Scrappy-licious

Hello everyone. My goodness me, it has been a little while since I lasted chatted. My darling husband decided to take a little 'holiday' in hospital for a week, but is now home again.....thank the Good Lord. =) I have been setting off each morning just as the sun peeps over the misty hills and arriving home in the dark of the night; hence the reason why it has been a li'l quiet down here at the bottom of the world. He is now home and feeling reasonable enough, but will undergo another operation in a month to fix this latest hiccup. I have said it before....... once one opens the revolving "cancer door" there is never a dull moment.

But.........as this is a happy place, let's chat about what has (or has not) been happening in my sewing room, shall we??

The last couple of weeks (in between medical dramas) I have been having a wee bit of scrappy-licious fun! I love making scrappy quilts. They appeal to my sense of fun.  It is liberating to place fabrics randomly next to each other with not too much thought. I love how scrappy quilts look as if one has closed their eyes when choosing what little square is placed next to another little square of fabric, AND.....of course one 'can' make the scrappy bin become less full........

I cannot quite believe it was way back in August 2014 that I started stitching this quilt filled with scrappy charm. The idea for this quilt was dreamed up when I purchased some 30's Playtime charm packs, adding oodles of 2.5" squares from my jumble of scrappy remnants and to add just a little bit of fun and a smidgen of more delight, throwing in some squares cut from remnants of doilies to the mix.

It's been two years since I have completed a quilt. Incredible! How did this happen?? I suppose, if I didn't get distracted by other imaginings in my pea brain.....teacup/teapot follies, tarting up chairs, tarting up op shop finds, fashioning bags, machine sketching, stitching a floralicious cushion or two or three, teaching a child or two at the "Kim Sharman School of Stitching Excellence...........etc. etc., my humble li'l ole abode would be filled with pretty quilts.

So......I decided enough was enough and got on with the stitching of some more, till my quilt top grew to a size I was happy with.

With the quilt top finished....and the sweet li'l birdie singing....."Oh Happy Day".... I have begun to stitch the backing.

Oh-so-scrappy-licious!!

For the backing I am stitching strips of fabric down the middle with white homespun on either side. I suppose doing this in essence gives me two quilts. I didn't have a length of fabric large enough to cover the back of the quilt top, so to keep with the scrappy look I utilised fabrics from my stash.

With both the quilt top and backing singing a happy, scrappy tune, I now need to decide how to quilt this scrappy pretty. I thought I could sew lines diagonally through the corners...but then...I could put it on my frame and stitch a simple stippling pattern all over. That would be the quickest option.....maybe that should be my plan.

Though, I do like the idea of straight, diagonal lines through each square, not absolutely every corner of every 2 inch square meets. Don't you  just hate that?? I know I do. I am a persnickety kinda gal, a bit of a perfectionist, a pain in the royal proverbial, actually! When stitching a quilt I like every corner to meet. In this case I will just have to turn a blind eye to the few that didn't play nicely. I will put on my hat of 'satisfactionism' and throw my hat of perfectionism back into the closet! With over 1,000 itty bitty squares, one would think every corner would meet. =)

Oh well, as that southern gal once said, a long time ago, " I can't think about that right now.........I'll think about that tomorrow, after all.......tomorrow is another day". =)

Let's hope I can enjoy a little stitching or perhaps even a little knitting this week and not take any more trips in the death of night, to the meeting place of  the sick and infirmed.

Wishing you all a lovely week. Until the next time.....

.

My goodness time flies.........

.....when you're having fun....and it seems even when you are not!! It's been a li'l while since I last put fingers to keyboard but I have been buried under this blasted floor to floor, queen size hexie quilt that I am stitching for someone. It's taken an age to put together and I fear I have oodles more to stitch. I hereby make a solemn pledge to never, never, NEVER make a quilt with LARGE hexies consisting of fabric other than 100% cotton and definitely, no, no, NO satin backing ever again. There it is........in writing....so I will have to abide by my affidavit now!!  I have signed it with blood from my pin-pricked, calloused finger!!

Of course, this oath doesn't include little hexie 100% cotton 'quilt as you go' quilts. I am chomping at the bit to start another little hexie quilt.....but not just yet...perhaps in another life!

Of course, if this hexie was the only 'pretty' that I had been stitching these last couple of weeks I would have gone quite simply, stark, raving mad. Coming up for air at intervals, I have for the sake of my sanity, filled small moments of time filled with bright, happy and fun stitching.

Last week, whilst out and about, I bought some Moda Playtime 30's itty bitty charm packs. I adore 1930's fabrics and I adore scrappy quilts where one doesn't have to give much cerebration into the design and stitching of these quilts. I love scrappy quilts where you randomly place itty bitty squares all together. I couldn't resist these sweet fabrics....love, love, LOVE!!

As well as the charm packs I decided to cut 2.5" squares from remnants of doilies from my dowry of cloth. I save every fragment of my embroidered lovelies as there is always some stitching project for them to prettify, as I skip down my yellow brick road of stitching. Of course I won't have enough of the 30's Playtime charm packs so I am adding oodles of scraps from my melange of fabric scraps to the mix.

I have stitched these pretties here and there to mix it up a little.

Though I admit that I am drawn to quilts that present a wee bit of a challenge, there are times when I love to stitch row after row of pretty fabrics with not much thought other than making sure that the corners align. It really is like child play and doesn't overwork the brain pan.

Square after square, row after row of sweet fabrics, my postage stamp quilt is flourishing into an assemblage of happy, bright colour. I haven't made up my mind as to the size....perhaps a throw, or perhaps a bed size quilt....either way I am having fun playing with this pretty quilt.

But for now......it's back to my giant hexi quilt.

A happy week to you, filled with oodles of stitching!