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When I saw Victoria Findlay Wolfe's book 15 Minutes of Play I was awed at what she has done with "made fabric". I have several crumb blocks made (over a hundred) and I have been thinking about what I want to make with them. So I pulled out a couple of scrap bins and have been cutting and sewing bits and pieces to make some more made fabric. In one of the bins I found these four flying geese blocks that were left over from another project. I decided a while back that I would make some star blocks using my crumb blocks as the center of the block. When I found the flying geese blocks I decided to make a variable star block. These flying geese units were made from some of my favorite fabrics.
Since this crumb block contained some of the same fabric colors as in the flying geese fabrics, I sewed the geese together with the crumb block. I found just enough light fabric that matched the light fabric in the geese blocks for the four corner squares. I really like how this block turned out. I wish I had more of the geese fabric to make more of these blocks.
Originally the purpose of going through my scrap bins was to find and cut more squares for my Em's four patch blocks. I have sewed a few more blocks. While sewing these blocks I soon became caught up in the fun of "playing" with my scraps. When I take time to play with my fabrics I feel so rejuvinated. I discovered long ago that I am a very tactile person. When I have my fingers in my fabrics I am happy. It makes me feel so good when I see all those colors all together.
While on this discovery journey I also realized I was not getting blocks sewn. Bits and pieces were being sewn together, but not complete blocks. I did finally get this star block completed. It is now pinned up on my wall and I can enjoy it. My design wall is still up in my other room. I miss seeing my mother's Raggedy Ann dolls and Julie's star block and my other things that I always had pinned up on my design wall. I need to find space for a design wall in my new sewing room.
I have had so much fun playing with my fabrics. Now I need to get focused on completing my blocks for Em's four patch. I also have some exchange blocks that I need to work on. I hope you have fun playing with your fabrics and scraps.
Happy Scrap Quilting
Since I have had baby duty so much in January, I have not had much time to sew. Last weekend I had three days to myself. I was so excited to have time to sew. I had started sewing the TINY (to me 1.5 inch pieces are TINY) four patches from Em's Free Four All quilt. She did hers as leaders and enders. I tried that, but since I have not been doing much sewing on a regular basis, I decided to do my sewing in small bunches. I had cut out all the TINY white 1.5 inch squares, and the colored squares, a while back. I then sewed the TINY white and colored squares together to make the first TINY 4 patch blocks. Then I checked my 2.5 inch bin of squares, and my 4.5 inch bin of squares and determined I had enough for this project.
Once the first TINY 4 patches were done, I became so excited to see some blocks done that I sewed the 2.5 squares onto my TINY 4 patches to make the second set of 4 patches. They were so great that I could not wait to sew some of the 4.5 inch patches onto the units to make them into the final size with the three graduated sizes of 4 patches into the blocks. I worked last weekend into the wee hours getting those blocks done. I was really thrilled to have these blocks completed. That meant that I could then sew my top together. Whooppee!
When I had all the blocks done (according to all the TINY white and colored 1.5 inch squares that I had cut previously) I counted the blocks and put them into piles of ten blocks each. When I only had three piles in front of me, I thought.....wait! There are not enough blocks to make the top the size that Em had done in her blog.
Previously I had written down all the numbers for all the different sizes of squares that I would need. Evidently my math was really off. I think I cut half as many TINY white and colored 1.5 inch square than I needed. Somehow I ended up with only 31 blocks instead of the 56 that Em had used in her quilt.
What a bust! Barely half enough squares. I thought that I could make a quilt with rows 5x6 instead of 7x8 rows. I went to bed and thought about it and decided I want the full 56 blocks, so I am back to square one. I need to make 25 more blocks. I will sew them in batches again since I do not have enough patience for the leader/ender thing.
I really want to make a quilt with the leaders/enders method, but it appears that I will need to do this without a pattern in mind as I cannot seem to wait long enough to accomplish the blocks without fast forwarding the process because I cannot wait to see my top done!
Happy TINY quilting
