Taking down the Christmas decorations (what few there were this year), I realized I had no Valentine's Day stuff to hang up. Better get on that, I thought. A wall hanging would be nice.
Enter the scrap bag. That magical mess of snarled strips and bobbed bits (alliteration anyone?).
I pulled out all the red/pink and aqua blue/turquoise scraps I could find and started to "make" fabric, a la 15 Minutes of Play. Didn't really have an idea yet where it would go, but I was having fun anyway. In a little while, I had a few swatches of made fabric, and I went "Hmm...," scratched my head, turned off the lights in the sewing room, and went on about the rest of the day.
This morning, still not sure where it would lead, I cut out a paper heart. Now there's a skill you learn in grade school that serves you well the rest of your life. You never know when you're going to need to cut out a paper heart, but when you do, the knowledge is right there, unlike the square root of pi.
Then I traced said paper heart randomly onto the made fabric and cut out as many as I could from what I had.
Now what?
Go to the cutting table, grab something from the unfolded pile left from the other day's puttering. It's convenient to be a mess-a-holic sometimes. Arrange the hearts on the background fabric. First I had them chasing each other in a circle, and I was just about set to go with that, but it felt like it needed something in the center. Go have lunch and don't think about it for a while.
Come back after lunch. Take the two darkest hearts and overlap them in the center. Rearrange the hearts that are left. Conveniently, there are three red/pink and three turquoise. Fish a trimmed bit of Alexander Henry Heath in black from the garbage bin by the cutting table. Yep, that will do for the binding fabric.
Step back. Like what you see. Do a little happy dance!
Now I just have to get some fusible web so I can applique them down and then edge stitch around them.
Linking to WiP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced today!
I wrote a post yesterday, clicked "Publish," did something else for an hour or so, then came back and deleted it. Then, almost immediately, I regretted deleting it, so I went to Google Reader and salvaged it from there. Sheesh.
Ever second guess yourself? (Maybe the better question is, how often?) Do you ever think, oh no, someone is going to read this and get the wrong impression, thinking this when I meant that, and then...
Then what? Criminy, I need to quit imagining things, (a), and (b) own it.
I gotta be me. Even if me is an overthinker.
So here is yesterday's post, and below that, an update.
P.S. - I'm pretty jazzed about the update!
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Trip or Skip?
Are you Scrappy Tripping? I'm happy for you, if you are, as I am very much enjoying seeing all the cool blocks turning out. I have wanted to get on board with the Scrappy Trip Along since early on, but now here's the thing. Now that there are 5,256,682.5 other people doing it, I don't so much want to anymore. Isn't that ridiculous? Don't answer that, please.
See, it's the contrarian in me. The part that's still a college student a credit short of a full load, deciding to blow off class once again, riding her 12-speed past the other students on the mall and then beyond and out to Tripp Lake (ironic, but a real place), slathering up with SPF 0 and frying in the midday sun while chain smoking herself dizzy on a half pack of Salem Lights.
But I guess I've learned a few things in the years since, and not all of them from the Surgeon General.
So instead of breezing on by, I decided to see how much fun I might be missing. And now is as good a time as any to say, you all sure have some fine-looking scraps. Either that, or it's really hard to make an ugly block (and there again is that part of me that thinks I should be the one to try).
Well, I made two...
...and I think that may be it for me. Maybe I'll knock out a few more at some point, or not. In any case, I'm happy to enjoy the Trip vicariously, if nothing else.
Now, has anyone seen my bike?
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Update: So I had an idea this morning, as I paged through 15 Minutes of Play (love-love-love that book). Why not "play" with my Scrappy Trip blocks? Cut them apart and make something else with them, like "made" fabric?
And, oh my gosh, was THAT fun!
By doing some judicious cutting, I was able to make two blocks from one repurposed Trip block. First, I made Square in a Square, Squared.
Then I made a Sawtooth Star.
And finally, a Scrap Star.
That, my friends, is what I'm talking about!
So, to summarize: Follow the crowd, follow your own path, but always follow your bliss. Say your piece and mind your piecing.
Someone remind me of that when I forget again.
It's ba-ack! Favourite Things Friday, hosted by our fearless leader, Shay, at Quilting in My Pyjamas.
Just a quick one this week. It'd be twice as long if I could remember the other commercial I thought was so hilarious. Alas, I had an almost-senior moment. Technically, I did forget, but I'm not quite a senior yet. That is, I don't yet qualify for discounts.
Here's the one I did remember, which made me cackle perhaps a bit too loudly the first time I saw it. I think Norm was caught off guard. I could feel his eyes staring at me like I'd lost my mind.
Enjoy!
I don't know if there's a statute of limitations on "what I plan to do in 2013" posts, but it feels like I'm late to the party. Not that I haven't been thinking of it, or that it took me 10 days to put this post together; I've just been finishing up some other things first. Anyway...
There is carryover into the new year in the form of several UFOs, which I aim to finish in 2013. To keep on track, I'm going to hitch up with the 2013 Finish-A-Long with Leanne at She Can Quilt.
Here are my projects to finish in the first quarter of 2013, one per month:
(music video on the layout process here)
All are quilt tops in need of quilting. I procrastinated on them in 2012, thinking that after working through the 2012 Free Motion Quilt Challenge, I'd have all sorts of new skills and confidence. I did a couple months' worth of tutes right on track in the beginning of the year, and then life got in the way and I got behind and really just dropped the ball.
Fortunately, most of the tutorials are still available, so that's something else I plan to do in 2013, revisit the FMQ Challenge.
But that won't hold up the show to finish my UFOs, even if I have to meander stipple every last one of them, or (better idea?) send them off on a fabulous vacation to the longarmer!
I think it's a very manageable, short list for this quarter, and still gives me plenty of leeway to see what other trouble I can get into, too!
This was my between the holidays diversion project. I can't decide if I'm done with it or if it needs another border. Either way, it will be a small quilt, small lap quilt size or, if I don't add any more borders, a baby boy quilt.
Made from thrifted men's shirts, and I forgot how many of those I still had until I went digging through the stash. Yikes!
I used this tutorial from Life is a Stitch. I did remove the shirt pockets if they were in the way of the strip I needed, but in the case of that basketball-orange shirt (which I love), there was a machine-embroidered logo at the pocket corner, so I left that. I think it adds a little character.
Some in-progress pics:
I'm thinking of calling this "Basketball Season."
Were I to make it again, I'd shoot for at least 8-inch finished blocks instead of 6-inch, but it all depends on how much fabric you have in your shirt. Some of these were short-sleeved shirts, and I had also used parts of them in earlier projects so I had to make do with what remained. Fun pattern though!
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My sister shared her holiday pictures with me yesterday. Here I am cutting the lasagnas on Christmas Day.
She also gave me, for Christmas, a framed photo that she had taken this fall near her house. Aren't those poplars gorgeous against the autumn sunset?
