought fabric for a few months back.  I really like those big wavy curves.  It's something a little different for a sampler.

I originally thought it would be a baby quilt, but it's more like lap quilt size. So I'm going to make it up for H2H.  At least, that's my thought at the moment.

Here's the first block on the design wall.  Turns out the fabric wasn't as bright blue as the pattern seemed to indicate, but that's okay.  It is a little brighter looking than the photo in real life, but more a muted navy than medium blue in any case.

What are you working on?

~Paulette

Table Scraps Challenge - January 2022

"In the meadow we can build a snowman..."  

The prompt for this month's table scraps challenge was snowman.  As you'll see, I went at it from a less literal angle and more from the potential for a snowman. 

I had in mind to use the leftovers from my Plaid Peaks baby quilt from 2020.  Right after I finished that quilt, I took the plaid shirt scraps and sewed them together and then cut them into random triangle shapes.

My thought at the time, per the parting words of that 2020 post, was:  "I envision a mini-quilt where these little 'trees' are appliqued on a background.  Maybe a winter theme of some kind."

Enter January's Table Scraps Challenge, which provided the perfect excuse to do just that.

But incorporating the snowman prompt gave me pause.  A slight shift in perspective, to that of a place where you could build a snowman, did the trick for me.  I was reminded of the line from one of my favorite holiday tunes, "Winter Wonderland."

"In the meadow we can build a snowman..."  

Kind of like the line in Field of Dreams, "If you build it, they will come."  Okay, maybe that's a stretch.  We're not talking zombie snowmen here.

Anyway, I'll set the scene, I thought.  Snowy field, starry sky, a patch of pines.  You get the picture.

And then...I saw a red plaid scrap in the drawer.  A lost scarf, perhaps?  Why yes, the perfect accessory for a potential snowman.

Which my husband thought was a worm when I showed him the finished runner.  A worm!?

Suddenly, one questions one's design choices.

Ah well, I thought it was whimsical.  Maybe it'll stay, or maybe it'll blow away?

Details:  Fused and machine appliqued on a snow/sky curve-pieced background; wavy line quilted in Sulky "Holoshimmer" thread; trees and binding from thrifted plaid shirts; measures about 14-1/2 x 30 inches.

Linking to:  The Joyful Quilter - January 2022 Table Scraps Challenge

~Paulette 

Table Scraps Challenge - December

I'm glad the deadline was extended for linking up our December Table Scraps Challenge entries, because mine was a Christmas gift I couldn't reveal until after the holidays.  Now that it's been gifted and received, I can show you how it turned out.

I can't remember whether I saw the idea for this table runner in a previous Table Scraps Challenge link by a fellow blogger, but however it happened, I fell in love with it at first sight.  There was a link to the pattern and I bought it right away.  The pattern is called Novella by Sew Preeti Quilts, and you can find it HERE.

My daughter and her boyfriend have two dear cats, and I thought they might really like something like this.  One Christmas gift down, check!

I pulled scraps and other fabric from my stash, and the batting was a scrap from the off-cuts of a recent quilt.  I loved the pattern's original color scheme so I felt fortunate to have what I needed on hand to stay pretty close to it.

Now, do I tell you I made a little boo-boo in assembly or not?  I guess I just did, but I'm not going to fess up to any more than that, because it really did not seem to matter one bit.  

This makes a nice long table runner or wall hanging, however you want to use it.  Before I wrapped it, I tacked it up in my kitchen for photos, and I have to say it looks pretty nice in that spot.  I may have to make another for me to keep!

Linking to The Joyful Quilter's December Table Scraps Challenge.

~Paulette

May Table Scraps Challenge - Red White and Blue Serendipity

For May's Table Scraps Challenge, I had Memorial Day in mind.  There were some interesting red, white, and blue fabrics in the bags given to me recently, as well as some Wizard of Oz themed fabric, including a fat quarter of a poppy print.  I think of the Buddy Poppy around Memorial Day.  The ones I remember were made of red crepe paper on a wire stem, but they're slightly different looking now.  

As it turned out, I didn't use the poppy print fabric after all (the colors were a little too orange-red for this runner, and there was yellow in the background). 

But what kind of runner to make with the red, white, and blue?  As I looked off to the right of the cutting table, I saw my Serendipity table runner that I made several years ago.  It's where I usually plunk down my scissors or rotary cutter when I'm working.

Perfect!  I'll whip up another one of those.  I revisited the tutorial I had written when I made the first one.  You can find that HERE.  I had used charm squares then, but this time I just cut the pieces I needed in the correct dimensions from the red, white, and blue scraps.

The fun of this runner, for me, is playing with the pieces to get a combination that looks balanced but not too perfect.  Especially if there are string-pieced elements, I want a bit of random.  Do you know what I mean?

I was really down to the dregs of batting scraps.  There are quite a few little pieces of Frankenstein-stitched batting in this one.  I don't know why that makes me happy, but it does.

For the quilting, I went with a wavy stitch on my Brother sewing machine.  I like the effect of the lengthwise parallel waves.

And that's it, my RWB Serendipity table runner!  

It's sitting in the kitchen garden window now with my grandmother's blue pressed glass footed bowl.

I hope you have a good Memorial Day weekend!

Linking to:  The Joyful Quilter - Table Scraps Challenge

January Table Scraps Challenge Table Runner

It's the last weekend in January, time to link up to the Table Scraps Runner/Topper Challenge at The Joyful Quilter.

My goal this month was to do something with the batik strips I had left over from making a quilt for my brother's wedding in October.

For Christmas, he gave us a couple of nicely framed pictures from their special day.  Here's one with all of us siblings (me in the teal).

One of my fondest memories from that day is the couple bopping down the aisle exiting to their recessional song: "I Feel Good" by James Brown.  :)

The wedding quilt I'd made used 17 or 18 different batik fat quarters.  I had taken a chance and ordered a couple different bundles from eBay, which worked out well.

The way I'd cut squares from the FQs left scrap strips that measured about two inches wide.  That's what I used for this table runner.

My inspiration was something I'd seen on Pinterest, a braided table runner from strips (link HERE).  I started laying my strips out in the way she described.  This runner was going to be as long and as wide as it could be from the strips that were available.  I didn't aim for any specific size.  When I ran out of strips, that was it; that was going to be the length of it.  

I cut some pastel solid two-inch squares for the center.  I also tried a layout with one-color (cream or off-white) squares down the center, but that seemed blah, so I went back to the pastel squares.

Their colors remind me of candy hearts, the ones with words on them like "Cute," "Love You," etc.

Unfortunately, I didn't take any process pictures.  It all went together pretty quickly.  

Once I'd used up all the strips, I trimmed the long piece into a rectangle and then sandwiched and quilted it.  I did a meander in variegated thread, but left the center squares empty and just ditch-stitched around them.  I like that it just gives them a simple pillowy look.

In the back of my mind, I was thinking this runner might work on the dining room table, but it turned out to be pretty underwhelming for that large of a surface.  So I popped it on top of the hall table to take pictures, and, surprisingly, it was the perfect size!

So there you have it, my batik scraps table runner, with centers reminiscent of candy hearts.  A sweet little treat just in time for Valentine's Day!